About a week ago I took Ralphie to the vet for his annual heart worm check. Negative...which I knew; it's Florida law to have your dog checked yearly. But what really shocked me is Ralphie weighed in at 75 pounds!!!! This can't be...how is his weight gain happening??!!
I started analyzing Ralphie's lifestyle and diet. Well, he has become more of a couch potato as he's getting older. He definitely doesn't have the puppy energy he once had. Lucy does a pretty good job keeping Ralphie somewhat active with her puppy play. She does get him running at the dog park. Then I researched the dog food that I changed him over to when Lucy came into our family. I changed him over from Zignature to a more cost effective food, 4Health Performance from the Tractor Supply store. I did a lot of researched on the quality of the food before switching him over. Dogfoodadvisor.com rated it 5 stars...so I went with it. I went deeper and checked the nutritional stats...this food has a whopping 20% crude fat. It seems most other kibbles have 12% to 14% crude fat. That 20% crude fat now shows on Ralphie's body with ripples and dimples. So I started all over again, researching different kibbles that both Ralphie and Lucy can eat...a food for all stages of life. I am now converting both dogs over to Canidae, with 14% crude fat.
I like to see Ralphie lose about 8 to 10 pounds...that's a lot of weight for a dog. It'll take time, proper diet, and exercise. I can't believe how ignorant I was just to look at the star rating system of dogfoodadvisor.com and not the fat levels and other stats. Lesson learned.
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