Reverse Diet

[Catlady711]

Personally I like my pets a bit chunkier, not fat, but a bit more ....err....well....'fluffy' in the middle. lol

If the vet has examined the dog and found her to be healthy and isn't concerned then it's probably just a matter of your preference in appearence. Vets see WAY too many outright fat and obese animals that have so many health problems from diabetes to heart problems that seeing a normal weight or even slightly thin animal is almost a sigh of relief.

If you want to put a small amount of weight on just increase the dog food by a very small percent and let the dog get some good excercize to build muscles. Don't over-do the weight gain though. It's not easy to get weight back off, the animal isn't happy about it and there are a LOT of health risks with overweight animals.

[binka_nugget]

I prefer to have my dogs on a leaner side. It's much easier on their joints for agility (well, in general really). However, easier said than done I've got two Shelties who need to lose weight. We always get comments about how thin Keeva is, but I think she's at the perfect weight. I would probably put 5 pounds on the Boxer and leave it at that. She doesn't look too terribly thin.

We had to put weight on Kaedyn when we adopted him. I did so by feeding him the puppy formula of a high quality kibble. It did a nice job of slowly putting on weight. Some others have tried "satin balls" (recipes on google), which seems to be a popular method for putting weight on dogs. I've never tried it on my dogs though.

[Twisterdog]

To put weight on my thin rescue dogs, I fed them a premium puppy food, and sometimes added lean chicken or turkey.

IMO the boxer is a little thin, but nothing dramatic. A few pounds wouldn't hurt, and probably could be acheived easily simply by switching to puppy food.

[Taz_Zoee]

Thank you all for your replies!
I will have to ask her what and how much she is feeding her. She might be feeding her a crappy food and that could be part of it too.
This dog is a spaz. She is sooo hyper she can't sit still. I think that's what the vet told them. She is just burning off all she eats.
So I will suggest puppy food first and maybe increase amount if just the puppy food doesn't work.

[Giselle]

I'm with Ashley. I like to see my pups leaner rather than 'chunky'. I've been trying to keep a faint outline of Ivy's ribs. In fact, a lot of people ask me if she's a Dobe/Greyhound mix =P

I don't think Miss Boxer is too skinny. 2 or 3 pounds wouldn't hurt, but remember that Pittie we saw at the Berkeley Marina park? He was *so* buff yet you could see the faint outline of his ribs. I pretty much wish my dogs (and I) could be like that I think that's the type of body your friend's boxer has and I actually really like it haha