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Is Your Pet Overweight? How to Tell (and Help Him Slim Down)

sit up with pugIt Can Happen to Anyone

Helping your pet to maintain a healthy weight or to lose a few pounds requires just a few changes to food and activity, which I’ll detail in a moment. And if you slip up here and there or find it difficult, don’t beat yourself up! Although my dogs are currently at a healthy weight, at one point, my Pug Bruce had a weight problem. And believe me, Bruce is not the type of dog to watch his weight willingly — he would eat an entire bag of food if he was ever free-fed.

Bruce’s problem happened over the holidays when I left him at a doggy daycare while I was traveling. I returned after two weeks to pick up my Pugs and I could only find one of them in the kennel area. I was borderline frantic not being able to find my dog when one of the employees pointed to a kennel with a Pug inside and said, “Oh, there’s Bruce. He might look a little different I guess … He learned to open up other dogs’ kennel gates and we had a heck of a time keeping him from eating other dogs’ food. I think he might have put on a little weight …” I looked over to see what appeared to be a round, hairy pumpkin with floppy ears, stubby legs and a curled tail like a pig.

I remember thinking it couldn’t possibly be him. I even had to check his ID tag and talk to him to see his personality to come out in order to confirm this was my dog. My Pug I had prided myself on keeping at a healthy weight now looked like an overstuffed turkey pulled out of the oven and ready to be served at a holiday gathering! Instead of my athletic and muscular Pug, I now had a portly Pug that looked like an anaconda who had just swallowed a hippo.

Bruce waddled over with seeming exertion and he lifted his legs up for me to pick him up, but nearly toppled over, he was so top heavy. I groaned as I heaved him up to my chest, and his head seemed to be absorbed into his fat-filled wrinkly skin with only two eyes, mouth and a nose able to peer up out of what otherwise looked like a hairy orb.

I do have to admit that Bruce, who is the most food-focused dog I’ve ever encountered, seemed to be delighted and fulfilled. I have no doubt he had the most incredible time a Pug’s ever had devouring other dogs’ meals before the attendants caught on to his Houdini antics. But, the negative effects of his weight gain were also obvious to me, as I could see he was limping more on his back leg he already had problems with and he had developed breathing issues that caused his breaths to sound like a heavy snore. I knew that, for his own good, he had to lose weight immediately.

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Comments

6 Comments
  1. Cassie says:

    What an interesting article! Lately my family has been debating whether or not my dog is overweight. I’ll definitely check up on it!

  2. Dewy says:

    Excellent article,
    I guess it is harder for a pet parent to accept that their pet is over-weight than them to accept their own weight.

    The problem lies with the activity levels, pets, people – everyone is doing less activities and taking more idle and rest times.

    I guess it is time to just go out and get some running, jogging or exercises done,

    thanks,
    Dewy,

  3. Joli Tripp says:

    Great info! We love our furr babies so much that we reward them with food everytime they look at us with their big beautiful eyes. These are great tips. Just keeping my 2 kitties from sleeping 23 hours a day is my battle. They eat, they sleep. That’s it. But feeding them a natural diet of grain free food has done more for their weight than anything else I’ve done.

  4. Will Shaw says:

    Interesting post!
    The problem lies with the activity levels, pets, people – everyone is doing less activities and taking more idle and rest times
    L.ately my family has been debating whether or not my dog is overweight. I’ll definitely check up on it!

  5. kalpana S says:

    Useful information. I observed dogs also suffer from weight problems due to health issues. You have discussed causes of gaining weight and also it can increase the risk of breathing problems and over-stressing joints etc. Can you suggest any other blog for getting instructions to prevent weight gain in pets? Along with this article, I would like to share about the hamster pets which were established as popular small house pets.

  6. kalpana S says:

    I have already read some information about how pets are suffering with overweight problems. Here you have given some instructions on how to get active the pet such as biking with your dog, puppy pushups and water exercises etc. This blog is continuous to that blog. Thanks for sharing. Apart from this article, I learned about the facts about hamsters as pets which have become established as popular small house pets.

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