Overweight Dogs

Ugh. We just had a lab surrendered today. 99 lbs. dog should be down in the 70 range, at least! Poor thing couldn't stop panting. I didn't think she would make it up the hill we have between our medical kennels and our adoption kennels!

I think Casey's starting to bulk up a bit. I've cut back on his food, and increased his exercise. Weight is a big issue for my dog - he's longer, and I don't want him to have problems later on! Corgis are sooo prone to being overweight. I wish he liked water... swimming is fantastic exercise.

Maybe you could encourage your friend to take the dog to more places. Hiking with your dogs, a trip to the park - quick swim in the pool. Anything to get him to move around more. Maybe through in something about his hips not looking so great... something to grab his attention, without mentioning his weight.

ack, remember that show on animal planet about obese dogs?!  GROSS!!!  That HUGE rottie?!  And how much that owner was in denial?!

 I dont feed CoCo on a schedule; she is free fed.  But she's a self regulator.... and she's very active!  Plus she can run like the wind!  I actually raced her home a few times...not on feet obviously! lol But me on a bike (off leash, her on the sidewalk, me on the streets) and each time she beat me home.... granted after like the 5th run, she kinda ran home and plopped down on the lawn as to say NO MORE!

That poor dog is so stinking CUTE! I have a big fondness for fat pets, and fat babies. They're very aesthetically pleasing, to me. There is a point where they stop being cute and start looking fat and unhappy, though... Teenie was there, when I got her.

I tend to keep my dogs "too thin". Emma has mega joint issues, and Teenie had cervical disc disease. Right now, Emma is a bit ribby. I like her a smidge heavier, but not where all of the ribs are covered. She's just active, and swimming a lot with all the warm weather. I just increased her food.

A vet has NEVER told me that Emma needed to lose weight, even when she was overweight. They said she looked good. I put her on a diet. They told me Teenie needed to lose, but they thought she looked good before I did. My mom's little dog is FAT, but she doesn't believe it. The vet told her he needed to lose a few pounds to help his arthritis, and she got MAD. Sometimes, you just can't tell people until they come to you, asking for advice.

jennie_c_d

A vet has NEVER told me that Emma needed to lose weight, even when she was overweight. They said she looked good. I put her on a diet. They told me Teenie needed to lose, but they thought she looked good before I did. My mom's little dog is FAT, but she doesn't believe it. The vet told her he needed to lose a few pounds to help his arthritis, and she got MAD. Sometimes, you just can't tell people until they come to you, asking for advice.

Unfortunately I feel too many dog owners take a vet's word as gold.  I don't ask for my vet's opinion on Kenya's size, and if it's given, I take it with a grain of salt unless it is a particular vet that knows shepherds.  When I have questions about her size, her muscles, etc, I talk to breeders and those that train and compete in sport.  Personally, I think a lot of show GSDs look on the heavy side and have an unbalanced look.  Balance is everything with GSDs.  With a medium-large breed prone to various joint problems, it's better to err on the lean side.  I do not believe the GSD standards specifically mention ribs/no ribs.  On competitive sport dogs and working dogs, you will see ribs, but also muscle.  You will also see ribs (sometimes too much rib, IMO) on showline dogs as well.  Coat type and condition are often a factor in how much rib you see.  A sable GSD that is out of coat will look a lot more thin and scrawny than a more plush coated black and red GSD.  Also, GSDs often take 2 years to fully mature and fill out.  Again, if people are offering opinions on weight/size and don't have experience competing with this breed or knowing how season and coat type/condition will affect the look of the dog, I take that with a grain of salt.

For example, here is a male American show line.  I would say he's looking on the thinner side, but still acceptable to me.  Go figure, he is sable and out of coat in this pic!
 

I get many comments on Kenya size.  People often think she is a mix or a puppy.  I don't know what really to say.  A GSD is a medium-large dog, not an XL dog.  She is within the standard and has a conformation title.  I don't really have time to try to convince people they are wrong. 

