Ways to determine appropriate food volume
There are two ways to determine appropriate volume:
First is called “Roughly”. If your Great Dane is neither skinny nor
fat, active and full of energy, the ration is balanced and enough
for your dog.
Second way is to calculate necessary amount of calories (in a day)
taking into consideration the weight of your pet. Please, consider
physical activity of your dog, type of nervous system and chronic
deceases. Be attentive when calculating the necessary amount of
calories. If the dog is fat, calculate the amount for the desirable
weight and vice verse, if the dog is skinny, calculate adding
necessary kilograms.
If you considered all physical activities of your dog and calculated
the amount of calories correctly, but your Great Dane remains to be
skinny, the reasons may be the following:
1) The dog doesn’t get the necessary amount of nutrients. In this
case, please, recalculate attentively the necessary amount of
calories.
2) The food isn’t digested well because of shortage of enzymes,
that, in it’s turn, is a result of disease of the digestive system
(chronic gastritis, enteritis, enterocolitis). In such case,
biochemical stool test to determine digestibility of proteins,
carbohydrates and fats is necessary.
3) Chronic diseases, like endometritis, pyelonephritis, cancer,
leukosis exhaust dog’s organism and “eat” calories. In this case
urine analysis, US of abdominal cavity organs, clinical and
biochemical blood test are necessary.
4) Chronic renal disorders (nephrosis, glomerulonephritis). Us of
kidneys and urine analysis are necessary.
5) Chronic hepatopathy and pancreas, as a result frequent diarrhea
and vomiting. Biochemical blood test and Us of abdominal cavity
organs are necessary.
6) Thyroid gland diseases (hyperthyrosis). Blood test to determine
hormones of thyroid gland is necessary.
The main reasons why your Great Dane is fat may be the following:
overfeeding with cereals, poor physical activities, hypothyroidism,
insular diabetes, castration, malfunction of lipid exchange.
