So as many of you know Barley went through two surgeries on his intestines.  Since that time we have been feeding Barley Low Residue and re introducing his Fromms Chicken a la veg. We had to start using pro biotics because of some stool issues but things are going well now with the stool.

Barley is about to be 100% on the Fromms (after a 2month re intro process!) but I am worried because he is not putting on weight...  I have been looking at Orijen for quite some time and I was thinking of switching him over to the 6 fish version. In your guys opinion will this help me attain more weight on my boy? I know these guys are supposed to be skinny but he is not where he should be at! The top of his hip bones and all ribs still show ( gotten bettter since the surgeries)....

Any advice would rock!  Thanks guys!

Chris

Tried to get this stickied, but apparently not enough interest...

Click here for my post on keeping weight on these critters, hopefully it helps. The stuff Jessica was talking about is Champaine Race Diet... I've got more in the freezer from last year, fortunately they don't care about freezer burn. GREAT stuff.

Oh and Chris if you decide to go with the Champaine Race Diet do introduce in small proportions with more dog food especially since he had surgery on his intestine. Because it will give the dog diarrhea if given in big proportions right away. I still recommend that strongly even though your dog isn't a race dog neither are ours but man did it put weight on ours fast. 

Meg C how much does that stuff cost?

Last time I bought it, I think it was <$.40/lb in #50 blocks that I have to saw up to fit in my fridgelet. Even if it's doubled in price since then I'd say it's worth it.

I wonder what the cost is for people who need to get it shipped!

Wisconsin... Looked like it was only distributed in Washington, Alaska and another West coast state.....

Do you think if I try the Orjen for now it would be a good upgrade from the fromms???? Seemed like a huge jump in Protein and fat.....

Wisconson? Finding good food there has to be like shooting fish in a barrel- you're in mushing country! I would look for someone local to get a bead on sources of meat and/or high zoot feed that won't break the bank:

http://www.sleddogcentral.com/beginners/mentor_list_usa_wi.htm
http://www.sleddogcentral.com/clubs_usa.htm#Wisconsin

I'd also try seeing if this guy has a mix available if he's anywhere nearby:
http://www.sleddogcentral.com/classifieds/foodforsale.asp#Roberts

And finally, if *I* was out in your neck of the woods, I'd sure as heck be trying Redpaw. Some of the top teams in North America are using this stuff.
http://www.redpawfeed.com/

I don't know if it's that cut and dried, but dogs certainly seem to metabolize fat differently than we do and adding meat sure kicks up the energy level and visible health of a dog. I would expect some very easy keepers (like certain labs) would put weight on if you gave them extra corn flakes... or even cardboard, lol. Really hard keepers like Anya would just blow them out and be worse for the experiment.

I'm always amazed at how wide a spread one can get in feeding requirements in the same species. I'll never forget watching a gal with Inuit dogs clucking over how fat they were getting mid-season out at a trail head... they were at least 70 pound dogs and she was feeding them out of a bowl maybe 4" across and 3" deep. Heck, I've seen bowls that big used for cats! And she only had maybe an inch of kibble across the bottom. !!!

Dulcie maybe clears 30 pounds, and she was eating up to 4 cups of kibble divided over 2 feedings per day and anywhere from 1/4 to a whole pound of meat at that same event. They were shaking their heads thinking about my feed bills, lol....

I see a wide difference in my three even when you factor in the different sizes and age.  Belle who is my oldest, has been spayed and is no where near as active as Halo and Ringo still requires more feed.  Halo's needs vary basically around when she comes in season.  She can pack on the pounds when she is coming in season, but slims right down when she is done.  Ringo is a bottomless pit for food right now, but he is a growing boy.  I also have to tweak the amount based on the time of year.  The shorthairs seem to be more sensitive to feeding and a variety of variables more so than other breeds I have had. 

I would totally agree with this observation. My suspicion is that as a breed they tend to require more food than the average x pound dog to begin with (with natural variations of course), but then some GSPs just push themselves harder activity-wise even without a human to goad them on.

I've increasingly been leaving the hounds out in the dog yard all weekend instead of in kennels, and it's interesting to watch... between the 3 of them they tend to keep something going almost all the time, especially Friday night/Saturday. But by Sunday evening they're moving noticably slower and/or snoozing more, and they're glad to let me get more sleep on Monday morning.

My mushing mentor has repeatedly warned me that these dogs won't need nearly as many miles as huskies to get to the same level of fitness. Having owned both, she's speculated that it's because 'hounds' (i.e. non- or low-percentage huskies) are much more active in the dog yard, so they gain fitness faster and preserve it longer with less effort on the driver's part. Now that she's had some GSP crosses, she'll readily admit that as a group they tend to be even MORE squirrelly than the other strains she's worked with, and those guys are visibly carrying more muscle than the other dogs in her yard before training starts in the fall.

It's an advantage to a point... but of course the flip side of this equation is when you go to buy dog food.