overweight husky

Question
QUESTION: I have a 6 year old spayed husky-mix (think she has german shep also)  Her thyroid is normal but is very overweight.  Gets regular exercise in local park,approx 4 times a week for 1 hour or so off leash.  Have reduced her diet to 1 cup of pedigree a day and she still is overweight.  I have a 12 year old doberman who gets 3 cups a day and is in perfect weight.  What are we doing wrong?

ANSWER: I know my friends had to cut their Lab back to 1 cup of food a day to lose weight.  I assume since you had her thyroid checked you have talked to the vet.  Are you feeding a weight loss formula?  

One other factor is other sources of food, family members, well meaning neighbors, etc.

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QUESTION: She gets a couple milk bones a day.  The vet said that if I cut her food down and still no weight loss to go back, but I am afraid I will get stuck buying some expensive food to put her on.  She is almost 100 pounds and does not have the spunk she had 2 years ago because of it.  What dog food do you recommend that is easily purchased (not a special order or just from the vet?)  I even cut her dogfood down to 1/2 cup and added green beans to her diet with no results

Answer
I am skeptical about the claims of special dog chows.  I see too many dogs doing fine on regular ones.  A fairly conservative step would be to check where you are buying the Pedigree and see if they have have a light, weight loss formula, or diet version of it.  If not, you could try a diet version of something else.  Stick to the same protein source, chicken, lamb, beef, etc. if you can.  The fewer types of protein a dog eats when it is young, the easier it is to work around it, if it ever develops a food allergy.  A more radical approach would be to switch to a diet version regular Purina or other high grain content chow.  Ignore any frothing of the mouth from those selling more expensive chows.  Such chows don't actually have ''fillers'' in them, just ingredients that dogs don't digest as efficiently allowing them to eat more with fewer calories.  All the diet formulas are high in vitamins, minerals, protein, etc. but short in calories.  They should give the dog everything it needs except for being short on calories forcing the dog to burn its stored fat.  

I don't know if the green beans help or not.  You do need to look at the salt content.  Canned pumpkin, not spicy pie filling, may be better.