We adopted a 3 month old husky pup 5 days ago.
He's doing great and everyone is getting along well. I'm concerned about his weight and would love some advice.

He was abandoned at 2 months with mange. The foster home he was in during recovery didn't know much about huskies and was feeding some cheap junk with lots of filler. The shelter seemed surprise to hear that some huskies have grain issues (he had pretty noticeable dandruff), and I highly doubt the home that failed to treat the mange and abandoned him was doing a great job with his food.

My concern is that he seems lightweight and skinny. At the Vet yesterday, he weighed in at a measly 13.8 lbs @ 3 months. The vet said his weight was fine, but huskies are rare around here, so he may be a little inexperienced with them. On top of that, his ribs are pretty well defined and you can feel his backbone slightly while petting him.

Judging by some of the other posts here, he's pretty under weight. The sad part is he's noticeably larger and more filled out than when we first got him just a few days ago, so he's making progress.

I'm feeding him twice a day (1 heaping cup of kibble at each feeding). He gets a few treats for good behavior/training, but they are few and quite small. I know 3 times a day is recommended, but so far that hasn't been realistic. He's currently getting 1/4 TOTW Pacific puppy mix, and 3/4 stuff he had at the foster home (which is a mix of 2 foods I wouldn't consider). Waste removal so far has been fine. I plan to kick him up to 1/2 and 1/2 on Saturday.

He gets plenty of exercise, and is a very energetic little guy, so he seems very healthy, but underweight.

What I'm wondering is how I should react.
I want to add some more food to his diet to help him catch up a bit, but I don't want him growing too quickly. So should I add an extra feeding (was thinking a 1/4 cup of TOTW at lunch)? Or should I let him catch up slowly with the 2 cups he's on now?

Welcome to the forum, and seen your other post what a cutie you have, and I will say he may be a pure husky, let's guess when he is older.

To your question....hmmmm going to compare notes here, my gsd is considered a large breed vs a husky which is considered upper end of medium. At 9 weeks old she weighed about 11 pounds. So to be fair to your guy, I don't imagine he is terribly underweight, and you are right on with the food you are feeding, and the expectations of a slow and steady weight increase. If you can feed him the extra 1/4 cup at mid day I think would benefit him. I am a believer of feeding 4 times a day as young pups, cut to 3 times at 6 months and 2-3 times at around 8 months. 8 months is when you will start to decrease overall amount of food as well. So right now you want a steady climb of more food, until, like I said 8 months, and then a steady decrease, to a normal adult amount at a year old. Ok, so with my girl, she was a tad bit underweight too, I fed in the middle of the road from the package according to weight and age. So your pup at 3 months and between 10-20 pounds is recommended to feed 2-3.25 cups a day. I would slowly work my way up to 3 cups a day. Now for me, I do feed partial raw, so with her the max I ever fed of kibble was 3 cups, if you are strictly feeding kibble, then I would stay in the middle of the recommendations as he ages and as he gains weight. Huskies in general eat 20-25% less than what is recommended on the package. They tend to be self regulators. I will add also that my older girl is mostly husky with a little gsd, and like I already mentioned I have a pure gsd, They both self regulate. At 10 months old my gsd decided that 3 cups a day was too much, which is not even listed for her age and weight, at 10 months she weighed 60 pounds. Normally they both eat under 2 cups a day, and their raw, and typically they both skip breakfast and have a light snack instead. I probably gave you too much info, lol. Work your way up to 3 cups, feeding 1 cup 3 times a day, so that by the time he is over 20 pounds he should be still in the 3-4 month age range and consistently by then eating 3 cups a day, back off if he gets too pudgy, and go up to max recommend if he is still too skinny. Hope that helps

Thank you very much for your advice!
No amount of info is too much. I love to research things and learn!

I think I'll start with the 1/4 cup of TOTW at noon today. And I'll gradually increase it as you said.

When I rescued mine a whole bunch of foster ladies recommended I do satin balls. You can look up the recipe online but it's basically just hamburger and some other things you can find at the grocery store. You can alter it for grain free needs I'm sure. For meru, my vet recommended some vitamin e oil in there as well since she was scheduled for surgery shortly. Since she was malnourished to near death and our vet wanted weight on her mcfast so we could get her in for surgery, I had to feed her six times a day, but you can just give one to the pupper every now and then for slower weight gain.

He might not be as underweight as you think (though we can't see what he looks like). My girl was 8 lbs at 10 wks, 10 lbs at 13 weeks and is only 15 lbs at 20 weeks. Perhaps he'll just be on the small side? A lot of husky pups that I've seen look skinny but thats how they should look

I feed TotW Pacific Puppy as well--I saw some big improvements in my pups after the switchover. He'll start to improve too, I'm sure (especially coat wise). Have you thought about free feeding him? (If he's one that will self regulate...)

No idea if he'd self regulate, but he'll be sharing his kennel with another dog (a 10 year old on a completely different diet). I think free feeding would end up a chaotic mess and he may end up with less food for all I know. The big guy keeps trying to get to his food the way it is.

He's grown visibly since we first saw him at the shelter, and even more so in the 5 days we've had him, but he's still thin. I kept thinking I was maybe tricking myself as he's got a very thin coat while most huskies have fairly fluffy coats at this point (unless I'm mistaken), but you can feel a lot of detail in the ribs, and you can make out the individual vertebrae while petting.
He's got fairly large paws, gigantic ears, and he's fairly tall already, so I think he's going to be at least average sized when he grows up.

Dave, my first thought is that Huskies are naturally 'svelte'. It seems as if a lot of people think that the Husky should be a miniature (or smaller) version of the Malamute who is a much stockier dog. Bearing in mind that Mal's were 'built' to haul heavy loads and Huskies were built to haul smaller loads over longer distance and you can see why they're 'built' the way they are.

Again. I mentioned this in another post, fur length is not really part of the breed standard until you reach the point of a 'wooly'. I have two Sibes here, one has the typical short, tight coat and one has a thicket, fluffier coat - but as much as they look like different breeds they aren't - they're both sibes.

As I think others have said, you don't want him to grow too fast, that's hard on his forming bones - best to streive for a slow consistent growth until he reaches his maximum and don't worry about whether he might be a bit small (or a bit large), you're not showing him.

I tried increasing his food by just 1/4 cup a day and he went straight to loose stools, so I backed him off to the 2 cups a day he was already on and things are better again. I'm going to try splitting it into 3 meals a day as many suggested. It works better for our schedules now that he's outside with Sam.

Thought I'd update this thread since he just got back from the Vet. 15.9 pounds @ 14 weeks. He's still at just 2 cups of food a day. Any more and waste removal requires a hose instead of a bag.

2 pound gain in 2 weeks.

Still about 5-10 pounds under what most people have posted around here. I may try upping his intake again at 16 weeks and see if it takes or not.

Vet didn't have any concerns. He is looking bigger, and I can tell he is way stronger, but his ribs and backbone are still pretty well defined.