Im asking on here as a long shot really as my mother in law seems to be hitting a brick wall, she has a Hamilton and basicaly he is double what his ideal weight should be, he is on a special diet from the vets RD hills (i think thats right)  and she is very strict with it, he goes on walks everyday and i dont just mean short walks.
At the last vet meeting he had put on weight on, the vets have done endless tests and his thyroid is good, the vet has now got quite off with her and is saying she is not walking him enough( i realy cant see this being the case, but you never know). A friend of hers has studied animal science and has said it may be a wheat allergy, i dont know if anyone has experiance of this??.
She is at her wits end so as i said i thought id ask on here, he also has problems with his prostate and the vets want him to be castrated, but she obviously doent want to do this untill they can sort the weight problem out.
thanks in advance XXXX

forgot to add he is nearly 2

Are you absolutely sure she's just not feeding him too much? My brother has a collie that regularly comes to mine for boot camp to lose weight. She gets walked lots but brother is always saying things like 'she hardly gets any food' and 'we feel bad because she just gets a handful of complete'. At mine her food gets halved every week until she does start to lose weight

> he is on a special diet from the vets RD hills (i think thats right)  and she is very strict with it

Is she honestly strict with the diet? Far too many people think the odd morsel of something tastey 'wont hurt' or don't even notice they are doing it. Also, is there anybody else living in the house that could be slipping him little extras, or could he be stealing cat food for example?

My last dog put on a bit of weight after being castrated, I started to cut his meals down in quantity to try to shift it, but it didn't work, it was only when I really took stock of all the little extras he had during the day (a left over crust, a biscuit when I had one, a crisp if I had one, and then the bits he had from the rest of the family), I realised why his 'diet' wasn't working. I then upped his meals to the size they were before, cut out ALL extras (was hard getting the whole family to stick to this) and his extra weight came off.

Diet, if STRICTY controlled will work, even for a dog that has very little excersie. It's the same as with people, it's about calories in verses calories out, you need to make a deficit of calories consumed so the body can use the fat stores.

I do wonder the same, she keeps saying he crys all the time because he's hungry and she is adamant that he is getting exactly what the diet nurse at the vets is recomending, although i only know what she says, i do know that she would be very strict but i am wondering if her oh is caving in on the sly as he is a bit of a softy but again he is saying he isnt.

> Are you absolutely sure she's just not feeding him too much?

Good point!! I was thinking along the lines of how easy it is to feed extras without realising, it is also so very easy to feed too much food withtout realising. This is why Busters food is measured out at every single meal, it's too easy to over-estimate what they should be having (he has ED so can't afford to be carrying any extra weight).

Thanks matifflover,

as i said i am wondering if her oh is feeding titbits on ths sly, do you know if a wheat allergy would cause weight gain??

> i am wondering if her oh is caving in on the sly as he is a bit of a softy but again he is saying he isnt.

My OH gives the impression he is a 'macho' man and isn't swayed by the pets cute faces, but one look from the dogs begging, 'puppy' eyes and he'll part with half of his meal!!!! It's harder getting my husband to be strict with treats for the dog than it is the kids!!

ETA, sorry, no idea on the wheat allergy thing.

If your mum has a hydrotherapy pool near her I found that excellent for getting weight off dogs.

> she keeps saying he crys all the time because he's hungry

Just an idea, she could try feeding him his food in a kong (or similar) as it will take longer for him to eat and keep him occupied for longer, it may help stop him begging/crying so much?
If they are giving in to his begging, it could also be worth giving him a little piece of carrot instead of whatever he's begging for, that way, they don't have to feel guilty for 'depriving' him and he'll soon get fed up of begging for boring carrot (unless he enjoys carrot, but it wont do his diet any harm).

> Thanks matifflover,
>
> as i said i am wondering if her oh is feeding titbits on ths sly, do you know if a wheat allergy would cause weight gain??

According to this it doesn't cause weight gain in dogs, more skin problems, itching etc I know it can cause fluid
retention in humans but not in dogs it would seem

Thankyou, i couldnt find anything that suggested weight gain.

What thyroid tests has he done?  Some vets only do the one but they need both to be done to be sure thyroids aren't the problem.

to be honest im not sure, i do know that his usual vets referred him to new market for more tests as that is meant to be very good, over a thousand pound plus later they were sent home with the conclusion from them that he was just overweight.

One of my boys had a weight problem due to his medication, we used the tinned purina diet food as it is alot lower in salt than most. (would effect tablet efficiency if too high) It was really good and he lost weight not condition. I also found it useful to leave a plate of chopped carrot in the kitchen for when dad couldnt say no. Exercise wise we had to find things that were different from just increasing the length of his normal walks, he did alot of work on the beach as well as building up to running as well. Once the weight started going down he made rapid improvement, but its that initial metabolism boost thats the problem.

Good Luck

I would find out more what sort of thyroid test was done, most likely just the basic one! Most vets don't actually know how to correctly diagnose hypo-thryoidism, particularly autoimmune thyroiditis which involves antibodies that falsify T4 result readings! So if I was your mum, I'd get in touch with Jean Dodds, who is a thyroid specialist in the US and will help. She has written many articles about thyroid problems too which you could read up on. Until a comprehensive thyroid test is done and a proper interpretation of the results has been done (best done by Jean Dodds), I wouldn't be satisfied that there is nothing wrong with the thyroid!

Vera

thankyou,

do you have any contact details that i could pass on to my MIL .

thanks again everyone lisa

I haven't got them on me, but just google for "Jean Dodds thyroid" and you will find her contact details.