# Weight gain supplement ideas



## roughhouse (Mar 1, 2009)

Ellie is a very thin girl. She weighs 3.8lbs but I really think she needs to weigh a little over 4lbs. Her ribs aren't visible due to her fur but her hip bones protrude and she feels like furry bones when you hold her. She is free fed since she is a light eater. I was adding warmed up bacon grease to her food for a week and she filled in and looked so nice but I didn't want to keep feeding her such a low nutrient supplement and as soon as I stopped she went back down again in a couple of days.

The vet said that she is so high energy yet so small that she can't eat enough of a normal calorie food to keep weight on. I would give her canned food but it gives her the runs so I avoid that. 

I am looking for high calorie supplement ideas that will entice her to eat as well add the calories she needs to put on weight. 

Any suggestions? Ellie would appreciate them.


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## Yoshismom (Jul 6, 2005)

Dont give any kind of grease off of bacon, meat, etc... this can cause Pancreatitis. I know in the show world for larger breeds people feed satin balls not sure how this would do for a toy breed though? I know Bil Jac isnt the best food but two weeks before we show my Great Dane we use Bil Jac frozen and it puts weight on my boy quickly. I will give a little to the Chi's as a treat every so often and they love it. Not sure it is the best idea for trying to put permanent weight on her.

I am sure some others will chime in soon


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## roughhouse (Mar 1, 2009)

I had no idea about the grease being that bad for her. I am glad we stopped that quickly and without incident.


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## Cambrea (Feb 21, 2010)

I am going through this same thing. You can get a gnc suppliment at petsmart that is a calorie booster, or nutrical which is a sugar/calorie booster. I ended up switching to a slightly higher quality food and mine is fattening up. I also feed mine alternating days of virgin coconut oil and fish oil, but I don't know that it helps with weight. I looked at the food recomendations by people on here and that helped out a lot. Hope your skinny Ellie fattens up too


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## roughhouse (Mar 1, 2009)

Cambrea said:


> I am going through this same thing. You can get a gnc suppliment at petsmart that is a calorie booster, or nutrical which is a sugar/calorie booster. I ended up switching to a slightly higher quality food and mine is fattening up. I also feed mine alternating days of virgin coconut oil and fish oil, but I don't know that it helps with weight. I looked at the food recomendations by people on here and that helped out a lot. Hope your skinny Ellie fattens up too


I will look for the supplement at petsmart. Ellie can't stand the taste of nutrical so we aren't going to have much success with that. Switching to a higher quality food is when Ellie got so thin. When we fed Purina she did a little better maintaining weight but since Vice is allergic to corn and wheat we don't have any dog food in the house with those ingredients because he becomes violently ill when he gets any of those things. There has to be something that she likes that is high in calories and good for her that will help chunk her up a bit.


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## flippedstars (Dec 16, 2009)

You can pour a very thick mixture of puppy milk over her food before she eats it. I use and recommend K9 Puppy Gold--you can buy it online, or at petco, it is powdered. Start off adding 1 teaspoon per meal, and 1 teaspoon of hot hot water, mixed, over her food. Work her up to close around 3 teaspoons per meal. Not only will it give her extra energy, it's meant to pack on the ounces! I use it as a coat growth supplement for my crew but always have to be careful that they don't get too much or they pork up. It's also super nutrient dense. She may not like it at first, but they forget all about it after a few meals. For that reason to get her used to it you may have to start at less than 1 teaspoon. But, maybe she'll love it, you never know  You also can mix up a thick batch of it and keep it in your fridge to make adding it over her food easier. Not pastey, but not runny. If she seems to refuse to eat it, use a low sodium chicken broth instead of the water.


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## flippedstars (Dec 16, 2009)

Also, EVO is pretty calorie heavy as far as foods go  Moreso than most others I think. They have a small bites version.

She may do better keeping weight on not being free-fed. If she feels it's time to eat and she has to eat, she will likely eat more. Mine would gorge themselves at meal time if they were allowed


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## lyredragon (Jul 28, 2010)

give her a little raw or chicken every day or an egg every other day. High value food items like that are irresistable, no matter how picky. Dog do prefer meat.

I also do wholeheartedly agree with scheduled feeding. My dogs get two meals and about 10 minutes to eat it. They're on Dogswell nutrisca. It's about 360 calories per cup, tag gets 1/2 c because he is 7.5 and normal, foxxy gets 1/4 cup because she's 7.3 and overweight. If they don't eat in that 10 minutes, they don't get fed at all until the next feeding time.

I think free feeding causes more blood sugar problems than it helps, because a dog's insulin response is not much different than a human's. It anticipates and dumps at certain times, which is why a feeding schedule is important, so that you can regulate that cycle, not to mention the digestive cycle. A bodyprepares to eat, and it needs a schedule for the most benefit from eating. A schedule will actually instruct the body when to dump acid into the stomach, increase salivary production and release hormones. With dogs prone to hypo/hyper glycemia. Even if you have to feed a tablespoon of food every six hours, it's still a schedule that their little bodies will adjust to and anticipate.

Plus it can be a bonding time for you. Feeding time can be training time. They are so small that their entire meal can fit in the palm of your hand. Use the kibbles to train them sometimes, dogs will take reward better than just having it dumped in a bowl, so tehy can be encouraged to eat more when they are working for it.


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## roughhouse (Mar 1, 2009)

I am going to try a feeding schedule and try some of the supplement ideas that you guys suggested. I think I will start with the puppy milk and see how that goes. The only reason we were free feeding her is because she is pretty nervous and would shy away from the food when we did that. Maybe if I got her adjusted to getting a good treat in the crate she would willingly go in there to eat and not feel intimidated by the other dogs around the food. I would love to use her food to train her but unless it is a treat she won't stick around and since she eats so little I try not to give her too many treats and decrease that amount of nutritious food she eats. I am open to any suggestions and will try anything to help my little girl.


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## flippedstars (Dec 16, 2009)

The puppy milk should pack the weight on her pretty quick, and it is sooo healthy for them. Let us know how it goes.


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