How to Help a Retired Racing Greyhound Dog Gain Weight

When you adopt a retired racing greyhound, the dog is likely to be underweight. While the people who race greyhounds keep the dogs well fed while they are actively racing, the dogs who have been retired from racing are often not provided the same level of nutrition. As a result, many retired racing greyhound dogs are underweight when they are adopted into their forever homes. Gradual weight gain is the healthiest and safest way for a greyhound to move back to his ideal body weight. Here is how to help a retired racing greyhound dog gain weight.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Dog treats
• Quality dog food

1. Purchase high-quality dog food. When a dog is underweight, he has been deprived of the nutrition he needs to be healthy. While high-quality dog food is more expensive, feeding your dog higher-quality food is an investment in your dog's health. You do not want your dog gaining nothing but fat from unhealthy food: You want your dog to build back muscle and nourish his body with the nutrients it needs.

2. Provide your greyhound with slightly more food than the dog food bag recommends. Each dog food bag provides a table of how much food to feed dogs based upon their weight. Feed your dog about 25 to 33% more food than the bag recommends. For example, if the food bag says to feed your dog 3 cups of food a day, feed him 4 cups instead.

3. Feed your greyhound at least twice a day. Most greyhounds are accustomed to being fed twice a day, and spacing out the feedings helps provide the dog with a regular intake of nutrients.

4. Give your greyhound healthy treats. An underweight greyhound can use the extra calories and will thoroughly enjoy a moderate intake of treats. You can combine giving treats with training the dog, such as giving her a treat each time she enters her crate on command.

5. Monitor your greyhound's progress. A greyhound at a healthy weight should have prominent hipbones and a prominent spine with only three ribs showing. If you can see more than three ribs, then your greyhound is still underweight.

6. Reduce portion size as the greyhound approaches a healthy body weight, staying slightly above the recommended portion size until the dog reaches a healthy weight.

Tips & Warnings

• Some greyhounds have a high metabolism and will need to eat a larger portion than is recommended on the dog food bag.
• Do not over-feed your greyhound. Feeding him too large of a portion at one time will cause him to have diarrhea.
• Being overweight is taxing on a greyhound's body. Err on the side of keeping your greyhound slightly underweight instead of overweight.

[FaithAllen]

on 8/27/2008 Congratulations on your new greyhounds!! I have had mine for almost a year now. I cannot believe I ever lived without him. He is such a great dog.

- Faith

[geri8sb]

on 8/27/2008 Thank you for this advice. I will become the very proud owner of 2 adopted retired racing greyhounds on Friday 29th August (Bert & Lucy). They are 9 years old, and whereas Bert has gained weight well Lucy is a very fussy eater and has still to gain a fair amount of weight because they were badly mistreated and starved when they finished racing, so all advice is very much appreciated for my beautiful new companions.