Neighbor your dog is too thin?

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

My neighbors are really young like barely 20's and originally they adopted a pair of boxer mix dogs. The female is gone for being agressive to kids but, the male is left now I do not know his age but, he looks way too thin yesterday he got out of his pen and tore up my trash for food.

 

What would you do? I see him feeding him so that's not the problem. I almost feel like I should sneak him down a can of extra food.

[Dixie_Girl]

Is the boxer an adult? My brother has two boxers, male and female. The male is older and he is very muscular while the female is slimmer. They have smooth hair so if you can see his ribs then I would say he is too skinny. As far as getting in the trash, it wouldn't matter how much he was fed, he would still do it! They love finding hidden treasure! The stinkier the better!

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

He is really thin. I just dont know if he is really old.

 

There was some great stuff in my trash old pizza , sliced turkey , spaghetti. Funny he wouldnt eat the raw chicken legs either.lol Raw feeding here has pretty much flopped.

 

I dont know how long boxers live. I know when Kirb got old I could have fed him 20 times a day and he wouldnt have gained weight.

[flrpwr52]

Our trainer has a boxer, who is very active, and she has to feed her 4 to 5 cups of food per day or the dog looks like a skeleton.

 

Could it be the dog is not getting fed enough and wearing it off?

 

Maybe you could mention something without coming across too bold. If they are young chances are they might not know there could be something wrong with the dog.

 

I wish you luck, it would be hard for me to see the dog every day and not say something.

[kelpiegirl]

Boxers should look lean. You should be able to feel the ribs and depending on the day, see them. Boxers are typically very active, and thus need a REALLY good food. They don't do well on low end foods because of their digestive systems (although I am sure some can). Are these dogs outside all the time?

Julie

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

yes this dog lives in a coop in a big dog pen.

 

he's so thin his spine is mildly visible.

 

Thinking about it the dog has to be 7 or 8 as they were full grown when adopted and Nick was 2 when their female chased him down in our yard. which means my neighbor is 25ish and I'm old.lol

[Kat's Dogs]

i don't think that the dog is skinny - from what you have said.

 

With breeds like that you SHOULD see a little bit of spine and a TINY bit of ribs/hips. Can you get a picture?

 

 

I would talk to the owner. My Uncle had a GSD (7 y/o) and suddenly he got REALLY skinny, he could hardly walk. They were trying everything to help him but nothing worked. Point it, they were trying to help their dog but it was some medical problem.

 

Like I said though, on a fit dog (with a smooth coat) it is fine to see a bit of spine and a LITTLE bit of rip/hips.

[AK dog doc]

The rule of thumb for body condition on dogs:

 

*Hourglass shape when viewed from the top

*Distinct tuck when viewed from the side (from deeper chest to shallower waist)

*Able to easily feel but not see ribs (it's okay to see the edge of the rib cage, but you don't want to be able to count every rib; in a lean dog, if they stretch or turn, you may be able to see multiple ribs temporarily.)

 

This is true for all adult dogs except pregnant ones . The width and proportions of the hourglass and tuck may vary (for instance, Pepper, a lean but broader-framed dog, has a wider hourglass and a shallower tuck than Ali, who is whippet-narrow in frame and whippet-deep in chest), but it should always be an hourglass and a tuck. Very lean and athletic dogs (such as working sled dogs, for instance, particularly during the racing season) will sometimes have the last few ribs slightly visible all the time, and you may see some of the vertical processes of the vertebrae (the "knobs" along the topline) as well as the iliac crest of the hip bones (the part at the front and "top" of the pelvis). These dogs are not necessarily too thin - they're "racey", as in built for and trained to a high athletic standard, and if they were fatter they'd have a hard time doing what they were bred for. To some degree such dogs will maintain that physique even if not in training (for instance, you can see some of the vertebral processes in Ali's back, even though I assure you he is not too thin, nor is he in anything resembling training at the moment. Ice. Sigh.)

 

On a Boxer, the tuck from the side is generally VERY pronounced, and it's not unusual to see a little bit of spine and hip bone, and maybe the last couple of ribs. If the dog is muscular, energetic and shiny, it's probably just a very lean dog and is adequately fed. It's not the physique we're used to looking at (with our furry and more moderately-built BCs) so it may look too lean at a glance, but that's about how Finn was built til he was three. We had a hard time Xraying his hips because balancing him perfectly strait on his knife-blade spine was a bit of a challenge, despite the anesthesia. He just naturally wanted to tip to one side or the other, because the contact point with the table was made of pointy little spine bones. I had to use my elbows to frame his (rather deep) chest up in order to balance him.

