My blue merle border collie has just turned a year old and is looking rather thin.  We've tried changing his food, he has recently been wormed but he is still looking thin and scrawny.  We have a cross collie bitch (9 months old) who rapidly established herself as the more dominant of the two and I've noticed now that when I give him a biscuit, bone or treat he immediately drops it and waits until the bitch gets the same.  She on the other hand is a greedy dog who will eat any and all forms of food and would eat all of the dog's food if she got a chance to.  I don't know what kinds of food would help bulk him up, can anyone help?

Hi Guest

The best thing for bulking up dogs, especially males, is maturity.  Unless he has a physical problem and is very ribby and has pin bones obviously exposed I would tend to leave him.  Slender dogs, like humans are likely to suffer from fewer health problems :D

Hi Guest

I agree with Kerioak.  One of our boys is so scrawny that even our vet, who likes them lean, said "dear God, but he's skinny!!"  However, we had some things checked out by the vet, just to make sure and he was given a clean bill of health.  The vet says that its just going to take time :)  I know where you are coming from with your concern though Guest, it's very hard not to be worried!  We even find ourselves pointing to our elder boy on walks and saying "here's one we made earlier"  in case people think we don't feed the younger boy

If you are happy that your boy is healthy, I think you might just to have patience :)

Best wishes

Lesley

I have the same problem with one of my shih-tzu girls.She was badly abused and malnourished when i got her 2 years ago,on top of this she is a very fussy eater who has to be starving to eat even 1/3 cup of kibble,the kibble i feed has 557 kcal/cup,alot of people cant feed it as their dogs put on too much weight,no such luck here!

One thing that has helped her put on a little weight is marrow,go to the butcher and get him to cut a marrow bone down the centre and then scrape the marrow out and mix it in with your dogs meals,dogs love the stuff.Another thing to try is green tripe,my dogs hate it,but i have heard that it is good for bulking dogs up. Type  "satin balls recipe" into your search engine and it will come up with recipe's for satin balls,show people feed these to their dogs before shows to fatten them up,they also make their hair nice and shiny. Satin balls can put weight on a dog in a matter of days,so be careful.

Guest why dont you join,i can talk about this subject forever,i have done tonns of research on it and have heaps of other remedies to share.