Hi i am a new member and looking for advice My Golden Retriever Gemma is overweight she is 11 years old and was spayed when she was a puppy ever since I have a problem with her weight all I have fed her is 500gms dry mixed with a wet pouch she has hip dysplasia now and is in pain the vet has put her on Zydol and Carprieve and she is feeling a lot better now I have reduced her food and have started feeding her twice a day instead of given her it all in the evening leaving out the pouch. I now give her 250gms in the morning and in the evening i just use a fraction of the pouch to wet the dry food will she lose weight by doing this she has to and quickly to relieve the pain any advice, please

I'm probably giving my golden slightly less possibly about 200 grams, she is 4 and spayed. I tend to go by how a dog looks and feels rather then strictly measuring food out, consequently if she is less active like during the winter when we don't go for such long walks, she gets less. It's difficult with a golden to see a waist when viewed from above, but if I run my fingers along her ribs I like to feel a slight bump bump.

Certainly keeping goldens on the light side is beneficial when older if they are suffering from arthritis. Both my last two had arthritis in different forms, one more so then the other and keeping their weight down was of help to pain. I fed them Burns chicken and rice which is a known food for reducing weight and added some sliced carrot on top so they didn't feel too deprived.

Does your golden enjoy swimming? I had one that didn't, but all the others have enjoyed a swim and it's a good way of keeping a dog fit, building muscle which will help support the problem hip and another way of losing weight.

Gosh 500g, you could halve that amount easily and once her weight is down keep her on that amount.

The golden I walked never ate more than 300g of dry food in her life and was fit and active to 14 even though she had a partially torn cruciate when she was about 11.

Thank you for your good advice

Thank you for your response so you think I should halve 500g so how much should i feed her in the morning and in  the evening at the moment it is 250g morning and 250g in the evening you say I should cut it down won't she be starving she is my second golden and my last one died at 13 years she had the same problem. My girl loves swimming but not much this summer because the next morning she will limp so have stopped her but she loves the water its hard to keep her out and the river runs past my garden

What food is she on?

That's a lot of food weight wise. I would probably cut out the wet food. My eldest girl is not yet spayed and she is now on 200g twice a day and her weight is slowly coming off now. She is due to be spayed next month and needs the weight off before she goes in.
If you need to bulk out the food then steamed green veg will help if she will eat that.
My breed is a large breed as well so yes I would really cut back on the amount you feed her and see how she goes.

Half the current amount morning and evening.

As someone else said you can bulk out with cooked veg like green beans, also a logn lasting chew like a cows hoof (empty not filled), to give her something to do.

Just like us the only way to loose weight is to cut the food down quite a bit.

She is obviously eating well over maintenance to have put the weight on, so going down to half, and then increasing slightly once the weight is off is the only real way to go.

I have found with my own breed that easily gains and only eats half the recommended amounts on most food guidance that feeding less of a good food is better than giving more of a diet food with fillers.  They keep in better body condition and coat.

Having had the weight battle with first dog, with the next 9 I have been careful to not allow more than a little to creep on.

It is amazing how my young entire most active girls eat nearly twice what the older spayed ones need to keep at same weight.

Thank you for your most welcome advice she will eat green beans cooked carrots on their own but in the past, I have mixed them with her dried food and she will leave it.but having said that she will pick out the veg and leave the biscuit but my hubby said to leave it she will eat it when she is hungry is that tough love should I try that I did that with a cat once and it worked also I mixed some sardine in her biscuit and she ate that what about steamed chicken breast to mix in she loves chicken also what about raw chicken she likes that  but this evening I will give her 200g instead of 250g

I think the fact that she is picky about food is that she has too much and just isnt hungry enough to bother with things that aren't as tasty. None of my goldens have been picky and have all gobbled their meals as quickly as possible, so much so that I have anti gulp bowls and other stratagies to try and slow them down. If any of them haven't eaten or shown lack of interest over food I immediately think there's something wrong with them and we're off to the vets.

Be careful about carrots. Mine love them but they are full of sugar and not the best when trying to get weight off. I made that mistake too and didn't think about the natural sugars in them so maybe remove them too

I watched a video on youtube and the guy gave his German shepherd a raw egg in its dried food are these fattening.

> but this evening I will give her 200g instead of 250g

No half the normal amount in other words 125g twice a day.

> are these fattening.

Yes, good protein source but your aiming to cut her food by half not tempting her to eat.