Diet Woes

Poor Duncan’s got it pretty rough these days. Or he thinks he does, anyway. The vet wants him to lose a couple of pounds (mostly due to his breed and potential health issues rather than being truly overweight), but he’s already been on a diet for several months now. When Reyna got worse and most of our activity (or lack thereof) revolved around how she was feeling, I cut back on Duncan’s kibble to keep him from gaining a lot of weight. At that time, I added pumpkin to his kibble to help make him think he was getting more than he really was, but he never really seemed to enjoy the it. After he adjusted to the new kibble amounts, I phased out the pumpkin, and he’s been doing okay since then. But now we need to cut the kibble just a bit more, so I talked to some of my dog people to get ideas. Courtesy of those discussions, Duncan now gets green beans with his dinner. They’re a healthy filler, so he gets to eat more but doesn’t get a lot of extra calories.

On the flip side of this is Reyna, who is actually underweight. The vet said he wouldn’t push for her to gain weight because of her hips, but she really does seem much too thin to me. And she is always hungry. Of course, she’s a dog, and most dogs are always hungry, so I realize I can’t make an accurate judgment based on that alone. I’ve been giving her a little extra kibble with her meals, but I don’t want her to put on too much weight, or put on the weight too quickly. Plus, she tends not to process a lot of kibble particularly well… So, I decided to see how she feels about green beans in her kibble, too – again, extra food, but not a lot of extra calories.

I’m not sure Reyna actually chews her food enough to notice the green beans, but she certainly doesn’t dislike them. Duncan, on the other paw…. The first night of green beans, he ate a few of them but managed to spit several out on the floor and pick around the majority of beans left in his bowl. Even though they were covered in sardine juice, he wasn’t particularly impressed. Until I called Reyna over and she cleaned the beans off the floor and out of his bowl. Duncan wasn’t very happy about that, which is exactly the reaction I was expecting. The next night, dinner was kibble, beans, and rabbit meat.


Duncan ate a large quantity of beans that night, but still left some on the floor and in his bowl. Once again, Reyna cleaned up his leftovers, and once again, he was not happy.



The next night was kibble, beans, and tripe, and Duncan left some beans on the floor and in his bowl. But he made a point of cleaning the beans out of the bowl while Reyna ate the beans on the floor.


Since then, Duncan has left beans until the end of every dinner, but he’s leaving fewer each night. And he’s not letting them stay long enough for Reyna to eat them. I figured a little sibling rivalry would help move the adjustment process along. I’ve got to go to the grocery store tomorrow, and I’ll be getting more green beans for the pups. Zucchini was also a suggestion, so I’ll pick up a bit of that and see what the pups think about that at dinner time.