Ideal weight of your dog

• Extends their lifespan
• Helps your dog stay healthy and active during added years
• Correct dog diet helps your dog to be one happy pupster

While a cute little chubby puppy looks stinking adorable, keeping them close to their ideal weight is much healthier for them and can extend their lifespan – in some cases even up to two years. It is also important that they stay healthy and active during those added years.

Dog obesity adds serious health risks, such as the development of sugar diabetes that can require regular treatment with insulin, digestive disorders, increased risk of heart disease, blood pressure (hypertension), cancer and surgical and anesthetic risk, decreased liver, kidney and immune function as well skin and hair coat issues.

On top of all that, the added weight also causes decreased stamina, difficulty breathing and a higher risk of damage to joints, bones and ligaments. It should be noted, that although obesity is a more common issue, dogs being underweight are at health risk as well. Quite scary, but a correct dog diet coupled with regular exercise will help them grow from a healthy and happy pupster to a big and loving dog!

Main goal of Pawsm mobile app

• monitors food intake
• monitors daily activity
• nutrient calculator for optimal daily meal
• helps you reach optimal dog weight

Keeping dogs healthy by monitoring their food intake and exercise, was our main goal when making the PAWSM mobile dog app. We made a special nutrient calculator for optimal feeding based on established veterinarian formulas, that take your chosen dog food (which you can pick out in our dog food database, or add your own if it’s not yet logged, or even do a range search of desired ingredients each dog food contains), their daily exercise and of course their basic data such as breed, sex, weight, age, height, etc.

Some measurements, most commonly their height, are also needed to determine a dog’s ideal weight and weighing them periodically is needed to determine their starting point and progress made. While the mobile app helps with choosing the food and logging in their daily exercise and some of the basic data, it can’t (yet ^^) help with weighing your dog or measuring their height. No worries though, we have you covered there as well with a short tutorial that will help you gather your dog’s data correctly.

Measuring your dog’s height

Dog’s height is the distance between the dog’s withers and the floor. The withers on a dog is the highest point of their shoulder blades (at the base of the neck). The easiest way is to place your dog next to a wall, make sure the dog is standing up straight, and place a long ruler on top of your dog’s withers perpendicular to the wall. Then simply measure the distance between that perpendicular point on the wall and the floor.

Weighing your dog

Weighing your dog is simple when it comes to small dogs (put him on a home scale and keep them steady for as long as the scale needs). But it gets progressively harder with the weight and size of the dog.

The next trick is to weigh yourself and then weigh yourself while holding the dog; the difference between the two is the dog’s weight.

XL sized breeds, that are rather heavy to hold in hand, require some improvisation. The usual trick is to place a board on the home scale to enlarge the platform (remember to take the weight of the board into account). If that however doesn’t work for you, you can try going to the vet where they have scales with larger platforms. Buying a large platform scale is of course also an option.

Voila! Your dog has been weighed and measured. Now you just have to insert the data in the PAWSM app and you’re done!

Stay PAWSM, be awesome 😉

How does Pawsm mobile app work?