 Remember those "Can't Pinch an Inch On Me"?  They were for Special K.  This is now how my sister judges obesity.  This is a fairly good measure for humans.  When we get overweight, our outer layer of fat is jiggly and easy to grab onto.  Our skin stretches so easily compared to dogs that this is possible.  With dogs its different, at least IME.  With my Pint(who was technically her dog) she was like a fat little sausage stuffed into a too tight skin.  My sister's current dog Tucker is the same way.  Thus, my sister doesn't feel he is overweight.  He's not jiggly.  He's solid.  Solid to her means muscle.  So he must be muscle.

jode88

Are you blind to it?  Is your dog overweight and would you see it if he/she was? 

I keep Bugsy lean - he has a fast metabolism and is active so it isn't hard work but if I see less rib I take care of it. Bugsy is very muscular and short coated so it is pretty easy to see rib and backbone on him.  He is far from undernourished and I want to reduce the stress on his joints as much as possible.  He is a very large dog to fly around the way he does jumping over and on anything and everything everyday.  It is my responsibility to ensure his health.

That poor dog you posted is obese and I feel badly for it. I've done my fair share of dissections and I have a strong visual of fat surrounding organs etc. I also remember someone asking all of us to carry around a 20lb sack of potatoes for a day and see how our joints felt.  Adult humans are responsible for their own weight but pets and children are the responsibility of those adults.  It would be very difficult to really have your friend listen though.

Besides I have noticed that lots of people want their large dogs to be bigger than someone else's large dog.  This usually leads to some very heavy dogs.  Bugsy is a lean 105 and looks smaller than that.  I have had so many people say oh my dog is 100lbs too and then not believe Bugs weighs that much because he looks thin.  Heck some very good friends of mine have bred and raised labs for ages.  They currently have a handsome young lab that is a show dog.  I guess in the ring they want huge male labs so despite the fact that this is a smallish lab (short end of the spectrum) they had him bulked up to like 92lbs.  Then he blew his knee out at 3 yo and I'm guessing from what they are now doing that they got told he needed to be leaner and stronger to prevent further injuries.  They rarely exercised him and now they run him daily.  My guess is that he would be ideal at no more than 80.

At times I really do think that 'mine is bigger than yours' is a factor - a sad statement about our society no doubt. I got a bigger house a bigger car and a bigger dog.  Anyway if I were you I'd probably say something (surprised the vet hasn't) even if they didn't listen. 

It's odd - we lived on a farm and always free-fed our dogs.  They just had kibble down all the time.  We had all kinds of dogs from St. Bernards, Border Collies, Airedale Terrier, Labs, Pits, Great Dane, Cockers, Poodles - you name it!  We had lots of dogs dumped off and took in lots of dogs.  Not a one of them got fat.  They were all just about the perfect weight.  They were never exercised either other than what they did for themselves.  Never gave their weight a thought really.

Now my mom has a Rottie and many smaller dogs.  She is careful with the Rottie at feeding time so she no longer has food down all the time (she just doesn't want to put the Rottie in the positition of "defending" his food against the smaller dogs).  Now she has weight problems in several dogs.  

 I am wondering about that.  My two dogs have free acccess to kibble and are cooked homemade food and are quite thin.  They eat so much compared to normal dogs 3x their size.  They are 3 and 6 lbs. each.  They eat A LOT yet are of excellent weight and muscle.

 Does anyone wonder if there is a correlation between free-fed and specific mealtimes and a dog's weight?  My mom and I are really wondering about this.

Umm... many of the dogs that I know are free fed, and super FAT. My uncle's dog has a bowl of Kibbles N Bits down all the time, and he gets plenty of "fresh" foods, too. He's hugely heavy. And long backed. I know that it's extremely common to just leave food out for dogs. I used to work in a kennel and people had no idea how much their dogs ate. Most pet dogs are overweight, so yeah, there's a connection between feeding style and weight problems, LOL. Probably, it has something to do with the kind of food they eat, too.  

