With how much people love their dogs, it’s easy to want to spoil them as much as possible. However, if part of this attention involves giving your dog more food than is necessary or unhealthy treats, you might quickly find that your dog can become overweight.
Just like with humans, an overweight dog can experience a lot of health issues that otherwise likely could have been avoided. So if your dog has a few more pounds on him than is ideal for his breed and body type, here are three tips for helping your dog get to a healthy weight.
Introduce New Food Gradually
If you and your dog have gotten into a bad habit of indulging in foods that aren’t good for him, it might be time to switch to a new, healthier food to eat on a regular basis. However, just like with humans, switching up your dog’s diet drastically can be hard on their body.
Knowing this, you’ll want to start to introduce this new food to your dog on a gradual basis. Ideally, you should try to swap out about a quarter of their old food with the new healthy food. Then, after a few days, you can increase the amount to half. And after about a week, you can do three-quarters of the food as the healthier food before having all of their food be the new food that will help them to lose weight and get healthier.
Give Healthier Treats
Although you might be trying to feed your dog healthier foods and cut back on some of the unhealthy snacks or treats that you’ve been giving in the past, you can still spoil your dog by giving a few treats on occasion. However, you’ll want to lean into healthier treats rather than the treats you may have been giving.
Some of the best healthy treats you can give your dog while trying to help him lose weight are carrots, apples, and even green beans. Most dogs will love this change of pace from the food that you’ll be feeding them on a regular basis.
Find Ways To Get More Physical Activity
In addition to the changes to your dog’s diet, you should also try to increase his physical activity as you attempt to help him lose weight.
Luckily, getting more physical activity for a dog is usually something that they’ll love. If you can, try to give your dog about 15 minutes of strenuous activity at least twice a day. By playing rough together, going to a dog park, playing fetch, or just running around together, you can easily get your dog this small amount of activity.
If you’re wanting to help your dog get back to a healthier weight, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you make some healthy changes to your dog’s diet and exercise regimens.