Weighty Matters

This nose is amazing at locating dropped food. Or food in my hand!

When Cody came to me his paperwork said he was 21 lbs. That is quite a hefty bulk for a guy his size to carry, and very little of that extra weight came from muscle. Cody moved around a bit in his temp foster mom's backyard but otherwise he didn't get much exercise. One aspect of getting Cody ready for his forever home is slimming him down to a healthy weight so we can figure out what amount of food he should receive each day.

Chubby Cody partway through his weight loss journey.

Yesterday we headed to Petsmart to get a weight on Cody. The second week I had him I weighed him and he had dropped to 18.8 lbs. A great loss but faster than I wanted to see. The first week I had Cody he didn't eat anything I offered him.Once he become more comfortable with this new environment and he he started to trust me he finally ate his first meal of Honest Kitchen. Since then Cody hasn't missed a meal!

He's gets regular walks, we play at night, and we have tried several foods with him. We did have some trial and error regarding his reflux and this contributed to his weight loss. If I fed him a higher volume of food it increased the likelihood the reflux would occur, so I kept to the normal portion with the understanding that some of it likely would be lost through reflux. I believe we have the reflux under control now for the most part, so it was time to weigh Cody and see whether I needed to increase his food.

So from a high of 21 lbs, down to 18.8 lbs last time, Cody is currently at....

Down another 4.2 lbs! Once again this is a fast loss and caused in large part by trying to work through his reflux. From here on out we are shooting for a more gradual weight loss of only 1-1.5 lbs of fat over several weeks. 

Cody's face when I told him how much he had lost.

Of course numbers are great, but what everyone wants to see are the before and after pictures!

Third night he was with me.

Part-way through.

Current

What a change! When judging a canine body, I want to see a definite tuck right behind the ribs. It is mostly absent when he first came to me, but now he has a great dip between ribs and hips. Rat terriers have "junk in the trunk" and carry their body fat primarily over their hips and a little over their shoulders. While there should be a slight fat padding in these areas the rib bones should have minimal fat over them. Seeing ribs on a rat terrier is a positive thing, not a sign of being underfed! The ideal rattie has visible ribs but the hip bones should not jut out and instead form a smooth curve over the hips.

One of the first nights he was here.

Another shot from the same night.

Current

In addition to having the tuck-in behind the ribs and in front of the hip bones, dogs should have a visible up-tuck behind their ribs and in front of their legs on the underside of their body. When Cody first arrived his underside formed a fairly straight line between his ribs and the back of his body. Now he has a tight tuck-up and looks far more trim.

Cody needs to lose only a bit more body fat. He still has a moderate covering over his ribs and a deeper covering over his hips and shoulders. The focus though has shifted from fat loss to muscle gain. Cody has the ability to put on more muscle, but his life before arriving was sedate and so he didn't get much chance to do work that would encourage muscle growth.