Killing with kindness

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BBP

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Today I fell a little in love.

My neighbours foster dogs for a nearby rescue centre. I saw them walk the latest one past my gate and randomly thought they had taken on a weird house pig. This thing was like a coffee table it was so wide and flat across the back. I met it a little later this afternoon and it’s a flipping border collie! It’s as wide as it is tall, wobbles as it moves, weighs nearly 40kgs (small frame collie), can’t walk for more than a few minutes at a time. All it’s fur has been clipped off as it was so matted and had sores, so it resembles a pig. It’s hard not to be disgusted looking at it.

Then he turned and came up to me and looked up at me with these big beautiful sad brown eyes and I fell totally in love. How could someone let a dog get into such an awful state? Especially such an athletic breed as a collie. He’s such a beautiful soul, if my cats weren’t already outraged at having one dog added to the family this year I would have been sorely tempted to enquire about adopting him, but a) the cats would leave Home for sure (although to be fair this one couldnt chase them if he wanted to) and b) I’m not sure I could manage the slow and steady regime he would need alongside the more active life for my 9 month old puppy. But I really hope he finds a lovely home and gets back to a healthy weight so he can enjoy life like a collie should.
 
Try seeing a greyhound in that state - it breaks my heart :( Hopefully the fosterers will get some weight off this poor collie and he finds a decent home!
 
There’s two whippets by me so are so disgustingly overweight I want to cry. They dogs take about 3 strides then give up on zooming with my pair and according to the owners it was neutering that did it......they were trying to talk me out of neutering Dobby, I bit my tongue!
 
Is it an ex puppy farm bitch? I used to foster and some of the dogs would be skin and bone and others would be obese because they wanted big puppies :(
 
No, it’s a male. I understand it was taken in with a sibling when it’s owner went into hospital, but the sibling, who was also obese, died. It has a very strict plan given to the fosterers but exercise has to be super careful and built up very gradually due to the strain on its heart/lungs/joints.

I can’t even imagine an obese greyhound or whippet. I have seen some fat ones but never massive.
 
Aled was quite a bit overweight when we first got him, think he was around 33kg. Last weigh in he was 29.9. I don’t think we’ll get any more off him, and that’s been over a 2 year period, but for an arthritic almost 13yo, he’s pretty active and losing the weight has definitely helped.
 
It’s sad to see fat dogs, especially when it’s often a case of owners spoiling the dog with treats. Having said that our retired collie bitch piled the weight on after being spayed despite being active and eating very little.
 
Neutered dogs need so much less food it can be hard to get your head round it. Pen, who is not yet spayed, eats twice the amount of the the two spayed bitches and you can still see her ribs.
My Mum's collie is finally on a diet and is so much less lame a sa result, she saw a new vet who actually manned up enough to say the dog was fat, her last one just kept saying 'Well, we wouldn't want her to be much bigger' which mum took as all being fine.
 
How sad, I do hope he has been saved in time to get active again.
Some of you will remember gorgeous Finley, the obese Golden Retriever I took on. Just looking at his huge body made me cry. I got him down from 50kg to 40 but it was too late, his hips were virtually non existent. I owned him for 8 months before he collapsed and couldn’t stand.
I will never forget him, he was such a dear gentle boy who should never have been allowed to get in such a state.
 
Chiffy said:
How sad, I do hope he has been saved in time to get active again.
Some of you will remember gorgeous Finley, the obese Golden Retriever I took on. Just looking at his huge body made me cry. I got him down from 50kg to 40 but it was too late, his hips were virtually non existent. I owned him for 8 months before he collapsed and couldn’t stand.
I will never forget him, he was such a dear gentle boy who should never have been allowed to get in such a state.
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50kg?? Omg :( I have a very large hound and he never gets above 28kg! Poor Finley, I'm not surprised you cried.

I let a neighbour's dog out for a lunchtime wee. Seriously obese dog, I've told him, other people have told him, he's in total denial. He feels guilty for leaving her, so he overfeeds her and leaves her with treats ..... does my head in.
 
I see a man regularly with two black Labs who are SO fat it's ridiculous - their stomaches are almost on the floor. Makes me so mad that people let their pets get over weight - if you want to be fat and miserable, fine, but don't inflict your animals to a life of discomfort because you're too ignorant/lazy to do something about it :mad3:
 
SpringArising said:
I see a man regularly with two black Labs who are SO fat it's ridiculous - their stomaches are almost on the floor. Makes me so mad that people let their pets get over weight - if you want to be fat and miserable, fine, but don't inflict your animals to a life of discomfort because you're too ignorant/lazy to do something about it :mad3:
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My parents had two yellow Lab bitches. Both parents were semi/retired and, I think, vied for who could treat the dogs most. I was amazed at the way they carried on, we would never have been allowed to behave like that with the dogs when we were children.
Anyway, one day Mum went shopping, Dad took the dogs to meet her and she saw 'two fat Labradors coming towards me'. Then she recognised Dad and finally decided that the girls needed to go on a diet. They soon looked a lot better and were more active.
 
when I talk to people at work about what/how they feed I am always surprised at how rubbish they are at estimating food and realising that their dog has soft stools through overfeeding it. My dogs' food is all weighed and if it needs to go up or down its done at 10% for a few weeks. Think it comes from the last rescue I had who was on medication for epilepsy that make her hungry and made her prone to weight gain-so I weighed her food and her regularly and tried to make her food last longer and to provide more enrichment for her (slow feeders, kongs, RAW etc-all weighed).
I also took over a wee rescue of my brother's back int he 90s who came to me very obese. she was eventually a little ball of hard muscle but the neighbours were convinced she was too skinny and would feed her 1/2 dozen cooked sausages ove the fence at a time!
 
We weigh the puppy's food and keep a close eye on the Westie's weight.
It shocked me at Burghley how many overweight dogs there were, I was appalled, I would say at least half the dogs there were fat.
I sometimes say to fat dogs I meet "oh you should join me at fat camp" and because I relate it to myself I've not have anyone offended yet. Usually they just make excuses about it :(
 
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