Worming was mentioned on another thread about Ruby.She is wormed but we did suggest the use of a different wormer
If you have a look at the general section and the post 'how big will Ruby grow' the last piccy(one with a JRT) is the one that shows it best.The lack of weight around the front end and neck is pretty clear in this piccy.

I take your valid point with reference to Bakers, I would be concerned more with what seems the latest thing on forums that is to give the advice of chopping and changing foods, owners then become caught up with a cycle of constantly changing foods searching for the one that is all things to their dog, I supect this could be partly blamed on manufacturers of complete foods making scientific claims for their brands which clearly aren't always quite what they seem IMO I don't belive a best over all food exists or could exist, perhaps the BARF diet comes close, on which incidently, I am no expert, I don't feed it, but logically as its closet to what dogs are designed to eat it must have a chance of being one of the better ones.

Fundimentally dogs are no different from our selves, if we need to gain weight we eat more, if we need to lose weight we exercise and eat less, putting aside the diet industry that thrives on people buying the latest wonder meal or subscribing to psuedo-scientific it basically comes down to calorie intake, why make it more complicated then it really is., we can even see the diet industry moving across in to the pet food industry offering us prescription only, expensive foods when all that is needed is a reduction in calories monitered by your friendly vet.

It IS more complicated than that - even for us: dogs do not gain weight by just being given larger amounts; premium complete dog food is especially formulated for nutritional balance, with recommended amounts for different body weights. If you increase the amount of "complete" food that a dog eats, depending on the food, it might just increase the amount of waste that is produced. In the same way it depends on the nutritional make-up of the food we eat, and how it is metabolised, that dictates whether we gain or lose weight.

Several experienced people I know have successfully put weight on their dogs by enhancing the diet with tripe - if you can bear the smell

I'm maybe missing the point, if a food is nutrionally balanced to such an exact degree then how are different dogs metabolisms taken in to account, there has to be some degree of flexability built in to account for the different metabolisms, hence the ability to adjust the amounts of food to suit the individual needs of the dog.

On the subject of metabolisms how many times do you hear "I eat like a bird, but I still put on weight" the reality is you put on weight because your calory intake is too high for your energy needs, excess calories are turned in to fat. ( I should add of course that there are medical conditons that cause weight gain, I'm not of course referring to those)

By adding tripe you are potentially altering the nutrional value of the "balanced" food, what the outcome of that is I don't know, but if we are to believe the manufacturers "blurb" then we should never add anything to the complete food.

With reference to the recommended amounts for weight, I believe manufacturers are notorious for over-estimating the amount needed, for one simple reason, the more the dog eats, the faster that bag needs replacing, pure commercial reasoning behind that, nothing to to do with the dogs needs, witness the number of overweight dogs we see every day, the manufactures have an interst in our dogs eating more, the vets have an interst in selling us prescription diets made by the same manufacturers, and we the consumer are hit by a double whammy.

Call me a sceptic if you like, but practically everyting we see and hear every day is sceintifically proven to do this or that, whether its the chemicals we put on our hair or the chemically altered foods were and creams were persuaded to buy through aggressive marketing, and I see dog foods and feeding as no different, don't get me wrong complete dog foods have their place, but there not the clinically precise science were led to believe they are.

Just my humble opinion.

Sorry, but I also think she is underweight. Maybe take some tips from the above it may help her put some weight on. I don't like to actually see ribs on any dog, sorry, she is still lovely though.

I share John BURNS opinion on this one: What makes a correct diet?

Is the seeing ribs thing poss an optical illusion? On looking closely, I think it might be her colouring...

Thanks for the link

It makes for interesting reading, John Burns is oviously more competent to talk nutrition then myself but reading through it though I feel there's an awful lot of possibles, coulds, maybe's and a bit of shock thrown in IE the bit about anaphylatic shock. to use a play on words.

He doesn't actually at any time make the statement "proven" or anything like it, just because some one is an "expert" doesn't actually make them right in my book, history is littered with "experts" proven wrong, untill John Burns or any one else manufacturing a commercial dog food can state and back it up with scientific evidence "my food is the best for your dog" then I'll put them all in the same "just another dog food to be tried but don't take the gumph as gospel" box.

I think you have to keep in mind all foods bought are a commercial product, and as such are subjected to the same constraints as any other product, that is they must appeal to the buying public, this is generally achieved by making statements about them and they must over all make a profit for the manufacturer.

As a side issue there is great store made for the use of foods not tested on animals, but playing the devils advocate, can any one say they would be happy feeding their dog a food that hadn't been thoroughly tested?

I suppose I'm the interminable sceptic, if it works for you, brilliant, but I'll treat all the claims with a healthy dose of salt, and probably be a pound or two richer .



Edited to say I've carried on reading John Burns site and he doesn't recommend BARF, no surprise there as BARF is a competitor, Commercialism raises its head yet again.

i think that she need to put on weight too

i feed my dogs bakers (its down in the day at all times) that they only dry food my dogs will eat, they didnt like burns or any of the "good foods"
but a bowl of bakers is down and at the end of the night between 3 of them its gone (my dogs are not greedy) at night they get either chicken, mince, liver, uncooked tripe and kidneys and sometimes hearts!

if i could change bakers then i would, the only other food they will eat is iams and after founding out alot about them there is no way i will buy that stuff

my dogs are healthy they have shinny coats, there teeth are white and bessie and beanie are not hypo and borris is because hes a pup!

if the only food they eat is bakers and they wont eat anything else dry wise then what can u do!

if i do give her more she will leave some, like i said the only meal she will eat and not all of it is her brekky, i do offer her the other 3 meals but she will not eat even 1 bikky from them