dog on soloxine

Question
My 4yo female lab is 25lbs overweight. Has mild seasonal hair loss in hip region. Her thyroid levels are WNL. My vet has put her on soloxine to increase her thyriod levels to higher end of WNL values. He is doing this to help her loss weight since decreasing food intake has not. Isn't this dangerous fooling with normal thyroid levels?

Answer
Decreasing food intake will never work. You need to get her on R/D from Hills prescription diets. That WILL work if you follow the feeding guidelines and don't feed her any treats except her own food and carrots or green beans.
I have used R/D for over 28 yrs to reduce huge dogs to their normal weights. It works. My OWN dog was on it until she died at 15 and a half and she was as healthy as they get after being an abandoned dog with heartworms.
Try the R/D and see what happens. You should weigh her once a week at the vet's also. That will keep you motivated. Dogs are like people, they lose slowly and that is good.

As long as your vet is monitoring her intake of Soloxine and he is only taking her to the high end, she should be okay. My own TSH is WNL but I am still hypothyroid, so sometimes what is normal for most is not always normal for everyone.

Get her on the R/D and with the Soloxine you will see much better results. YOU have to be dedicated to helping her lose this weight by not feeding her ANY table food, scraps, or treats from the store.

If you get her on this diet, write back to me and I will tell you how to make her treats from the food. Go to hillspet.com and look up R/D and you can see videos of dogs that have lost a lot of weight on this diet.
Good luck to you both and keep me posted.