Gorgeous!
Great weight!
Healthy.
Happy.
Pain Free.
Active. Hunting snakes hehe.
Then over the course of a year he gradually gained weight. It was so gradual that I didn't notice it until winter of 2014 when he looked like this...
Overweight!
Unhealthy.
Experiencing joint pain.
Unhappy.
Inactive.
It broke my heart!
I kept cutting back his food as his weight increased. It got to the point that he was crying for more to eat and was never full or satisfied. He was so unhappy. When my cat died (the one my grandparent's were keeping) I finally learned the truth... they were letting him come into their house (on the same fenced in property as mine and my parents house) and letting him eat cat food.... every... damn... day! I was so pissed!! I had been struggling and fighting to get the weight off of him and it was just getting worse and worse. I told them he was on a diet and they absolutely could NOT feed him anything EVER! I think they finally got the message (I had politely asked them not to feed him several times before). Since my cat was dead (she was sixteen when she died) the cat food was no longer an issue, but they were bad about giving him table scraps too. I guess I finally convinced them though because they stopped feeding him (she evens calls me to ask if it's okay to give him something and I always tell her no). Her dogs died way too young from being obese and I'm not letting her do that to my dog too.
When trying to get the weight off of him through gentle exercise and decreasing his food didn't work I finally gave up and switched him to a weight reducing dog food. It is Premium Edge Healthy Weight I Weight Reduction. Premium Edge isn't top of the line dog food, but this particular food actually gets five stars on the dog food advisor website (you can see their write up here). He loves the food! He gets to eat his two cups which makes him feel full and satisfied and best yet, he has lost a ton of weight!! He still has some to lose and needs to regain muscle, but I think he's looking pretty good. :D
My dog has a waist again!!
He's healthy, happy, active and pain free again! :D
From the side his waist isn't as obvious, but it is there.
It's easier to see in person from the side or to feel. He still looks so fat in the above picture, but I think he'll always have that loose skin hanging down from his belly because of his age. His skin might tight up some with exercise, but I don't know how much or how long it will take. Below are some more pictures from today.
Sniffing out turtles.
Tilted the camera, but cute trot picture!
Looking for squirrels.
Barking at squirrels.
Treeing squirrels!! He loves squirrels hehe.
Of my recent pictures this is one of my favorites. :)
He's so much happier now!
Since his weight is down some now I'm going to increase his exercise to see if we can get him toned back up some. I'm just glad he's happy again. I just hope the time he spent obese hasn't shortened his life...
Oh I almost forgot! Here is a video of Jackal practicing treeing squirrels from today so you can see how active and happy he is. He loves treeing squirrels!!
So that's our diet progress update! I never realized how long it takes to get weight off of dogs, but I guess it makes sense when you think that one pound is like ten pounds on humans. So Jackal being fifteen pounds overweight was like a person being a hundred and fifty pounds overweight. So yeah, it takes a while. Now that we are spending a lot more time outdoors (since it's summer and stopped raining) hopefully he'll finish losing the weight. My scale needs new batteries so I'm not sure what he weighs right now. I need to run him by the vet clinic one day and pop him on their good scales. So just thought I would share our progress. I hope you enjoyed the video of my super vocal squirrel dog. :D
Glad he's getting there!!! It is possible for dogs to lose that loose skin but it takes quite a bit of conditioning work. If you're serious, a peanut ball or 2 balance discs can help give him a good quick workout.
ReplyDeleteBut time is of course the best answer!
I'm intrigued!! What the heck is a peanut ball?? I think I know what the balance discs are. I'll have to look those up when I'm done with this next post I'm working on. :)
DeleteA peanut ball is a large exercise ball, but long enough so that if a dog is standing on it their back isn't hunched. I have a 70cm ball for my dogs, but it's possible you would need a longer one for Jackal. 2 balance discs can replicate a lot of conditioning exercises you do with a peanut ball, but is harder for newbies as the dog has to have good back feet targeting to start. But even 1 balance disc you can do a lot with.
DeleteI got mine on Amazon thru the Cando brand which had pretty good dog reviews, but THE go to brand for dogs is Fit Paws, which you can purchase at Cleanrun.com and actually thier Fit Bone is a really nice combination version of peanut vs disc.
http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003QSVLSI
http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=3801&ParentCat=400
Wow that's really cool! Thanks for all of the information on them. I'll bookmark them for later when I have some money saved up. I think it would really benefit Jackal a lot, but I just had the vet here to do the horse's routine stuff so finances are tight again.
DeleteYay. That's great process!
ReplyDelete-Lilli-