Hi y'all:

I have a 16 month male that we adopted 3 months ago. Since getting him, we've had a hard time keeping weight on. Currently, he's on 5-6 cups/day of Eagle Pack Holistic LB. The vet hasn't found anything obvious and we're about to go to the next level of blood work, etc to test for rare problems. I'm partially convinced that he just burns it all up, because he is amazingly active. When he's not playing fetch, he "vibrates"! We run him about 2 miles a day plus another couple miles in the backyard chasing the ball. 

Based on digging through old posts, it was suggested that a 30/20 food might help. After looking at the major brands, this two seem to stick out the most.

Eagle Pack Power Formula

Sold Gold - Barking at the Moon

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations? I'm open to recommendations on these or other food.

Thanks,

Bradley

Both are reputedly good feeds, but you could save yourself a heck of a lot of money by feeding something like Diamond or Premium edge top  formulas or even pro plan.

It's hard to keep enough weight on an active GSP to keep the average vet from thinking they are under weight.  Most vets have very little or no concept of what a dog in fit field condition looks like unless they are dedicated birddog people themselves.

Most of the dogs I get in for training are five to fifteen lbs over weight and their owner's and vets think they are just right or a little under weight.

Our dogs are endurance performance athlete, did you ever see a fat hockey player or marathoner? CR

GSPs are famous in mushing circles for having mini nuclear reactor metabolisms, and sometimes it seems like any extra calories you give them immediately gets converted into faster/more circles out in the yard instead of covering their ribs.

I've fed Nutra Nuggets (made by Diamond) both high energy and puppy before I switched to Eagle power. The Nutra Nuggets definately did the job for a reasonable price. The Eagle is considerably more expensive, but I've been unexpectedly impressed with how my hounds are doing on it... coats are better than ever and keeping weight on this summer hasn't been nearly as hard as in years gone by.

Whatever you decide to get, if keeping weight on is the issue make sure you're not buying anything less than 30% pro/ 20% fat in your average 10% moisture kibble. I don't care what magical ingredients a lesser percentage food claims to have, you've just got to get the fat and protien content up there to keep weight and a decent coat on some of these guys.

Pro Plan Performance

PS. I second Wildrose's advice about the weight. You can see Rogan's ribs here, but not too much... I'd call this just about right:

Some folks make the mistake of trying to feed GSPs until their pin bones dissapear.... Nooooooo!

On Whiskey, I can see all ribs, spine,  and his rear pointy hipbones.  Hopefully the 30/20 will do the trick.

Thanks for the tips on Nutro and ProPlan performance. Both have GSPs on their marketing materials. Funny!

Thanks!

I've heard a handful of mushers report some paletability issues w/ EVO, which is a real bummer since the ingredients are top notch.

If I was going to recommend a suppliment it would be Impact since it's easy to handle and packs a whollop without upsetting a dog's digestive system.

We use TLC Whole Life Dog Food, as recommended by our breeder. Here is the ingredient list for the kibble: tlcpetfood.com/pet_food/dogfood/ingredients.asp.

We also give our boy the health biscuits which have glucosamine and chrondoitin for the joints tlcpetfood.com/pet_food/dogbiscuits/ingredients.asp. (Can't start looking after those joints too early, I figure!)

Most importantly, he loves it.