Question: I’ve been feeding my dog Lilly Halo Spots Stew dry chicken recipe for a few months now. She loves it! The only problem I have is that she seems to be gaining weight. I give her 1/3 cup twice a day. She is a Shih-Tzu. Her weight should be about 12 lbs. She now weighs 14.8. She gets a baby carrot cut up during the day for treats. I walk her ½ hour a day. Can you recommend anything else I should be doing? I had some blood work done and everything is negative. Help!

Answer: I am so glad you wrote in—for Lilly’s health, it is critical that we get her to shed those extra pounds! Even though 2.8 pounds doesn’t sound too serious, at 14.8 pounds she is actually 23% over her ideal body weight. That means she is obese which has many negative long term health implications. To compare, this would be like 34.5 extra pounds on a 150 pound woman—it is alarming when you think of it that way!

A normal dog of 12 pounds should eat somewhere between 230 to 300 calories each day (depending on activity, age, etc) and for that dog I would recommend 1/3 cup of the Halo Spots Stew Chicken twice daily. That amount of food supplies 264 calories each day.

Very similar to people, every dog has a different metabolism. Lilly has obviously gained weight on this amount of calories, so I would recommend a 20% reduction from this to achieve her ideal weight. This means you should try feeding her ¼ cup twice daily and this amount of food supplies 198 calories each day.

Also, remember that the biggest contributor to pet obesity is treats. You report feeding her only a baby carrot for treats. If it is just one carrot that is not a problem, however, if she is eating several carrots each day, they may be contributing enough calories that you need to count them. We are striving for around 200 calories a day for Lilly to lose the weight….so keep a close count of her calories to get her to that goal! Also keep up the good work on the exercise…make sure it is a brisk walk with no dawdling to stop and sniff the roses!

You can also check out my article Weight Loss Tips for more tips.

Hope that helps. Good Luck.
Dr. Donna J. Spector

Answers provided to pet owners by Dr. Donna Spector should be considered information and not specific advice. Answers are to be used for general information purposes only and not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice from your veterinarian. Communications on this site are very limited and should never be used in possible cases of emergency. Halo, Purely for Pets will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on any information or content contained in a blog or article post.

Question: Dear Halo, my mother accidently fed my ten year old dog a whole bag (3.0 oz) of Liv-a-Little Healthsome cat treats with real chicken. I noticed that it has catnip, taurine, etc. in the ingredient list. Since it says to feed only 4 – 6 treats a day for a cat. Should I be concerned that he ate a whole bag at once? He is about 20 pounds and recently had surgery. Thank you.

Answer: Thanks for your concern. Your dog should be just fine. When a pet eats a large amount of something (even the healthiest food or treats!) it is common for them to experience some mild digestive upset (such as soft stool or nausea). There is no concern for your dog relating to the taurine or catnip component of these treats. Clearly he has acquired a taste for the good stuff!

Hope that helps.
Dr. Donna J. Spector

Answers provided to pet owners by Dr. Donna Spector should be considered information and not specific advice. Answers are to be used for general information purposes only and not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice from your veterinarian. Communications on this site are very limited and should never be used in possible cases of emergency. Halo, Purely for Pets will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on any information or content contained in a blog or article post.

Question: My Pomeranian dog is 1 year old and for the second time has skin allergies…smells like a “dirty wet dog all the time”. Is there anything I can use besides shots of cortizone from the vet? I’ve tried different home remedies, other people told me to use but his scratching and smell is unbearable for me and my poor dog. Please help if you can, most appreciated!

Answer: Allergies are frequent and the most common ones are flea allergy, atopy (inhaled allergies–like hayfever) and food allergy. It is important to not just treat the symptoms of allergies with steroid shots. It is best to actually determine the source of the allergy and then avoid or minimize exposure to the offending allergen.

