Fat dogs
I took several pictures of my dogs recently and, let’s face it, they are fat. When I first got the dogs I walked them twice a day. I considered it an obligation of being a dog owner. So, rain or shine, I walked them twice a day. It kept them less fat.
When Cinnamon was a puppy she was skinny. She had parasites. As soon as the parasites were gone she continued to eat as if she still had them. She runs all over the yard so she keeps her weight down. She’s muscular. She’s big and she just looks big. She doesn’t look really fat unless she’s around some skinny dog like a greyhound, or some thin dalmation.
Baxter is fat. He’s always been fat. He eats everything. He likes food. He wants to savor his food. If he had the opportunity, he would eat slowly. If he ate slowly, Cinnamon would shove him out of the way and eat all his food, so he eats fast. He moves slowly. He doesn’t run all over the yard. He saunters. So he is fat. I’ve cut back on the dog food, the treats, the little extras, all that and he remains fat. He needs to be walked.
Dalmations were bred to run alongside a carriage. Baxter needs to be running alongside a carriage. The guy down the street has a couple of dalmations. He takes them on a good 3 to 4 mile walk every day. One of them hadn’t been walked by her prior owner and she got fat too. She seemed unhappy. Now she seems happy and she has slimmed down. She’s also with another dalmation.
Baxter doesn’t seem unhappy. Neither does Cinnamon. I take them on short walks when I can manage it. I’m out with them outside in the garden, and they are running all over out there. Both are getting older and both seem to have some arthritis. I get them out the front of the house for a walk some times. They get out back several times a day. Still Baxter remains fat while Cinnamon stays thinner.
It’s not until I see the photos that I realize just how fat the dogs are. It’s what almost everyone says when they see the “puppies.” Some people couch it in politically correct terms. They say the dogs are “well loved.” Meaning I feed them too much. So for the past month I’ve been very careful in watching exactly what they are eating. I did cut down on Baxter’s food. I cut it in half. Unless they are binging out on the weekends, on Friday and Saturday, they are not remotely eating too much. So this is not enough exercise. They have lost a bit of weight in the past month. Baxter dropped a pound. Cinnamon stayed the same. Gradually with some work Baxter should lose some more.
Weight loss is hard work for everybody. It’s hard even for dogs. It takes a two pronged approach. A medical evaluation to ensure there are no medical obstructions to weight loss. My dogs have a clean vet bill of health. Then it takes a good diet and a weight loss plan and food control and an exercise plan. If you go from exercising twice a day for a mile to a little bit of running around the yard then you are likely to put on weight, just like my dogs have. So they have to cut calories and increase exercise. The occasional rat, bird, and cat in the yard just isn’t enough of an exercise plan for them.
People used to have to do a lot of things. They had to move around a lot to get things done. Now things are done by automation. Few things have to be done physically. People get bigger. We used to be able to burn off the calories we ate. Now we don’t. Our diets got much higher in convience foods and sugars. It’s helpful to limit these. Just like I have to limit how much dogs can have treats. They are not for all the time.
