Trimming down my labrador retreiver

Question
Hello, All three of my dogs are eatting Authority Lite Dry food (its avlaible only through petsmart and is fairly high quaility as it contains no by products). Its the one food I could get the trio to eat everyday without much fuss they they still wont eat it when its sat down so I free feed the food. I belvie it has a maximum of 8.5 or 9 % fat. Anyway I walk all three everymorning rain sleet or shine before work of sometimes after if I couldnt walk tehm that morning. The walk is about a 5/8 minute walk thou we do not walk slow its a 2 block square we walk around or maybe a three block square it loops around our block. I don't give many treats msotly they get Guilt free treats they have a spongey texture and are between 2.5 and ma 4% fat, they also get a rawhide a few times aweek in there crates so the terriers dont fight or a pedigree detal stick/X typed thing which is max 3% fat. I cant quite put my figner on why my labrador retreiver is getting over weight, she should be 70 pounds for her size but she is 80, she is 22 at the shoulder and was a stocky dog to start with not a show style lab. I know its unhealthy for her to be loosing her waistline but don't know how to get the weight off her. I have alot of free time now as its the slow season for my work it picks up again in mid april so until then I basicly have alot of long days and nights to help her with her weight but have no clue how to get it off. I cant run or jog her now which I normaly do a few times a week in the summer becaue right now the sidewalks are covered in snow and ice...even the dogs slip and sldie sometimes during our walks. since you are very experanced in dog trainnig I thought you best to ask I hope you can help me and Haylie(my lab) out I really dont want her to get joint problems because of this or look like a shapless figure at 3 years old. Sorry for making it long but I had to explain everything, Tara.

Answer
Hello again, Tara. I think part of the problem is that you are free-feeding. This does not allow you to control the amount of food that each dog gets, because I'm sure they pick from all the food dishes and do not eat only what they're supposed to. You need to have all the dogs on a feeding schedule. Feed them 1/2 their daily ration in the morning, and the other 1/2 in the evening. Put down their bowls and pick them back up again in 30 minutes. If they haven't eaten, too bad. Dump whatever they've not eaten back into your dog food storage container. They don't get another chance until their next meal. Do not add the amount they didn't eat to the amount of their next meal. Offer them half their ration, just as if they had eaten all of their previous meal. It will not take them long to figure out that if they want to eat, they should eat when you offer their food to them.

Also, I am not a fan of so-called "lite" or "weight management" pet foods. Often, they have very little real nutrition in them, and are full of mostly fillers and fiber. Take the food you're feeding, for example; here is the list of top ten ingredients:
   
Chicken Meal, Brewers Rice, Ground Corn, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken, Dried Cellulose, Brown Rice, Chicken Liver Digest,
Corn Gluten Meal, Canola Oil

There is very little nutritional value to this food, which could explain why your dogs are not that interested in it. I would recommend, if you want to stick to the Authority brand, that you switch to Authority Harvest Baked dog food. You can get the regular adult formula, or the formula for less active dogs. Here is the top ten ingredients for either of the two:

Chicken, Whole Ground Wheat, Whole Ground Barley, Chicken Meal, Carrots, Salmon Meal, Dried Egg Product, Spinach, Tomatoes, Broccoli

Unless your dogs have wheat allergies, this food is the better choice if you want to keep them on Authority dog food.


You said Haylie should be 70 pounds, but is actually 80 pounds. What you will need to do is figure out how much a dog that weighs 70 pounds should be eating, and feed Haylie slightly less than that until she reaches 70 pounds, and then feed what it says to feed a 70 pound dog.

On the back of the bag, there should be a feeding chart. That feeding chart says that dogs between 51 and 90 pounds should be fed 3 to 4 1/2 cups of food per day. That means that a 70 pound dog would probably need around 3 2/3 cups of food per day to maintain that weight. So, to start out, feed Haylie 3 cups of food per day, split between the morning and evening feedings (you can feed 2 cups in the morning and 1 in the evening, 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening, or split it evenly and feed 1 1/2 cup at each feeding).



Have you considered getting some doggie booties so they can get better traction when the sidewalks are slick?