Proper nutrition is necessary for your pet. OK, everyone knows this. So, what do you do when your dog is growing fat, or doesn't gain enough weight?
The ECS, generally, has fewer problems with obesity than the ACS. I attribute this to their generally higher energy levels, and the "fact" that the ACS is better at begging. The ECS often will beg by putting on a demonstration, perhaps leaping in the air, or turning in circles, but the ACS can look at you with those adoring eyes, and you find yourself tossing her leftovers.
Once you know your dog's "proper" weight, watch it closely. 2 pounds is the difference between an obese and a healthy dog. A gain of a few ounces can indicate the beginning of a problem.
With the "barrel" shaped ACS, especially with a heavy coat, overweight can be hard to determine. While grooming, take a look at your pet's belly. In the normal weight range, the belly should taper upward from the chest. If it goes straight back, your dog is probably overweight. Ask your vet for his/her opinion, and watch those scales.
If you feed your pet more than 1 small doggie bones, or 1 oz of "table food" a day, he might be overweight. Having a female fixed is healthy in most respects, but it tends to cause obesity. A dog that gets little exercise, with food out all day, might be fat. A dog that is convalescing can gain weight quickly.
If your pet is overweight, you are inviting further health problems, including back and hip problems. The first step is to cut back on treats and eliminate all "table food". Small doggie bones, broken in half, are a good treat, and your pet will enjoy them more if they are not given every day.
As a next step, change the way your pet is fed. Most of my pets would not gain excessive weight on their dog food, so I kept it out all day. This way, I always knew they were fed each day. If the bowl was empty, simply put some more in. Most vets will suggest switching to a low-cal dog food, such as Lamb and Rice. I found the "All you can Eat" diet to work better for my pets, once I had found a food they excelled on, but I must be sure to not miss a morning feeding.
First, start off with a good dog food. Try different foods until you find one your dog likes and does well on. When switching foods, buy it while there are still several day's worth of the old food. Start by mixing the new food in with the old in an increasing ratio. Dogs are sensitive to changes in their diet and this avoids shocking them into intestinal problems. If you still have some of the old food, you can stir it into the new bag of food.
Watch how your dog does on the new food. He should look and act healthier and like its flavor. With diet foods, your pet might have trouble adjusting. After a week, he should return to eating normally. If not, consider another brand. Personally, I find diet foods work for two reasons... they are lower in calories... and they don't taste as good.
It will take a month before you'll know how your dog is doing on the new food. For most pets, this is 20 pounds of food. Check with friends and your vet to see what foods they recommend. The high end foods are more expensive per pound, but your pet will probably eat less and be healthier. With some foods, such as Science Diet and Iams, your dog's droppings will wash down more easily. Unless your dog is hyperactive, I would stay away from foods with high protein levels. In many pets the higher protein levels will cause skin problems. My dogs do quite well on Avo-Derm Breeder's Choice.
With two dogs in the house, a diet is hard to administer. With a single dog, it's often just a matter of switching over to a food that's lower in calories, or less tasty. With two dogs, you must find a food that both thrive on. They were doing well on Avo-Derm, so I chose this diet, as opposed to switching foods. Actually, I just learned that Avo-Derm makes a low-cal food, and I'm thinking of trying it for a couple months.
This diet allows my pets to eat all they want at a single sitting, but they can't snack on crunchies all day. Some experts say the best way to feed a dog is to allow them all they can eat for 15 minutes, then take away the bowl. They point out that this is the way wolves eat, gorging themselves and then fasting until the next kill. Cockers aren't wolves, and this doesn't always work when you have multiple pets. Instead of solving the problem, it causes them to become more aggressive at the food dish. My main decision was made by Lucky. He enjoys eating slowly, and I don't want to punish him because Breezie is overweight.
Each morning I put out 1 1/4 soup cans of food in their dish. Some days this will last for several hours. If they have exercised heavily the previous day, they'll gobble it up quickly, and we'll add some additional. The idea of this diet is to give them all the food they can consume in an hour. In this way they are full once a day and they know there's no need to fight over the food.
Occasionally, you'll get a dominant pet that tries to consume all the food so the other doesn't get any. This causes the dominant dog to begin gaining weight. This can easily be broken by keeping the dish filled for several days. The dominant dog will soon see it isn't working, and will break his eating disorder.
Without a constant supply of food, Breezie began to lose weight. It's her habit to grab a meal every time she wakes up from a sleep. When we are working different shifts, she'd grab a heavy meal twice a day, with snacks in between. As her weight dropped, he tummy firmed up, and her hips narrowed considerably. This worked well until she recently injured her back. Lying around for a month, she gained some weight, but is still within the limits I've set for her.