The American Beagler Forum

I have an 20mo old pup out of Hisksters Grave Digger
I have had him for a little while now and he has always been really skinny!
I have been running him pretty hard so I started to feed him a little more food.
This just does not seem to be working!
There does not seem to be a worm problem(keep checking stool)
I am feeding him Purina Dog Chow.
Any suggestions?

we all go through this. try 2 tbl spoons of flaxseed oil you can get it from walmart. or 3 tbl spoons of lard. put either in ther food and see if it makes a difference. i do this during hunting season and works for me

I got a free bag of Dog Chow after a trial this past year and I noticed that my dogs all seem to slim down and get ribby looking during the course of this bag of food. It might not be everybodys experience but I dont think I would ever feed it again. You might try feeding something different and see what happens.

Gabe Miskimen

first mistake is the food your feeding. low grade dogfood. switch to a better feed and see the difference. i fed dogchow for a while one time and all the dogs looked poor.

ebag33 wrote:I got a free bag of Dog Chow after a trial this past year and I noticed that my dogs all seem to slim down and get ribby looking during the course of this bag of food. It might not be everybodys experience but I dont think I would ever feed it again. You might try feeding something different and see what happens.

Gabe Miskimen

Dog chow used to be pretty good till last year and they changed something, and same thing happened with us, plus their hair and everything started looking bad switched to Exceed Chicken and Rice, now they are all plump and sassy with a nice sheen to their coats. The dog food costs more, but also takes less to keep them in good shape and they look good. A little plump but they look nice and healthy.

Try a meat or chicken based food,should be the very first ingredient on the bag and at least an 18% fat.If you are working your hounds often then it is absolutly nessesary to feed a high premium dog food or you will have poor looking hounds.I feed and recommend the pride dog food but there are plenty of others out there and in the long run your dog will show the difference in performance .

While running either my cat/bear hounds or beagles hard and noticing one is loosing weight and can't seem to get it back on I feed em a beaver carcass (gutted of course) will take them a couple days to finish one if in cold freezing temps. You will see the weight differences with in a few days.

TC wrote:

ebag33 wrote:I got a free bag of Dog Chow after a trial this past year and I noticed that my dogs all seem to slim down and get ribby looking during the course of this bag of food. It might not be everybodys experience but I dont think I would ever feed it again. You might try feeding something different and see what happens.

Gabe Miskimen

Dog chow used to be pretty good till last year and they changed something, and same thing happened with us, plus their hair and everything started looking bad switched to Exceed Chicken and Rice, now they are all plump and sassy with a nice sheen to their coats. The dog food costs more, but also takes less to keep them in good shape and they look good. A little plump but they look nice and healthy.

I noticed the same thing, especially the coats were not as shiny looking. I switched to Exceed Lamb and Rice and like the percent of protein and fat. It is much better than the Purina Dog Chow and the dogs are keeping weight on. I haven't tried the Chicken and Rice yet but I figure they are pretty much the same quality.

While running either my cat/bear hounds or beagles hard and noticing one is loosing weight and can't seem to get it back on I feed em a beaver carcass (gutted of course) will take them a couple days to finish one if in cold freezing temps. You will see the weight differences with in a few days.

Spoken like a true redneck from northern Minnesota

Purina dog chow is great, if you have a lap dog that never gets off the couch. Working dogs can't live on it. I hate all that food coloring they put in it. Looks the same after the dogs eat it as it did before

You don't have to feed expensive dog food. In fact, some of the high priced stuff isn't as good as some of the cheaper dog food. I think protien is given too much credit when people talk about dog food. Fat is what you need. At least 18%.

I keep a pile of meat scraps in the yard all winter. You can run them hard and they still gain weight on meat. But then, I might be one of those northern rednecks

Another thing you can Use to put weight on em Pretty fast is PEANUT BUTTER the cheaper the oiler the better...
Just add it to the Dogs Food..Couple tablespoons twice a day will do it....

When our dogs are running hard we feed nothing but Eukanuba Pro Perfomance 20/30. I have a lot of friends that have anything from upland to waterfowl dogs and we all feed this during the season. It DEFINITELY shows in the dogs weight and recovery times. I talked to Branko last week about some dogs and he said he noticed a much better recovery time with his packs when feeding the same food.

if you are in a cold weather climate make the sure to put plenty of warm water in his feed, he may be dehydrated.

RAW MEAT AND BEEF FAT SCRAPS! NUF SAID!!!

RiverBottom wrote:

While running either my cat/bear hounds or beagles hard and noticing one is loosing weight and can't seem to get it back on I feed em a beaver carcass (gutted of course) will take them a couple days to finish one if in cold freezing temps. You will see the weight differences with in a few days.

Spoken like a true redneck from northern Minnesota

Purina dog chow is great, if you have a lap dog that never gets off the couch. Working dogs can't live on it. I hate all that food coloring they put in it. Looks the same after the dogs eat it as it did before

You don't have to feed expensive dog food. In fact, some of the high priced stuff isn't as good as some of the cheaper dog food. I think protien is given too much credit when people talk about dog food. Fat is what you need. At least 18%.

I keep a pile of meat scraps in the yard all winter. You can run them hard and they still gain weight on meat. But then, I might be one of those northern rednecks

And I'll take that as a complement from one redneck to another .

I posted this question a few weeks ago because of a female I had that seemed to be thin. I used peanut butter and she put weight on real fast. First I would switch to a better feed if I were you. Then look at the stool, Is it soft and mushy or is it firm. If the stools are runny you may have a geardia or coccidia problem. Also you may not always see the worms in their stool. If the stools are firm and they have been wormed then switch to a good feed and put a table spoon or two of PB in there food for a few weeks....Hope this helps....DH If the stools are runny I would try some generic albon for ten days in the water which you can get cheap followed by 5 days of safegaurd which you also can get cheap. This would take care of Geardia/coccidia and any worms they may have.