I have an 8 month old Dobermann bitch puppy who even after still being on 3 meals a day refuses to gain weight and is incredibly lean.
She is a very active puppy on her own so i guess burns what she eats off. I show her and more often than not i am told she is lovely but just too thin.  Shes on Royal Canin Junior 225g 3xdaily currently, there are often tit bits given with her training and left overs she will counter surf to get to. She has will eat well and polishes off her bowl in no time but she just never seems to be any Chunkier. The other pups in her litter are a fair amount more chunkier than she is and she was by far not the runt!

I have been suggested to put her on tripe to help bulk her up, add it to her normal food a few times a day but i know very little about tripe (other than it smells!)

Any suggestions!

You can buy frozen minced tripe from many pet shops.  Prize Choice seems to be a brand most commonly available and they offer it as freeflow mince or in blocks of 450g.  Either way it's pretty easy to manage and doesn't smell too bad.  I just defrost enough for the meal I have planned and don't leave it hanging around. 

Have you tried increasing her meal allowances?  Does that help the weight?  I'd be inclined to increase her RC if she's very thin. Youngsters can eat huge amounts and still shake it off.  My gundog (28kg adult weight) went right up past 1000g of kibble per day before his portions needed to decrease.

Tripe will help with weight gain, best add it to a complete diet. Just for pets do blocks of tripe for about 40p each

Also Royal Canin do do a fussy eaters food, so will be worth a try when she gets to 10 months plus

Personally I dont like RC food... I feed Raw... Have you heard of Satin balls for weight gain? You have to be careful with them though

Recipe :

5 lbs ground beef (the fatty kind)
8 eggs with shells
16oz Philadelphia or other cream cheese
4 packets gelatin
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup rolled oats
1 jar natural peanut butter
4 Tbsp honey

To that I add a multivitamin crushed and 5 capsules echinacea. I form this into large balls (tennis ball size) and feed raw. You can freeze extras.

Maybe worth getting a poo and blood sample tested to make sure she doesnt not have any parasites/infections or health issues.  I am sure she is just a super energetic dog, just like my youngest GSD bitch but you could be missing something health wise. I feed raw and give her plenty of lamb and green tripe to help keep weight on.  She is a little pocket rocket and zooms about everywhere so what ever she eats she burns off, but I had the tests done so that I knew there was nothing underlying going on.

To be honest, i would get her off RC in my opinion and experience it is the biggest rip off on the pet food market, i know im bound to upset a lot of people when i say this, but i have spoken to an independent nutritionist today (funnily enough lol) and he assured me it was full of cr@p. here is the analysis for junior maxi (the one i thought you might be using

Ingredients: Maize, dehydrated poultry meat, L.I.P vegetable protein isolate, maize gluten, animal fats, L.I.P animal proteins, maize flour, hydrolysed animal proteins, minerals, beet pulp, soya oil, fish oil, fructo-oligo-saccharides, psyllium husks and seeds, egg powder, L-lysine, hydrolysed yeast extract (rich in mannan-oligo-saccharides), DL-methionine, taurine, hydrolysed crustaceans (rich in glucosamine), hydrolysed cartilage (rich in chondroitin), marigold extract (rich in lutein).

ingredients are normally listed in order of percentages, implying maize is the highest quantity in food.... this is a "filler" to bulk the food out (something you dont want to see in the top 5 ingredients if at all). maize is also a big cause of bloat as the kibble would swell in the stomach, you'll notice that the biscuits swell a lot when soaked in boiling water.

the following is what ive been advised to do to get my boy back up to weight after a poorly spell....
1. feed a food high percentage of meat (50-60% if not more)
2. Avoid high percentages of rice foods, although this is good for peristalsis (sp) it has little nutritional value when trying to put weight on a dog
3. aim for reasonable amount of oil in food such as salmon oil
4. Plenty of small meals a day

The foods i were recommended (although i feed mainly BARF) are
Argen Grange
Orijen (although very expensive)
Burns Active (although has a high rice quantity has had fabulous effects on skinny dogs)

AGREED!!!

