Is the chicken raw? It’s ok for dogs to eat raw bones, it can even be good for them in that it helps to clean their teeth (there’s still the danger of choking if they eat too quickly, but as long as the bone is raw and you haven’t had any problems it should be fine, just keep an eye out). However, avoid giving her cooked bones as cooked bones can splinter as they chew and get lodged in the dog’s throat.

Yeah with the food sometimes she gets chicken in which she’ll eat the bones, is that alright?

It’s great that you recognized that your Jack Russel cross needs to get in shape and are actually doing something to get her fit. And yeah, It is really tough to get any sort of traction on your dog’s fitness if your family continues its bad feeding habits, I’m in the same boat as you now with Keeda.

Don’t worry about the distance – little dogs are tougher than they look. As long as you watch closely for signs of dog fatigue and heat exhaustion throughout your runs you should be fine.

That said, I agree completely about exercising our dogs, I have a Jack Russell cross Terrier aged 5 years and I’ve noticed how podgy she has become in just a couple of years when I was overseas. It came down to feeding her with too much human food like chicken, steak and bones and not a lot of walking. When she goes down the stairs she walks sideways and it was worrying me.

So needing a bit of exercise myself, I run with her, maintaining the pace that she (and I) can sustain. The first time she had to stop a couple times but eventually she could run a few kilometres. I’m not sure if that’s too much for a little dog but she doesn’t look too tired out when we get home and of course there’s water waiting for her.

What I am concerned more about is diet, I tend to stick to dog food but the rest of the family wants to give her my dinner plate