but i think with crossbreeds, it depends if you are seeing them or feeling them. obviously the owners can feel them, but for people judging them when out, it isnt so easy. with a pedigree, you can know what build that dog should be and can tell much more easily just from looking at them if their weight is ok (obviously feeling is better, but with random dogs in the street it isnt really ok to go about feeling peoples dogs ). whereas, with a crossbreed it is difficult to know what their build should be, unless you feel them. i had a BCxLab who had the colour and markings of a BC (also the head shape), but was the size and build of a Lab... people always just looked at him and assumed he was a fat BC, when infact you could feel his ribs. it annoyed me so much, and actually really upset me, coz we were constantly told he was fat and needed exercised more! and this was from random people, and the vet said his weight was fine. he also got plenty exercise, and the people were just downright nasty.

it is obviously different for the owners of those dogs, and i have a crossbreed and i think i am managing his weight well. i obviously cannot have a guide to how much he should weigh, so i rely totally on how he looks and feels. i love jakes weight, and he is so nice and lean the owners should keep the dogs at a good weight, but people in the street may just assume a crossbreed is overweight when they actually arent.

Good post.

I have to disagree on knowing the build of purebreds. Too many people have a fixed idea of what a breed should look like, and not all members of a breed have the bone structure others do, and need to weigh less. Some more slightly built dogs need to weigh less. Feeding a spindly example more just makes for a fat, spindly dog.

I have never had much problem maintaining ideal body condition with dogs that I fed Purina, Purina 1, Pro Plan, Iams, and Eukanuba. It includes Shepherds, Goldens, and ones that started overweight or underweight. It is quite rare for a healthy dog not to eat enough to at least keep itself no worse than slightly too lean.

Yep, I'd agree with that.

Jakes always looks gorgeous, you do a great job with him Lozz ;o)

I would never feed any of those foods. All of them actively test on animals, or are owned by organisations that do. The thought of feeding my pet something that is tested on his kind is far too upsetting to think about!

You prefer your dog takes the role of the Laboratory animal?

You may be happy filling your dogs with rubbish, but alot of us arent. There is better food out there, thats not tested on animals ... with higher meat contents, instead of all the rubbish that goes into the mentioned foods.

As those of you who know me well know that when we adopted our terrier, patches, he was grossly, hugely overweight. He couldn't run or bounce properly and he had these huge saddle bags of fat that would wobble disgustingly as he walked. He was severely fat because he used to be left for days at a time his owner would just leave piles and piles of food for him. When she was there she would shower him with treats to spoil him.
When we first took him in, his poo was the size of my wolfhounds. Pretty shocking. I was REALLY paranoid that people would judge and blame me for his condition and i nearly came to blows with one "helpful" stranger.
Slowly with a better, smaller diet and lots of exercise he is a slim jim now and with a completely new and happy life for it. His other naughty habits like begging for food have taken a long time to grow out of but he is getting there.
The sad thing is that i know, given half a chance though, he would still stuff himself to death.

I think that's like people though, once you've been large, it's easy to fall back into those patterns of eating, even after a sucessful diet, hence why its often a yo-yo effect. I know cos I've been there
The difference with dogs is, you are in control of how much/what he eats You've given him a longer and healthier life, thats great! I can imagine it'd be hard thinking people are judging you.

What my dogs are fed on some may say is crap but it suits them and was done by trail and error, they were at one point fed on Greyhound food, but they got really skinny, they were then fed on royal canin, they filled out but Diesel started eating poo which wasn't very nice, we tried some other things on them, and they are now maintaining a good weight, got a shiny coat, not eating poop, and it is the burgess range, sometimes with some Greyhound food in it, some may think they could eat better, but if it aint broke why fix it? They also get table scraps everynow and then too. I found the burgess range while looking for a new one too try, the cassorole goes down really well with taste too, but then all of them do.

We see a man in a mobility scooter regularly on our walks and stop to chat to him. He has a 9 year old CKCS with a heart problem and it is very chubby to put it kindly!

I didn't mention it to him though as it is obvious he thinks the world of his dog. One time when I was on the park with him talking Parker found a large victoria sponge cake someone had thrown away and was frantically wolfing it down as fast as he could before I got hold of him! The CKCS owner said smugly "My dog doesn't scavenge" so I replied cheekily "That's because he doesn't need to-he is fat!"