ACANA is another decent one

thats the other one... i couldnt for the life of it remember what it was called..... a smiley coming your way :-)

Tanya
Are you just showing off with the smileys now? 

yeah lol.... they have taken me ages to work out lol.... in the end i had to start a thread to ask the experts how it was done lol... i know.... im pathetic lol :cringe: hehe

Canin Junior 225g 3xdaily currently

If you are following guidelines the I guess it is the problem ;-)

If she is ok on the food then increase the amount :-)

If she was fat I would say decrease the amount it is not rocket science :-)

LOL

rocket science it may not be.. i agree!!

i'll bump her up to 4 times a day and add in mince till i can get tripe!

I would suggest two times a day now with the increase will be better :-) You have to do it gradually and watch and feel her body as a guide to the right level :-)

upping the complete food isnt always the answer, I remember when Fagan was a youngster he was on the thin side so I increased the amount I was giving him and it really upset his stomach, I found I could only give him a certain amount of complete, too much and it gave him the runs.

yeah, i agree with this, too much of any thing can give the runs, much better to give small amounts of better quality nutrition than large amounts of mediocre food

A lot of Doberfolk I know feed Duck and swear by it (http://www.berriewoodwholesale.co.uk/cgi-bin/sitewise.pl?act=det&pt=&p=292&id=berrie).

I had great difficulty getting weight on Hattie as a youngster and it's only now, at nearly 5, she finally looks "right". She is currently on a mainly raw diet, which includes tripe and other minced meats/fish, and Orijen along with raw lamb ribs, which are also excellent for putting on weight.

How much does she actually weigh?

I totally agree with Duck being a great food as I am now feeding my dogs on it but many years ago I had a Weimaraner, he would not put weight on and I was feeding him vast amounts until a successful breeder called Nick Frost told me to try Pedigree Petfoods Activity Plus .......... I don't even know if they still make it but if they do it may be worth a try as that was great and his weight came on without any problem at all. 
Just another thing to try if all else fails

upping the complete food isnt always the answer No I agree but gradual increase is the way to do it.

some dogs just dont put on weight no matter how much complete food you feed them

Lamb sides/ ribs is very good for putting weight on, also pork pies!

Pork pies Us or the dogs ?? lol

What lines is she from (e.g: English/American, Mainly European etc)?  Some of the European lines can be slow maturers and lack body weight, it can come with age. 

My male Dobermann was as thin as a rake as a youngster and now at 7 looks fabulous.... he is European Breeding.

Check with your breeder as they should be able to advise also.

Google 'Satin Balls' as this receipe may help.

mum is english/polish
dad is english back to german.
shes on 200g tripe in the morning and evening, lunch is still kibble and shes gaining little by little.. but then she got in to the milk and ended up with the runnys for a few days.
She got a 2nd and a 1st over the weekend so on this occasion the judge liked her. Her mum is a porker though (affectionatly called Log-dog!) while dad has always been muscly and lean.

> I just defrost enough for the meal I have planned and don't leave it hanging around.

So do you just buy the Prize Choice as it is then defrost & give straight to the dog? I'm trying to learn more about it and certainly don't want to get it wrong.

Thanks :)

> So do you just buy the Prize Choice as it is then defrost & give straight to the dog?

Yes.  Nowadays I only buy tripe from Prize Choice as I like the way it's packaged.  I use freeflow minced tripe and the 454g blocks depending on how much I need.  My two aren't mad about tripe so I add it to their other raw food.  Some people feed tripe as a topper with a complete biscuit but you could just feed it on it's own (as long as this isn't the only thing you are feeding ie dogs diet is balanced).  

I've tried buying tripe from my usual raw supplier (TPMS) but it's a bit chunkier than my dogs like and as they pack it in 2kg blocks it's more difficult for me to get it finished.

The Prize Choice version does not smell as strong either which is a bonus! :)

Agreed.. Prize choice is where i'm going now.

I feed her 200g in the morning with 225g of Royal Canin and same again in the evenings.. been making a difference and shes finally putting a little bulk on.

She could just be at that age. I think around 8 months most breeds get a bit leaner, their back teeth are still moving etc  I see it even in small breeds.