When we first adopted our lovely Afghan Hound Duchess from Couches for Afghan’s she had heartworms. The vet wanted me to get her above 50 pounds before the start of treatment as she said it would be easier on her if she was a bit over ideal weight when the treatment started.
That was not hard I increased her feed to 3 cups a day and gave her a couple of high protein snacks a day. This got her to 52 pounds from her initial 46 pounds in the few months before the shots started. I maintained that through the 2 months of treatment so as not to stress her by cutting food.
Timeline wise that takes us to end of June.
After the treatment and recovery time were over I decreased her food to 2 1/2 cups a day and a treat once a day. Thinking she would lose weight or stabilize.
She was still gaining so I went down to 2 cups a day.
Still no weight loss.
I thought maybe she is stealing food out of the bag of food at night so moved food bag to the garage.
Still not working.
I asked my family if they were giving her extra snacks. They said no they were not.
6 month vet visit. She is heartworm clear and 56 pounds. Luckily vet said she is only 1 or 2 pounds over and still does not feel too overweight. I worry about hips and other things with the weight gain though.
Vet laughs when I tell her what I am feeding as says amount sounds right give her some veggies.
I am totally confused at this point on how she can still be gaining weight then I spot the culprit.
My cute little innocent cockatoo is feeding the dog.
She is giving her bird food and treats from her bowl. Said dog is taking the treats from the birds mouth.
This is not supposed to be. Site hound hunts bird. Not bird feeds site hound.
I feed my Cherry Pie Zupreem fruit blend pellets plus a mix of dried fruits and nuts. Although it does contain grapes probably is not a high enough dosage to hurt the dog. What concerns me more is that the bird does not like the raisins in her food mix and that she might be giving them to Duchess.
Cherry for the longest time would only eat certain colors of her food and would leave the colors she did not like or throw them out. I thought she had decided she like those now as they are gone first. No, not the case at all. She is giving Duchess the ones she does not like. I don’t know if she is being nice and feeding her flock or just getting rid of the stuff she does not want and laughing at the dog for eating it.
I know the bird is not giving away her nuts as those she loves and eats first.
I am not sure what to do about this one for weight maintenance.
The bird does not understand no. The Duchess loves treats.
But at least I found the culprit.
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