[Dailydrool] Fat Dogs

[A. Woodrum]

I have to say something here about overweight dogs, and how nasty people can
be, because this is a very sore subject with me.  To make this Basset
related, Holly is trim and a perfect weight, Gracie is a little fluffy and
Anna has a pot belly.  So do I.

 

Now.  Mr. Gus was my last Dachshund, he was a small standard and should have
weighed 21 or 22 pounds.  Gus was a rescue who was probably about 8 years
old when he came to live with me, and he was the fattest dog I have ever in
my life seen.  The first time I weighed him was about three weeks after he
came to me, and he weighed 48 pounds.  He had the shortest legs of any
Dachshund I've ever seen, he was so fat he could barely waddle and his
weenie missed scraping the ground by about 1/8 of an inch, and I'm not
making this up.  Oh yes, he had been in rescue for nearly a year, so doG
knows how much he weighed when he first went into rescue but you know they
had been working on his weight.  And he still weighed 48 pounds.

 

Well anyway, Gus had to take medicine for some health issues, so you had to
be careful about cutting his food back too much - besides, if he got hungry,
he would find a way to get into the cat food and eat it.  So we were reduced
to walking all that fat off, and I got him down to 27 pounds from 48 before
we hit a plateau and could not get more off.  I was able to walk 21 pounds
off him, and that was it.  Which I thought was pretty darn good.  He looked
a little chubby, but wonderful compared to where we started.

 

So here is what I want to say about this - when we would go to Petsmart and
other places, there was always at least one rude person who felt compelled
to announce "look at that fat dog, boy that's just disgusting" or something
similar after we had walked by.  They never had the guts to say it to my
face, only to our backs.  I never went Marlene on any of them, but I sure
wanted to.  It took a lot of work to get 21 pounds off that old boy, and I
highly resented some big-mouthed know-it-all announcing to the world how fat
he was and what a bad owner I was.  And I still resent it, even though he's
been dead for quite a few years.  So I guess I'm saying, don't be too quick
to judge, you don't necessarily know all the facts and background.  And if
you do make snap judgments, please keep them to yourself.  Snide, nasty
comments that are meant to be heard in public places are NEVER appropriate.


 

Thanks for listening.  End of Rant.

 

Anita Woodrum

awoodrum at clear.net

 

 

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