Best Dog Pictures

can you feel his ribs when you run your hands on them?
are you feeding 2 cups a day or 2 cups twice a day?

take weight comments with a grain a salt – that dog in the picture looks great. bench labs are stockier than field labs – my field lab is 85lbs but very, very leggy. how much you feed should depend on your pups activity level. the less active, the less food. the more active, more food. if you feel he’s putting on too much weight, cut him back.

if my vet ever gave me any heat or looked to be insulted by my comments, he’d have one less client to deal with

My vet says directions on the bag usually suggest a little too much food. If your dog is active he needs what the bag says, if not he needs less.
You should be able to feel your dogs ribs, but not see them.

English vs American has nothing to do with it. Fat is fat.

Essentially the ribs should not be visible, but you should be able to feel them. The dog should have a “waist” (tuck up) behind the rib area.

Here’s how it was explained to me. Make a fist. Run your finger (of the other hand) over the finger area. You can feel the bones, right? That’s what your dog’s ribs should feel like to you. Now run your fingers over the knuckle. If that’s what the ribs feel like, the dog is too thin. Now run your fingers over the back of the hand. You can probably feel the bones slightly, but not much. If that’s what the dog’s ribs feel like, the dog is too fat.

If a vet is telling you the dog is too fat, you can bet he is. Most vets are *extremely* reluctant to say anything about a dog’s weight, as most owners don’t take this too well.

BTW, most “show” Labs are fat. Sadly, that’s how they’re shown.

We have 4 puppies and feed them IAMS puppy food, and on the back of the box it says how to tell if your dog is over weight or underweight. Your suppost to look down on the dogs back and see if you can see their ribs really well. This means their underweight. If you can’t see their ribs or their stomoch is really round, then they might be overweight. An average weight dog would be somewhere in between there.

@smsalterego – While I’d tend to agree, I’ve encountered vets who run simply on a X vs. Y axis of age and breed. That’s like saying a 5’10 person should weigh as much as a 6’9 person.

I hope the vet did other tests, but I’ve heard the rib test before.

Nothing personal, but your vet knows more about dogs than you ever will. I took a look at the dog in the picture and yes that dog is overweight.

You need to look at this site. http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2099&aid=661

Each dog is evaluated on it’s own merits. The chart shown is what your vet goes by and what has been accepted according to research. Don’t be an arrogant fool to think that your dog or breed of dog is so special that it does not conform to this.

Being overweight for a dog can lead to early hip dysplasia, requiring expensive and painful surgery to correct. It also causes the dog to suffer when it walks.

Labs from what I have seen, are especially susceptible to being overweight because they as a breed tend to gobble food whenever they can get it.

Listen to your vet, they are your dogs best bet for a healthy and happy life.