We have a six month old dog. When we are feeding her normal portion of dog food, she starts to cry with her head down, and running around in distress. What do you think of this?

Mr. Frawley,

First let me thank you for all the wonderful articles on your web site. We had a German German with a skin disorder and a fear biting problem. There were ghosts in her head. We had her put down after biting a friend of mine that walked into our home. Convinced that the skin disorder and fear biting problem we contacted the breeder and they made good with a replacement dog. This dog has a wonderful disposition with pure German lines. The problem is that we just had her to the vet and the vet thinks there is a serious problem. The dog is six months old and only weight 38 pounds. Only a ten pound gain in the last four months. When feeding her normal portions and she starts crying pointing her nose down. Running around in distress. It is obvious she is in great pain. She will then vomit and all is well. The vet told us that she did not think is was bloat or torsion because we would feel organs protrude out of her side.

We have been feeding her smaller portions more frequent. Maybe not enough.. I hope it is not too late. The vet claims that from being not fed enough or for whatever reason the dog will not develop to its normal size being that you can see the dogs ribs and she is rather tiny for six months and her bones will not grow anymore after six months. I thought is was good to not feed a dog too much as they may develop other problems. She is rather skinny though. We are going to try to feed her these smaller portions maybe even seven times per day - a mixture of wet and dry food as we have. Is this a common problem? Will this dog ever reach normal size? Any advice, comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Bill