Too fat?

[ibell]

Coda is the first chow I have ever seen and touch, nevertheless own. This might be a silly question but it's been bugging me... I have looked around and seen pictures so I know chows look fatter than other dogs, but I am still getting worried about feeding her too much and she's getting fat. She doubled her weight in the 2 short weeks that she's been here. Now she is only 8 lbs at 8 weeks old and I can feel her rib cage with no trouble but she's got a pretty sizable and round belly. I have never had a dog with a belly this fat. Can anyone please tell me a good way to tell if she's still in the healthy range?

[DrewBear]

There's a pretty wide range of weight for Chows, so it's tough to say whether her current weight is "normal". As someone in your other thread mentioned, Coda probably missed out on a week or two of time with her momma if you got her at 6 weeks of age. My pup was 11.5 lbs. when I got him at 8 weeks, but males are larger on average.

Have you taken her to the vet for a general checkup and de-worming? I've read that pretty much all pups need to be de-wormed a few times in their first few months. A prominent belly might (the vet would know best) be a sign she needs to be de-wormed.

Chows generally don't overeat. If anything, it's sometimes difficult to get them to eat their meals regularly. My pup usually stops when he's full. I split his 2 daily meals (started with 4 meals/day) into 2 portions based on what's recommended by the kibble brand. If he still seems hungry, I give him a bit more. It's rare that he wants more.

[Sirchow]

Your puppy should not leave home normally till eight weeks so as to get the best socialisation and learning from her litter and mum. Having left home early Coda has missed out on routine worming and depending on her breeder may not have been wormed at all. A small puppies body can soon become overwhelmed by these parasites and if you have not wormed Coda please get her to the vet as soon as possible for a check up.

At six weeks your baby should have been on five meals a day, at eight weeks four a day. By twelve weeks three a day, to give you an idea.

Please post pics of your new baby.

[ibell]

Thank you both for your replies!

Yeah I read that in many places on this forum puppies should not leave their mom till 8 weeks and I really wish Coda could have had that. We bought her from a store in the mall. She and her brothers and sisters were already separated from their parents at that point. I spoke to the breeder on the phone for a bit when we were buying her and it sounded like they aren't really breeders, just someone who happened to have 2 chows that mated and they couldn't keep the puppies because they didn't have enough space. They did tell us that Coda's dad is 80 lbs and mom is 70 lbs. Can that be an indicator of around how much she should weight right now?

As for de-worming and the vet, people at the store said they have been giving her de-worming medicine and gave us some as well because apparently she had to take it daily for another 4 days. We were also given a vaccination record. We took her to the Banfield hospital in Petsmart as soon as we could (recommended by people at the store) and the vet told us to throw those medicine away because she didn't know what was mixed in there and gave Coda a different de-worming medicine. Back then the vet said Coda is a healthy pup. We are taking her back on Tuesday for vaccination shot and another dose of de-worming medicine so I suppose we'll see what she says this time.

Coda does leave food in her bowl often and I use the leftovers an hour or 2 later for training. The store gave us a ziplock bag of Purina and I switched her to Nutro Ultra http://www.ultraholistic.com/puppy-kibble.html after reading a bit here. Right now I am following the label that says at 8 lbs she should get 1 and a half cup a day so I'm feeding her half a cup 3 times a day plus a couple training session. I just think she looks fat... But maybe that's just because I have never seen chows in person before and I'm just used to leaner dogs?





I'll post other pictures and updates in the other post http://forum.chowchow.org/viewtopic.php ... 0A8kPldWWx

[Sirchow]

Coda looks perfect...not too fat to me Such a cutie.
I am glad your vet gave you proper worming meds as many of the over the counter types are less than useless. You sound like you are doing all the right things. Enjoy your baby and keep posting pics

[ibell]

Haha thank you! I just need to get used to how round they look then I will certainly keep up with the photos and everything!