Thanks for all your advice - my bitch has always been a great weight and loves her food (lots of Irish Setters I know look very skinny) but only since her Ist season last month has she put on. She has had the recommended amount of excercise and free running on our friends gallops - now that I have cut back her food, I will also take her walking for a touch longer.

Thanks again
Puppy Love x

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And they called it.......Puppy Love xxx

I would imagine that her weight gain is more to do with the fact that if she has reached her first season, she is more physically mature and therefore needs fewer calories now.

If she is a year old, you can start increasing her exercise, an dreduce her food. is she on adult kibble now? (If she is kibble fed?) that is less calorie dense than puppy food.

Hi jackson
She is still on Royal Canin Junior as it says to use until 15 months, I had intended to move her to adult over the next few months but do you think I should do it sooner??

As for the exercise - how long can I keep her out for now she is a year old - I know it was 5 mins for every month old so that would make it 1 hour total per day split into 2/3 walks, but can i now up that and have her out longer for each walk??

Puppy Love

__________________
And they called it.......Puppy Love xxx

Puppylove, at a year old, she has done most of her growing so you can increase her exericise. Also, rather than just increasing time, think of taking her somewhere you can go up hill, do you have water nearby so she can go swimming?

I don't like keeping them on puppy food for long due the higher protein, and usually change over to adult at around 6/8 months.

We have been having the same issue with our 4 year old staffy. Her exercise has been very limited as she's had a couple of operations this year and as a result she started to put on a lot of weight. We resorted to replacing 3 or 4 meals a week entirely with veg & a bit of rice while she was being cage rested but you wouldnt need to do it that much. After that she just needs loads of excercise. If your worried about her joints getting over excercised at a young age why don't you try hydrotherapy? We started to use it for post-op rehab but lot's of people go just for the excercise and fun. 5 minutes in the pool is the same as a few miles running and dogs love it once they figure out what's going on!