Agility Fun - Fat boy slims - Jamie goes on a diet

January 26th 2003
Oh dear oh dear. A lazy winter and too much Christmas pudding has led to the pounds creeping on. I
put Jamie on the vet's scales. 32kg or 70 odd pounds. For a dog of his breeding, flat-coated retriever/collie cross, that's far too heavy. But Christmas apart, I'm not feeding him much and I don't give him titbits, so what can be causing it all? Enter the guilty party and confession time for the husband.
   "I just can't eat all that food you give me so I give half of it to Jamie."
Oh what? I can't believe it. And there's me thinking of asking the vet to test for a thyroid problem.
   "Well don't do it," I tell the husband.
   "I've got to. he expects it now."
   "I said, DON'T DO IT. He can't jump any more. He's too fat."
   "Well what about a little bit then?"
   "If you must, then feed him a bit of veg and I'll cut down his food to allow for it."

Here's what Jamie was eating Morning - 1 Bonio Afternoon - 3 Shapes Tea time - 1 small cup of Butchers dried food plus 1 small cup of Pascoes dried food and half a man's dinner and some veg. Mid evening - 4 Shapes Late evening - 3/4 of a small cup of Butchers and Pascoes mixed	Here's what Jamie eats now Morning - 1 Bonio Afternoon - 2 Shapes Tea time - 1 small cup of Wafcol chicken and corn dried food plus just under 1 small cup of James Well Beloved Junior performance dried food. Some veg mixed in. Mid evening - 3 Shapes Late evening - 1/2 a small cup of Wafcol chicken and corn and James Well Beloved Junior performance dried food mixed.
Here's the result - Not such a big boy now

Feeding a dog
The advice given to me before I started training for agility was not to feed a dog for at least two hours before training or competing and preferably more. There is a condition called bloat which can be caused by feeding immediately before strenuous activity. I'm not an expert and more information on bloat can be found by using the links at the bottom of this page.

I once took a six month old cat to the vet because he was so thin. (The cat not the vet) The following exchange took place.
   "Is he eating well?"
   "Yes."
   "Are his bowel movements alright?"
   "Yes."
   "Has he got plenty of energy?"
   "Yes. Loads."
   "Has he been wormed?"
   "Yes."
   "He's a magnificent cat. Just look at him. He's eating well, his coat's gleaming, he's got plenty of energy and he's only six months old. There's nothing wrong with him at all. He's just a gangly teenager."
The message was clear and it's true of all animals. Feeding and exercise will show in the animal's condition and this is the yardstick I use. Like most dog owners I look at Jamie's whoopsies to check all is well. Non dog owners think this is perverted but we all do it as a matter of course. In Jamie's case he wasn't too thin he was too fat and he could no longer get over the jumps without knocking things down. I changed his diet from Pascoes to Wafcol because he was itchy in spite of regular flea treatments. Wafcol has a slightly higher protein content and it is specially formulated for dogs that may have allergies. It's much more expensive than Pascoes but worth the extra investment. I never rely on one food alone for dogs so I mix it with Butchers and add veg. Biscuit is fed separately. One myth that was dispelled in all of this. I thought Jamie wouldn't be so strong on the lead if he lost weight. After shedding around 12lb in weight he's even stronger. He has much more energy and several people have commented on how he's speeded up.

Weighing a big dog
I used the vet's scales on a weekly basis to check that the weight was still coming off. When Jamie had got down to about 28kg I bought him his own scales and set up a weighing station.

Fat versus thin for agility dogs
Most people keep their agility dogs very lean and a bit hungry all the time. They look and feel much thinner than a pet dog or a breed dog used for showing. Scientific studies have shown that a thin dog will live approximately one and a half to two years longer than a fatter dog. (see the link at the bottom of the page) Jamie is still a little bit fatter than the average agility dog. I tried keeping him hungry but it didn't work. We live and go for walks where there are large areas of wasteland covered in scrubby trees and undergrowth. If Jamie's hungry he does what comes naturally and disappears into the wasteland to kill and eat his own food. We're not the only people in the village to have this problem and we've spent many a walk looking out for someone else's dog that's gone hunting. The upshot is that if Jamie goes hunting I have no idea what he's eaten and I no longer have control over his diet. So far I haven't found a solution to the problem except to keep him sufficiently satisfied with food to stop him hunting. He's such an expert hunting dog that he can even snatch a mouse out of a hedge and kill and eat it while he's on the lead. A hungry Jamie is not to be messed with if you're a rabbit or a mouse.

How often to feed
With all the animals I've cared for in the last fifty odd years I've left this very much up to the animal concerned. Our cocker spaniel, Tilly, wanted to eat all day long so I broke her meals down and fed her little and often, rather like a horse. Other dogs have wanted to eat at different times of the day and I've always tailored their meal times to suit them. I have never exercised dogs after feeding, always before. I've always found that dogs don't want to eat immediately after exercise and indeed this is not usually recommended. Jamie doesn't want to eat in the mornings or in the early afternoon and feeding times were worked out by trial and error. A dog and a human come to that, should be hungry for a meal and should eat it all in one go. If a dog leaves a part of it's meal then it's not hungry or the meal was too big. The dog may need smaller meals offered more frequently. One thing I did notice with working dogs was that the more they worked the less they seemed to want to eat. They were all naturally slim as a result and it never did them any harm.

I've illustrated four different dogs here. Two of them, Jamie and Tilly, put on weight easily but the other two never had any problems. Jamie is like Tilly in that he tends to lie around a lot of the time when he's not hunting or walking or doing agility. Hazel and Cider were both very active dogs. They were always on the go, and always wanted games or walks. Even when we ignored them they were up and down the stairs or wanting to see if anything exciting was happening outside. I think this makes a tremendous difference to a dog's weight.

Getting the handler slim
This is a different ball game altogether. I'm working on it but at least it's my own fault if I'm fat.....

This is the link to the study that showed that dogs fed a reduced-calorie diet live nearly two years longer than dogs on unrestricted diet

These links will take you to a couple of articles on bloat. You can return to this page by closing down the new window