Overweight?

do you see a waist? or is he even all the way? I can't tell from the picture.  Is good to see a waist and to be able to feel his ribs, not see protruding, but feel them.

He has a slight waist. Not much of one though LOL I can feel his ribs, but I can tell that there is some fat on top on them. I can feel individual ribs though. That's what confuses me. Should there be fat on top of the ribs? If I just run my hand down his side I can't feel them, but if I "massage" him I can feel every one of his ribs. Should I be able to feel them without applying pressure?

ORIGINAL: LovinMyLife

He has a slight waist. Not much of one though LOL I can feel his ribs, but I can tell that there is some fat on top on them. I can feel individual ribs though. That's what confuses me. Should there be fat on top of the ribs? If I just run my hand down his side I can't feel them, but if I "massage" him I can feel every one of his ribs. Should I be able to feel them without applying pressure?

 
According to my vet (and many others) if it takes "massaging" pressure to feel his ribs...he's overweight.  He also needs a visible waist as viewed from above and the profile.  You're right about a layer of fat under the skin helping to hide his ribs.  My dog Baily is having the same struggle.  We fed him the same food you are...much less than the reccomended amount (about 650 calories for about a year) and it didn't help one bit.  Then we tried a prescription diet food and quit that after two weeks because he didn't do well.  Now he is on a high protein/no grain food.  It's only been a couple weeks since transititioning and although the scale doesn't say he's any lighter I can see a difference begining in his body condition.  You have to find a food that works for him, and losing weight will help his general health in the long run.   I dpn't know much about vitamins although I do know there are joint heath supplements you might want to investigate.  Good Luck!

I have to say he does look a little overweight. Maybe a weight managent food would not be so bad of an idea and maybe reduce him to 2 cups of food twice a day.

145lbs is a little to much for a dog like him, what breed is he, if he's as huge as you say then I can see some mastuf in him which tend to look a little bigger than what most smaller dogs look like.

There should be an obvious "tuck up" where the rib cage meets the abdomen. I don't see that in the picture. You should also be able to feel the ribs with light pressure.
 
He does look a teensy bit heavy, but I don't think it would be hard to get him to loose a few pounds. I have never had any success with a "weight management" formula, but I know others here have. I prefer using a good food, but just give smaller portions. The Eagle Pack Holistic Anchovy, Sardine, and Salmon is an excellant food and seems to help with controlling weight.
 
Your boy is very handsome. He looks alot like one of my rescues (bruiser), but he's not near that big.

Hmm...he does look a tad chubby from his picture. I would change his food. Maybe so many grains/fillers in his kibble are causing some weight gain. I would switch to a higher quality, low fat and lower carb food for him. Do you have Innova available at your store? Innova has a new formula called "Innova Senior Plus." It's low fat, but has a good percent of protein and not too many grains, like Nutro has. They also have a regular senior formula, as well as a reduced formula. But I like the ingredients in senior plus the best. At little more exercise wouldn't hurt him, either. ; ) As far as vitamins go, I'd maybe get him a glucosamine supplement for his joints, especially at his age/weight. Good luck. Personal message me if you need any more help/suggestions!

Thanks for the replies!
Xebby~ he is a Rottweiler/Shepherd mix. But I am not 100% positive about that because I didn't know his parents.
pennymybaby~ I PMd you!

My moms dog was on Nutro Lite and never lost a thing... I go to look at the ingredients after readong on here and its all rice!  I am now feeding her Eagle Pack Holistic Fish.  The serving size is WAY less... and she had lost a few pounds so far.  You may want to look into a food with less grains and feed less than the recommended serving as Atkins seems to work for dogs. 

Ok I am switching him to Canidae, hopefully that will help. Speaking of serving sizes do they always seem a little on the outrageous side to you guys? I was looking at the label on the Nutro and for regular "maintenance" feeding a dog his size, according to them, should eat 8 1/3 - 10 1/4 cups per day! That seems like ALOT of food!

I might be wrong, but I think that if the food has more grains...the more they suggest you feed. If you feed a high quality food with meats in the first four ingredients...you feed less.

For example...on Eukanuba Marley was eating like 5 cups a day...on EP he eats 2.5 or 3 depending on what other stuff I fed him that day.

When Jasmine went in for her yearly checkup, she weighed 58 pounds.  Today, she went in for updates on shots.  (It's off schedule, I know!)  Anyway, she weighed 53.2 pounds today!  I was sooo happy.  She should still probably lose a little bit more yet, but I'm happy that she lost that much.

Hmm... I just went looking a few things up... Minnie was getting about 3 cups of the Nutro Lite for weight reduction according to the bag and at 244kcal/cup and 6% fat...that was 732 kcals per day for her.
 
The first 4 ingredients of that food are:  Rice Flour, Lamb Meal, Ground Rice, Rice Bran...  I find it interesting that a dog could live on this.
 
EP Fish has 356 kcals per cup and 12% fat and the recommended feeding for her weight is 1-1 1/3 cups per day which is 356-476 kcals per day... BUT I have been giving her only 2/3 cup a day because I wanted to feed less than recommended so she would lose weight... well thats only 238 kcals a day!  Is this too little?  She seems fine... just shocking that the LITE formula was all rice and had her on 732 kcals a day and this is technically double the fat yet FAR less kcals. 
 
The first four ingredients for the EP are:  Anchovy, Sardine & Salmon meal, Oatmeal, Ground Brown Rice.
 
Just want to note her energy levels are waaay up, fur looks 100% different... Im just sort of shocked about it all I guess....  Going from a LITE food to a regualr food with MORE fat has far less kcals even if I just follow the bag!  Hmm.
 

He looks to me like he could stand to lose a little, but he doesn't look to be what people would call an obese dog. Carolyn, I had the same question about the amounts suggested on the dog food bags.  My vet agreed that the recommendations are way too high.  Max eats 1-1/2 cups a day and the bag recommends about 5 cups.  He'd neve eat that in a million years. [] It made me wonder of the dog food companies hope we'll follow the recommendations and just toss the food at the end of the day, thus ensuring that we'll run out sooner and have to go buy more.

Joyce

All those carbs are not doing much for the energy level. Fat provides a bit more than twice the energy than carbs or protein do, so it's only logical that a food with a bit more fat would give the dog more energy. This is critical in weight loss dogs for optimum results. If you are feeding a VERY carb heavy food and very low fat, the energy level will be reduced and since dogs utilize carbohydrate energy (kcals) for quick energy, most of the excess carb kcals are going to be stored as fat.