Is your corgi fat?

[Jane Austen]

Just to get a few people started since this is getting very quiet:
We have talked a lot about corgis being in danger of having health problems. A heavy animal is an unhealthy animal. The most obvious, I think is for having arthritis, joint and back problems.
Duchess is a few pounds more than she should be. So who am I to be bring this subject up? Maybe because I am aware of it. And seeing it is summer in the U.S. there is no excuse not to get out and walk the dogs. Or have some one else walk them. I walk Duchess everyday but I am slow, and she does not play fetch. I like to go with some other dogs so she chases them a little or gets interested in what they are looking at or hunting.
We go walking both morning and evening to escape the heat of the midday. There are many good places for me to bring her but would prefer her to be off leash.
Please feel free to comment. I need some reading material! Jane

[Clogs]

Well...I must confess that Rosie could do with losing a few k's and so could I for that matter.
I have been feeding her puppy food, which is a mistake in retrospect, but a friend's wife works at a pet-food supplier and can get us torn bags that can't be on-sold for a very reasonable price. Last time, she got puppy food and I didn't notice until well after the bag was opened and started. Rosie has put on some weight and she was fairly good before, so I'm putting it down to the extra calories etc in the puppy food. Plus we haven't been walking much lately as "other things" have been gobbling up time.
I have stopped giving her the puppy food in the meantime and passed that on to our god-daughter who has a young rottie.

But Clogs and I really need to do some more walking!!!

[glencorgi]

None of "my" dogs are fat/overweight. IF anything, I'm accused of having them too thin. I have a couple of rescues I'm working on dropping their weight and my oldest nephew's Cardi girl is with me now (he's just joined the Army) and I'm working on slimming her down. Berry & Munchee I'm working on upping their weight.

Besides the increased exercise, feed less. In the case of feeding the puppy food to an adult, don't feed the usual amount, cut it back 1/4 cup or so. A lot of weight issues can be dealt with by simpley measuring food.

Debbie

[Jane Austen]

When I got Duchess from her breeder I was told 23 pounds is the perfect weight for her. I really thought she was a little too light. I want to get her back to 25 from her present 27.
I know what you mean by measuring the food. But god, I give her so little kibble and a spoonful of wet canned food that it looks like I would be starving her. She also gets a spoonful of pumpkin and one of yogurt generally too.
It is the treats that do us in. I have gone into tiny treats. But when she is real good I give her a bigger treat. I haven't gotten into raw veggies like I should.

[Michael Romanos]

Yes Jane, raw veggies are not fattening and are a great supplement. Taylor though likes his carrots cooked (boiled for three minutes).

There is no doubt a lot of difference between dogs off-leash and dogs on leash for exercising purposes. Off leash they tend to run and stop and then catch up at speed etc which is much more beneficial than a continuous walking pace. Today when there were 14 Corgis from the WWCWC running around the lawns at the TV studios for 30 minutes, chasing each other or chasing after a person etc, was a good example of Corgis getting a little quality exercise and having fun. Can't get enough of it. And I am please to say that of the four overweight Corgis present, two of the three I know about have considerably fined down. Of the one that has not and the one that probably has not, both suffer from arthritis. Number One treatment for them is weight reduction as quickly as possible.

[nrhareiner]

Nop not fat at all. She can get to the food when ever she wants as do all the dogs but having a all the room and horses and other dogs with 2 acres fenced just for the dogs she runs all day with the other dogs. She even takes a swim now and them. She is all muscle and not a once of fat.

Heidi

[gemjunkie]

I had someone say my corgi was the skinniest corgi they had ever seen in their life. All the other corgis they have seen were fat and waddled when they walk...

Poor dogs..

The ONLY fat corgi I ever saw was a big boy in the pound before rescue got a hold of him, he weighed almost 50 whole lbs! He could barely walk, it was SO sad. No wonder his owner died of a heart attack if they were in the same shape as the dog (yes it was written on the paperwork hanging on his kennel and it made me cry).

I could NOT imagine NOT having measures in place JUST in case something happened to me, to provide for my pets, they are my kids too...

[damronrx]

I have a 2yo tri female. Alli weighs 23 pounds and measure 95/8 inch at the shoulder. Our agility trainer says she is too fat and to take 3 lbs off. So I have succeeded in one pound by not letting her finish my Dalmatians food.But I am proud of her. We have been competing a little less than a year and she has her open titles in standard and JWW taking first place nearly everytime she qualified. Alli never knocks bars. She is the joy of my life and I hate feeding her that paltry amount of food! Damronrx

[Michael Romanos]

My Pem Taylor is 26 pounds and he is slightly bigger than medium size and that is a good agility competition weight for him though if he was at 23 pounds, he would be even faster. But it is my coimpromise because he should be at around 28-29 pounds. So the slimmer the faster without them losing any strength and endurance abilities.

[dmchand2]

But I try to keep Brady's weight down by walking every day....We do 3-4 miles/day in the woods. He's a great hiker too! Being a herder, he spends most of the time running back and forth from the front of the group to the back....and I have a lab/golden mix too who loves to track smells and bound through the woods and Brady loves to try to imitate him. He's about 31 lbs. and could still stand to lose a few....

[dogbiscuit]

My Biscuit was 32 pounds for the last few years.
I started morning walks with him after we moved to the beach last year and built up until we walk pretty far up the coast now,but he still didn't lose much weight..I don't know why because I lost a few pounds myself (-:
I switched him over to a new food,a dehydrated natural food called Honest Kitchen...he LOVES it and he has lost 5 pounds in the past few months!YAY!

[Michael Romanos]

With the normal dog as per the normal person, weight reduction is a combination of two elements - increased quality exercise and decreased food intake/less fatty food. So you can walk and have dogs run around off-leash for ages but are you looking at the food aspects at the same time.
Weight will come down and fairly quickly too when both sides of the equation are addressed.

[SparklingSparky]

my boy is 29lbs, i find when i feed him a bit more, he will gain weight immediately eventhough he is give far less then what his weight should be given.

I think he can only slighty lose weight if i give him lot exercise.