Hi Peggy,
If the dogs are gaining weight than they need to take in fewer calories or exercise more.
I’ll run a few calculations.
For weight loss for Ladybug I calculate about 700 kcals/day. That means any individual dog may need 350-1050 kcals / day to achieve about 1 % body weight loss a week.
The variety pets food canned has on average 450 kcals/can so you are feeding 225-335 kcals in the am meal from that and the 1/2 cup kibble I’m guessing is adding about 200 kcals I can’t find calorie info on that. Together 425-535 kcals. in the am meal.
At night another 200 kcals from the kibble and again I can’t find caloric info on the tubs but I’m going to guess 70 kcals if 1 tub fed so ~270 kcals if feeding 1 tub with the 1/2 cup kibble.
Total kcals/day 695-805 kcals. Some dogs may lose on that amount but for others that is about double the amount needed for them to lose weight. So it could be that Ladybug is in that group in which case you really need to move to a food formulated for weight loss.
You can either cut calories or increase exercise. Since it is hard for you to increase exercise you’ll need to cut calories. Using the current food though will be even a smaller volume and already your dog is having satiety issues. So in order to feed more volume you need to cut back on the fat content in the foods you are feeding.
For example if you wanted to feed ~600 kcals a day and used lower fat foods you could feed 3/4 cup dry am and pm with 1/4 can am and pm. (12 oz can) Soaking the kibble prior to feeding adds filler…. volume without calories.
Additionally, I recommend that you weigh the foods instead of estimating and measuring volume.
Once on the new diet foods weigh your pets every week and if they are not losing then you need to drop calories by another 20 % and reevaluate again.
Good Luck!
