Hi Sylvia - so glad Roman’s doing well! Is the goal to help him lose weight, or help him eat more veg, or both?

Speaking only from my own experience, if the goal is only weight loss you can easily do this by cutting his kibble back to approximately 60% of the amount recommended for his goal weight (as determined by your vet) on the petfood package. A trainer once taught us this, saying that pet food companies are out to sell kibble, not necessarily keep your pet at a healthy weight! We’ve used this rule of thumb for both cats and dogs and with just a little tweaking in the end as they neared their target weight, and it has worked great. (We use this handy chart to help us gage our ongoing +/- tweaks.)

As far as feeling full, we’ve found that cats and dogs are creatures of habit (as are we!) and if they’re used to getting more kibble they may complain and beg for more at first, but if you stick with the planned amount, in pretty short order they adjust and don’t seem that bothered. You can also help them savor the smaller amount longer with food puzzles and slow feeders.

I know Honorary Tripawds Spokes Dawg Nellie has gone on a similar journey!

All that said, feeding Roman some veg may still be a great idea, but it can sometimes be challenging to change up diet while doing chemo, so take it slow and see what he likes. (I like your vet’s suggestion of 50% of what’s recommended for his target weight on the kibble package, which then leaves 10% of his calories for veg.) I’m told that starting with cooked veg can help ease them into new options (something I’m going to try with Juno post chemo).

Cheering for you!