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Originally Posted by ladyjane  I believe Taylor mixed two things into her post. When the pups have medical issues they can also be and/or appear overweight. I have an overweight foster pup and there are multiple medical issues. My vet has never suggested weight loss as it would probably cost him his life.
To see pups in public and assume they are not loved because of size is a stretch and in my opinion. Actually, it is doing the same thing as the people who look at others and wonder why they don't lose weight. It is all judgmental.
I guess partly because I see so many TRULY unloved dogs on a daily basis, I am having a bit of a hard time grasping all of this. |
So often obese dogs like my sister's are "overloved" as she described their overfeeding him. The reason I didn't intervene sooner was her husband, whom I loved as a brother, was losing his battle with early-onset dementia and they were both dealing with more issues than they could sanely tolerate well during that time. I think they saw indulging their toy poodle's desire for a bite every time they took one as a small, happy thing they could do for some brief relief or something. Still, when I saw their obese baby constantly air-hungry and unable to lie still, I had to report them and pray they never knew it was me. Poor little toy poodle died before city could get out to check on him. Brother in law didn't last much longer. Sometimes obese dogs are overloved as relief from their owner's awful situations.
I once brought home a 75 lb. grown female Great Dane I rescued from the pound. She was starving to death, severely dehydrated, you could see her bone structure in all its horror almost coming through her skin - it was at her elbows, where huge bleeding ulcers had formed. Her eyes were horribly bloodshot, crusty, her nose ran, she coughed. She had a thick leather collar to which a huge truck-sized chain was permanently attached by some utter fiend and the pound just kept that on her to drag around until she got too ill and weak to walk! She came home that way! Took 2 guys to carry her and her chain to my car! A neighbor had to carry her in for me. After initial water, that small meal, a bed made for her on blankets, I had to hacksaw the thick leather collar off her neck as scissors or a pen knife wouldn't cut through that thick leather. She just lay there through the 20+ mins. it took to work through it, get it off, breathing loudly and coughing. That chain was so huge, so heavy I couldn't lift the 13 feet of it, had to drag it outside and a neighbor took it. She pooped all over the den as soon as it was off! Pooped all night and 3 or 4 more days even on meds for diarrhea.
She had running diarrhea and was due for euthanasia the next day at the pound. She was dying, should have already been put down. The pound workers did place newspapers over my back carseat to help protect it from her diarrhea while driving home but the car had to be detailed the next day, needless to say.
Back in that time, the pound would sell you a dog sick or vicious, whatever, even dying as this sweet girl was. Got her home, named her "Lovey" as she was so loving and sweet-natured, couldn't really walk, mostly had to carry her for days she was so ill. Got her vetted next morning(no Emergency vets back then), tested, treated and recuperated to 120 lbs. and she was a healthy, bright-eyed, starting to get muscled-up dog when I placed her on the ranch of an acquaintance to live out the rest of her life running, livin' the life and lying before their monstrous den fireplace when she was cold. She was a noble, fine beast, beautiful conformation, huge, deep chest, long neck, tight paws, and clear-eyed when she left.
Lovey never resource-guarded even though she was so hungry when I got her home and spoon-fed her water every hour and a small meal of beef broth over plain kibble, fearing she couldn't tolerate much else and she didn't ask for more though she obviously needed nutrition, just lay there until the vet told me what to feed her next day starting on days 3. After flea bath, clean-up, tests were done, worming complete, in 3 days she was put on 5 days of highest grade ground beef mixed with no less than canned evaporated milk, then beef steak for 5 days per the vet to try to build up her iron! She ate more steak than we did! Plus iron pills, antibiotics and other vitamins, minerals, many meds for her many ailments, got shots at the vet, even an IV back then and many weight-checks and check-ups with the vet after that. I began to think she would live after 4 or 5 days but those first few days she just lay and accepted her spoon-feedings and her medications until she got some strength and could stand and eat on her own. 'Her expenses were huge (and so was she - one of the tallest the vet had ever seen) but well worth it as saving that beautiful, abused, starved, wormy, flea-bitten skeleton's ill life mattered so much to me. Lovey mattered, deserved responsible love and attention, all the hugs and loving she could get, lots of running and playing. She was a lovely, rich-fawn, doe-eyed Great Dane girl when she left here, on the road to life and she lived another 7 years on the ranch running with the cattle(winced when I heard this) some days but most guarding the ranch house and her wonderful new owners. Thankfully, she ran off whatever over-indulgences she got because even late in life she was still lovely.
As bony and ill as big Lovey was, as hag-ridden and scary-pitiful, as lifeless and near-death from lack of care, nutrition, I still abhor the obese dog who cannot live a normal dog's life due to the huge amounts of pounds it must lug around 24/7, worse than sweet Lovey's awful, cruel truck chain.