 

As for ways to approach your neighbor if still concerned, in general the non-accusatory approach is better accepted than the "Don't you ever feed your dog? I'm calling the SPCA!" approach, so perhaps you could couch it in terms of "Say, your dog looks a lot leaner than mine; I wonder if mine is too heavy? What does your vet say about it?" or that sort of thing, which might get you the info on if the dog has been assessed for weight by the vet. If so and the vet says it's fine, it probably is. I often have to tell people who say "Everyone in my family says my dog is too skinny, should I be worried?" that their dog is actually just fine, and maybe their family's dog is too fat, if it looks distinctly different. (I am by no means suggesting that YOUR dog is too fat, just that the body styles are pretty divergent, and so may be harder to assess from a "used to BCs" point of view.)

[Guest blessedmom]

I would mind my own business, you dont know if he is sick or old or what is going on. I would just not worry about it. Dogs even well fed dogs will get into trash. Does not mean he is starving.

[kelpiegirl]

One thing- since they live outside- is that since Boxers have very little coat, they do use energy keeping warm. Where do you live? Boxers, imo, should not live outdoors.

Julie

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

Boxers, imo, should not live outdoors.

 

I agree and I hope he gets to come into the garage on very cold nights but, I cant see him. I feel like his coop is inadequate too. Wishing I had taken Kirbs 10 below rated coop over but, it sat in the yard with a free sign for 2 weeks.

 

Like I said I was mostly considering slipping him a can of dog food here and there. I keep alpo meats here for when I run short of the good stuff.

I doubt anyone would even notice. I'd rather treat the dog well than confront the neighbor.

[Guest blessedmom]

Hopefully he is not on a speicial diet and the food you give him kills him or makes him sick, you could have a lawsuit on your hands.

[Shetlander]

Originally posted by blessedmom:

Hopefully he is not on a speicial diet and the food you give him kills him or makes him sick, you could have a lawsuit on your hands.

Yes, I know a couple of dogs who become extremely ill if they are given any food off their "diet."

[juliepoudrier]

Originally posted by Shetlander:

quote:

---

Originally posted by blessedmom:

Hopefully he is not on a speicial diet and the food you give him kills him or makes him sick, you could have a lawsuit on your hands.

Yes, I know a couple of dogs who become extremely ill if they are given any food off their "diet." Well, if raiding Sheryl's trash (for pizza, turkey and spaghetti and who knows what else) didn't kill the dog, then I doubt a bit of canned food now and again would do so. Note: this isn't a statement as to whether Sheryl should feed the dog, but I think it's a bit overboard to suggest she'll kill it by feeding it given her previous statements about the trash raiding.

 

J.

[Shetlander]

Originally posted by juliepoudrier:

if raiding Sheryl's trash (for pizza, turkey and spaghetti and who knows what else) didn't kill the dog, then I doubt a bit of canned food now and again would do so. Note: this isn't a statement as to whether Sheryl should feed the dog, but I think it's a bit overboard to suggest she'll kill it by feeding it given her previous statements about the trash raiding.

Good point about the garbage I was just saying sometimes there are conditions you can inadvertently make worse. When my pancreatic insufficient dog ate a bunch of baby rabbits, he survived his horrendous reaction but he sure was sick (I didn't feel so good myself cleaning up the messes). And if a neighbor had slipped him food because he was so thin (and he was), he would have had a reaction to that as well. Hopefully, not as extreme as to that unfortunate nest of rabbits, but I would have been wondering why he was suddenly sick.

 

We don't have any real info on this boxer other than he raids garbage and is thin. All my dogs would raid garbage if given the chance. I like AK Doc's approach of casually chatting about dogs and diets to find out more.

[kelpiegirl]

If you want to give him something, ask the neighbors first, something like this: "I love your dogs, and when we (my dogs and I) are outside they get cookies, do you mind if I give your guys a few? THey look like such nice dogs". Heck, you can even ask if you could give them some rugs that you are going to throw away, as you don't want to waste them (hint: make sure you take off the price tags before you bring them over . It may rub off on the owners that since YOU like their dogs so much, maybe THEY should too

Julie