This Is Why Your Dog Is Fat

Some time back, in a post entitled Murder By Can Opener, I noted that:

Behind every fat adult dog is a weak human who cannot say "no," or who cannot control others in the household who insist on stepping in to give the dog a treat.

In the latter case the issue is simply making a big damn deal out of it if other people feed your dog without asking your permission. People in your house should fear crossing the line every bit as much as I feared touching my father's trombone as a child. Humans can be taught to leave well enough alone. I can assure you that no man goes into a woman's purse without permission more than once. Feeding a dog should never be a community responsibility -- one person has to have absolute ownership and and authority over what, and how much, the dog eats.

More often than not, however, the reason a dog is fat is not that other people are feeding it but that that the owner thinks that every time he or she eats a meal, the dog must also get a bite or two. Look at those eyes!

But that's not the end of it, is it? The dog also gets to lick the plates, and maybe the kitchen bowls. The dog also gets a little canned food mixed in with his dry food as "a little treat." Anything that falls on the kitchen floor the dog is allowed to have. Plus there's the biscuit the dog gets every night before it goes to bed ....

Add it all up, and you have a LOT of calories going into that dog.

And, more often then not, you also have a dog that will die many years sooner than it should, often after having spent the last half of its life lethargic, and more often than not with joint problems.

Unseen are the same kind of diseases that stalk overweight humans: heart disease and clogged arteries, fatty liver disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

As I noted in a later post on the same subject:

If you have a smooth-coated adult dog like a pointer or a smooth-coated Jack Russell, you should be able to see at least two or three ribs when the dog breathes deeply after running a short distance.

Rest assured that no one who reads dog-oriented web sites and books is ever going to have a dog that is too thin. People who sign up for canine list-servs, buy books on dogs, and read pet columns in the newspaper are much more likely to feed their dogs to death than they are to run their dogs even a pound or two too light.

How do you get the weight off a fat dog? Simple: stop feeding it so much.

Portion control IS weight control.
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