For some types of inhaled allergies, there are even allergy shots available. Your dog is very young and we don’t want him to have a lifetime full of cortisone shots in front of him. Regardless of the type of allergy, fatty acid supplements are often very helpful–they help to decrease the inflammation within the skin and minimize the allergy signs.

Many dogs with allergies often develop a secondary bacteria or yeast skin infection (often giving a wet dog smell)..and that must be treated with appropriate medications. Ask your vet more about your dogs allergies and what the next steps should be. Check out my article on dog allergies “Allergies in Dogs“.

Hope that helps.
Dr. Donna J. Spector

Answers provided to pet owners by Dr. Donna Spector should be considered information and not specific advice. Answers are to be used for general information purposes only and not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice from your veterinarian. Communications on this site are very limited and should never be used in possible cases of emergency. Halo, Purely for Pets will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on any information or content contained in a blog or article post.

Question: If my wife home cooks for our dogs which she does. And she is using the halo vita-mineral mix is that enough vitamins and minerals for our pet’s?

She use’s the recipe for spots stews with chicken and turkey and lamb meat she does change the meat and she does use organ meats. I just want to know if this is really good for our pets, or should we use kibble?

Answer: Thanks for writing. Glad to hear you are making the recipes at home. You can meet all of your dogs’ needs with these recipes and there is no need to feed dry kibble.

If you are using the Vitamin Mineral Mix daily you will be supplying an adequate amount of essential nutrients. Make sure you do not add the vitamin supplement during cooking, but to the individual portion for each pet–right before feeding.

Hope that helps.
Dr. Donna J. Spector

Answers provided to pet owners by Dr. Donna Spector should be considered information and not specific advice. Answers are to be used for general information purposes only and not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice from your veterinarian. Communications on this site are very limited and should never be used in possible cases of emergency. Halo, Purely for Pets will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on any information or content contained in a blog or article post.

Question: I noticed that you reference giving your dog light salt and you call it potassium chloride…though “potassium chloride” is used for lethal injection. Table salt is sodium chloride…I also notice that potassium chloride is in the dry dog food made by Halo…this seems like an additive.

From what I see it is a salt substitute. Why not used real salt or sea salt? I see that potassium chloride is also used in deicing agents for road work also as suicide aid??? I don’t want to paint this compound as hateful…and do want to mention that it is also used is some brands of bottled water for human consumption…but I choose my liquids wisely…I guess my question is why use a potentially dangerous compound in what is supposed to be a healthy alternative to dog food when safer compound ex. sodium chloride, sea salt, is available.

I see that salt is already added to the ingredients of the dry dog food so why the potassium chloride…even the people Morton who originally discovered this salt and have tried to market it to every industry known to man have a medical warning on their label..*Should not be used by persons on a sodium or potassium restricted diet unless approved by a physician.*.. I am not trying to bad mouth the food…but I was considering feeding my animals this food and started to investigate my current food “evangers” ingredient list and then started looking at your and had a few questions.

Thanks for your help.

Answer: Thank you for your inquiry. As you are probably aware, potassium is an element vital to the proper functioning of all cells in dogs and cats. Potassium chloride is one way Halo supplies this much needed element in their foods. Potassium chloride occurs naturally in the environment (as sylvite) and is commonly used in medicine (as a necessary potassium supplement to intravenous fluids or oral medications), food processing and as a sodium-free substitute for table salt (sodium chloride).

Many elements/salts when used at excessive dosages or combined with other ingredients may produce compounds used in industrial applications or other “non-food” applications. The potassium chloride used in food applications must not be taken out of context and compared to this sort of industrial use.

Hope that helps.
Dr. Donna Spector

Answers provided to pet owners by Dr. Donna Spector should be considered information and not specific advice. Answers are to be used for general information purposes only and not as a substitute for in-person evaluation or specific professional advice from your veterinarian. Communications on this site are very limited and should never be used in possible cases of emergency. Halo, Purely for Pets will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on any information or content contained in a blog or article post.