There is no way I could ever free feed Charlie.  I wouldn't be able to keep the bowl full.  His food is gone in a matter of minutes.

Well, maybe it was just life on the farm.  It's not like their bowl was right in front of them all the time - it was in one of the sheds and most of the dogs spent their time on the front porch.  I don't know, but it was weird.  Growing up all our dogs were just never fat.   They never scarfed their food or stole food or anything like that.  Now that they aren't free fed, they do exactly that - scarf their food and try to steal food whenever they can.  Weird.

 But then again, growing up it's not like they were just in the house with a bowl right in front of them.  And for my dogs, even though we live in the suburbs, we are very active.  They get to go for hikes and out to my parents farm every night where we try to get all the dogs to run and play for exercise. 

 Some dogs can be free fed and maintain a good weight.  Northern breeds are notorious for governing their own weight.  Not all of them do it, but a good sled dog almost always will.  Other dogs are food mongers.  I think beagles and labs are big on eating and will stuff themselves on a daily basis.  Crusher will gorge, but then he won't eat for 2 days to make up for it.  It really just depends on the dog. 

I could easily free-feed Kenya with no problems.  As it is, she only eats about 2/3 of what I give her.  The problem is not her, but other animals (Coke and the cats) would be eating food that is not theirs.  I can free-feed my cats as well, but don't b/c they would eat each others' food. 

Totally off topic, but Liesje, I love your new siggie - Kenya looks fantastic!   But where is Coke?

sillysally

I would bring it up casually--not in a critical way.  You could mention that you think *your* dog is a bit overweight (whether he is or not) because you can hardly feel his ribs anymore.  You could tell a story about "someone you know" with a dog that is having ALL kinds of EXPENSIVE problems with arthritis and the vet says it's because the dog was too heavy for too long.

This is definitely what I would do. "My dog's on a diet now - I just saw the craziest thing on TV! It was all about how a dog being even a little bit overweight gives them arthritis and can actually make them die young! It scared me so bad, I doubled my dog's exercise, cut out all treats, and am using a measuring cup to make sure he gets the right amount of kibble!"

I usually have the best success bridging touchy dog owning subjects with people like that. Not, "I know lots of stuff, so let me share my superior knowledge with you" (which is how people often hear it), but, "I heard this really cool thing - have you heard about it yet? Isn't that interesting? Aren't you an equal participant in my knowledge?"  

Interesting topic. Belle was overweight and we didn't see it. We honestly did not think it was "that" bad. She is a big dog and carried it well. SHE DID NOT LOOK LIKE THAT DOG IN THE PICTURE! When she got KC and gained more weight, I knew she had to "lose some". We took her to the vet she weighed 120 lbs. Once we got her health checked etc and discussed it with our vet she started her diet. She now weighs 85 lbs. I admit she looks awesome, I had no idea. What was fun was some of the people who nicely mentioned Belle was overweight, were also the same ones who came to us and said they didn't recognizer her she looks AWESOME. That meant a lot to me.

The thing with telling someone is they may not want to hear it, and you may wreck a friendship. You have to balance the costs. Same thing if you have a "human" friend gaining weight, it must be approached very carefully.

It is so very true that weight ages a dog faster, increases joint health issues. I like Sally's idea about "someone you know" stories. They might help.

Can you encourage more exercise? Tell the person to come with you on walks? Take the dogs for runs, starting small slowly increasing as the dog is ready? Not telling them why just say you like the company can they join you?

As I type this I had a realization. Belle had NO interest in frisbees what so ever. Then all of the sudden she has become a frisbee fanatic. Do you think that trying to catch a frisbee, and/or chase it down was fun for her when she was overweight? I guess she was probably smarter than I was.

Good Luck that dog seriously needs to lose weight but if the owner doesn't seem to care not a whole heck of a lot you can do.