Fat In The Diet

[ncarter]

how much is ok for a dog? some of the bones i get from the butcher are pretty fatty. A little bit of fat is ok right? but how much is too much?

[malsam]

wow...that is a very difficult question to answer. Usually what I do is to do estimation and trial. For eg. you start with a reasonable amount. What is a reasonable amount can be just what seems to be ok to you and then you just want to get a starting point. Feeding whatever is in the bag is a good starting point.

You don't have to worry too much about too much fats if you are on raw and exercising. Chances for you to get a fat dog on raw is only possible unless your dog sleeps everyday and not moving while you load them with animal fats. Even so, the dog's body will adjust its metabolic rate and burn off that excess fats and be a little more active around the house if you keep them indoor all days. If they have free access to the outdoors, they just continue to chase that squirrel or other dogs longer.

Anyway, what you want to do is to estimate how much fats you have included in everyday meal. If after a week you find your dog getting fatter both visually and scientifically. i.e weight them and use the rubbing your fingers at the layer of fat at the ribs, then you can conclude its too much or not.

Scientifically speaking, if your diet is too much and the dog are storing a lot of them, then you should be able to see it within a week or so. Because by theory, dog uses energy from food in the order of carbo, protein, fatty acids (i.e fats when unused and being stored in the body) respectively. So any adjustment of the other 2 will also make the fatty acids stored up as fats or being used up as energy.

[BC]

I dont exactly measure the amount but for example, I leave all of the fat on lamb flaps. Thats partly what I buy them for and the dogs get these 2-3 times a week. However, on these days they dont get their regular meal otherwise they would start to get very porky.

They have stayed at a nice consistent weight, but as Malsam said, you will need to monitor it for a few weeks and see how your dog is doing. If you find it is putting on weight cut back on the fat, but if not, there is nothing wrong with a fatty RMB in moderation in my opinion :rolleyes: