Things that make you go AWW! -- like puppies, bunnies, babies, and so on... Feel free to post original pictures and videos of cute things.
This little Dachshund went from 56 pounds down to a petite 9 pounds!
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
Look at his tail in the second picture, he is so happy he can’t stop it!
Take off in 3, 2, 1 ...
gotta blast!
Jimmy Neutron reference? You are awesome
Bravo! I hate seeing fat critters. It takes real love and dedication to get this little one into shape.
Everyone asks me why my corgi is so thin. He is in his weight but people are used to see fat corgis thinking it's cute
Edit: here's my 27lb welsh pembroke corgi https://imgur.com/gallery/CfDffgW
wait, what? you mean they're not supposed to look like a dachshund did a face swap with a larger dog? what are they supposed to look like?
I just Googled Corgi and came up with this
Most think of this when they think about corgi's. I thought it was all fluff though.
Bro the second corgi be looking kinda thicc
This vaccine can't come fast enough.
Comment deleted by user
Thiccc boy
r/dontputyourdickinthat
r/corgibutts
not fair to compare those 2 photos... gotta compare ass against ass
the first corgi might have a dump truck for an ass for all we know.. just not a fair to compare
This man corgis
Lmao Spoken like a man who’s been disappointed by the lack of a stupid thicc booty after walking all the way to the other side of the park to get a looksie
It is fluff most of the time. Corgi have thick hair because they have two coats. Combined with their small bodies, it makes them look "thicc". The Corgi in the first picture seems to be a little damp from being outside.
Of course, owners should still make sure their pets are healthy and happy
Source: I have a Corgi
Some breeds such as corgjs are just prone to butt fluff, the corgi my family fostered when I was a kid had some impressive but fluff even though he was underweight.
Yeah I was going to say, it’s probably the fur that makes them appear “fat”. When in reality they are a perfectly healthy weight.
To be fair, that first corgi appears to have had a haircut.
Just a summer coat with less thick undercoat.
You don't generally clip a dog that has a double coat. It will never grow back the same. Our friends had a dog with a double coat who had to get surgery. They shaved a square out of her rump and you could tell for the rest of her life where she had had the surgery.
Thicc solid tight corgi
Thicc Boi Summah
There's also two breeds of corgi. The pembroke welsh looks rounder and has the short tail, and the cardigan welsh is more squared and has a long bushy tail. So the pembrokes just look fatter because of their rounded overall shape.
Comment deleted by user
Nah man. I have a pembroke welsh corgi and physical he's in great shape like the first dog. People over feed their corgis. I have seen long hair corgis that are fit, they don't get round like that, you can see the hair vs the weight.
Pembroke vs. cardigan is largely a difference in coat coloring. Most cardigans have dark hair and pembrokes mostly have the lighter coats.
Edit: coat, not cost
My friends and family always comment on how skinny my Greyhound is but they're at a healthy weight if you can feel their ribs. My mom was trying to feed her all the time but she has a sensitive GI tract and gets the runs unless she eats the prescription kibble we feed her so we had to let the Greyhound shit inside my parent's house one time to get the point across.
Great move. So many posts on Reddit are "how do I get the person to stop doing the things" and then they list out all the ways they're accommodating someone's bad behavior.
I have greyhounds. They look like Halloween decorations they're so bony.
I also had a relative always trying to feed them table scraps when we'd bring the dogs over, even after I told them not to repeatedly. That dog exploded on their floor and was never fed scraps again.
Same about my English Bulldog. Probably more then 9 out of every 10 I see are overweight. This is what a healthy weigh looks like on a bully! He’s an active boy as they should be! Good for you for also making sure your dog stays happy and healthy! ❤️
https://i.imgur.com/WleQV78.jpg
Now that is a gorgeous dog!
He looks well-bred too, not overly chunky through the chest or short-legged.
I have a frenchie and for the longest time he managed his weight well(he was a free feeder bc he was a grazer) at between 32 and 34 lbs. Hes 9 now and even though I stopped free feeding several years ago, put them on raw, he chunked up to 37, I share too much. Just those 3 lbs turned him into a little bratwurst. Against his wishes we have gotten back down to 33.3 as of a few weeks ago. Bone is life https://imgur.com/gallery/4bZmqCL
I lived in an apartment complex with a fit English bulldog and he was so fast!! A far cry from the lazy, lumps we normally associate them with.
Same question we get asked about our doxies. They are on a strict diet and their treats are carrots. Birthdays and Christmas are the only time they get special treats . This along with exercise is so important to their health and especially their hips.
Yeah ours is super lean and still has drumsticks for back legs because he's so incredibly strong for his size. It's all the running.
Dem ham hocks
You know it!
I have a Vizsla and people accuse me of starving him....
We have chihuahuas and are always being accused of under feeding them! They are a perfect weight and we work really hard to keep it that way. It’s so hard to keep a pup that small from gaining! They’re older and have heart murmurs. The absolute worst thing we could do is “put some meat on their bones.” That’s why lean short hairs get jackets!
Our pug-huahua, or chug, hovers between 6.6 and 7.0 pounds. That 0.4 is one 16th of his weight. That’s a lot to add on.
Like a 160 pound dude adding 10 pounds.
We work hard to keep him steady, just under 7 pounds.
Picture, please?
Chug, I like that
Those little guys should be barrel chested and proud looking, not keg shaped. Good on you for keeping yours a healthy weight!
One of my dogs is a chihuahua terrier mix and his normal weight is 13 lbs. Last year he had back surgery and couldn’t exercise, plus was getting greasy pill pockets 3 times a day with his meds. When he went back for his follow up he was over 15 lbs and visibly chonky. A little bit of weight makes a huge difference in a little dog! Thankfully as soon as he was able to walk again the pill pockets went bye bye and with exercise he is a lean mean pooping machine yet again.
Yes. We have a tripod chi who is normally around 9 lbs, though 8 would honestly be better for that shoulder that holds all his front weight. We adopted a rescue chi puppy back in late March, and the older one kept sneaking that fatty puppy food, and ballooned up to 10.5 lbs. He didn’t even want to move much. It was sad and a little frightening. We had to end up putting the puppy on the adult food sooner than we wanted.
We finally got him slimmed back to 9 and his energy is much better. And baby girl has ended up taller but leaner than him at about 7 lbs.
Comment deleted by user
I would be angry too. That's a pretty nasty thing to do to someone else's pet when they trusted you to take good care of it.
Do they not note how he never stops moving? I don’t know your dog, but you said vizsla so I’m making some assumptions here..
I always thought Vizslas were fast af but only like moderate on the energy scale. Like huskies and collies for example make Vizslas look lazy. I've never owned one though so I could be completely wrong!
We’ve got one. “World’s Fastest Couch Potato” is an apt name for them. He loves running with our Malinois through the yard, chasing squirrels, chasing the kids, playing fetch, and he is a rocketship when doing all of those. But if I’m sitting on the couch, he is plopped down next to my feet, or head on the armrest just snuggled up. Great dogs!
Most people have no idea what a healthy weight dog looks like. Same with horses.
My friend’s Vizsla is the best dog! She doesn’t stop running and isn’t distracted by other animals. When my friend whistles, you immediately see her sprinting over the hill towards my friend.
Our local corgi group does monthly meetups for the people and the pups. My Freddie has always been on the small side anyway, but people almost always think he’s about a year old (or less!) partly because of his weight. He’s 25lbs and we get accolades from our vet because he’s actually at a healthy weight for his size. He’s still a small corgi, but he’s also a really healthy one.
I have an even tinier corgi boy! He's about 20lbs. People hardly believe me when I say he's 7 years old already.
http://imgur.com/a/RIlAcYv
I have a tri corgi named Freddie too! He’s a big boy with his healthy weight being 29-30lbs, but he’s currently 31. We are working on losing that last pound-ish! It’s so much easier to put in weight than lose it for sure!
Got any photos you could share? Curious to see what he looks like!
Just edited the top comment with a pic
Oh wow, you weren't kidding! I probably wouldn't have recognised him as a Corgi. Still cute though! Thanks for sharing. :)
Like pugs. My vet compliments her every time she comes in. Some animals will have a stockier profile, and can gain weight easily. I don't know how you can get a dog breed prone to weight gain and not make an attempt to keep your animal within a certain range.
I live vicariously through my dog. Keeping him healthy is satisfying and makes me wish I had someone who doled out my food to keep me in optimum shape. I'm much less good about handling my own diet and exercise.
You mean they aren't like 90% fur?
Same! People accused me of under feeding mine (my mom especially) until I took her to the vet with me to hear from their own mouths that he's healthy and all the others aren't. Not the other way around.
Dog tax. . .
Jesus christ just look at that dog looking up at you. It's like he's literally staring at the entire universe all at once. That's why I fucking love dogs man.
Same!! My corgi is a very long girl (three feet) and weighs a lean 28, maybe 29 pounds. Almost all the corgis I see on reddit are at a weight that vets would consider overweight.
Same with my Pyrenees. People are so used to “fluffy” aka - code for fat Pyrenees (quite a few in our neighborhood), they think I’m starving her because they can see her waist. Who cares we exercise and feed her a healthy diet.
I’m so happy to see dogs at their proper weight and happy! Bravo!!!!
Well I just learned that I had no idea what a healthy Corgi looked like.
My corgi mix was pretty slim for most of his life. Only started getting really chunky when he got old.
In defense of the fat Corgi, many purebred dog breeds are such extreme examples of artificial selection that they come with lots and lots and lots of built in problems and issues that are not only comprised of things like increased genetically encoded risk factors for obesity, metabolic disorders, and other diseases, but also nerve, cardiovascular, respiratory and joint issues and the fact that their anatomical structure isn't functionally optimized.
It's kind of a shame when you think about it, but dog "breeds" were bred for us, to be tools or toys, and definitely not out of some noble sense for the creature themselves. However, doing your best as an owner to ensure a healthy and hopefully long life for your pup certainly takes an extra step. and I do applaud you for that.
People ask us the same thing all the time and ours is the exact same weight.
dog tax
I mean, not even fat but grossly overweight. 56lbs when healthy is 9lbs? That is absurd. Glad this pooch got the care to get back down to a healthy weight.
Right? That’s like a healthy 150 lb. person weighing 900 lbs..
That dog was in straight up "Start the reactor" territory.
That exact situation was just on My 600 Lb Life tonight...6'2" woman weighed 900-something pounds
Wait.... are you telling me that on My 600LB Life they have people bigger than 600 LB’s?
yep. that just seems to be kinda the minimum (or thereabouts) for most. it's fascinating to me in a trainwreck kinda way
edit: this has the starting weights of everyone on the show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_600-lb_Life#Series_overview
tonight was season 9 ep 1 which isn't in the wiki article yet, but I distinctly remember 947 pounds at one point. literally gained like 100 IN THE HOSPITAL.
Seriously, I really hate the people glorifying r/chonkers. A 50 pound doxie is about as healthy as a 500 pound human. They need help, not people telling them how awesome they are as they shove more treats in their face.
It's worse. If a healthy weight for a human was 150 lbs, the equivalent would be weighing 933 lbs.
I'm a much bigger fan of r/dechonkers. There's still pictures of fat animals if for some reason your lizard brain thinks that's cute, but everyone there acknowledges it's bad for the animal and is actively working on getting their pet to a healthy weight.
This is true, but some animals are just bigger. My cat is bigger than she should be and would fit right in on that sub, but she also has regular vet visits (weigh-ins and nail trims every month) and an extremely strict, carefully measured diet. Long play sessions (~20-25 minutes each and she's flying through the air through them) three to four times a day (more if she's up for it), etc.
She's a fat cat despite the play and the reduced calories. The vet (who specializes in cats - it's a cat-only practice) has settled on maintaining her current weight as even on prescription food she lost relatively little. And I really can't stress enough the whole "extremely strict diet" bit. I even took my scale into the vet and measured food in front of them to make sure I wasn't fucking it up somehow.
The girl is a chonk, IDK what to say.
Why would you let your dog get so fat? That was so horrible and unhealthy.
there's a lot of reasons, elderly owner with dementia who can't remember feeding the pet, owner unable to exercise the dog due to illness/injury, underlying metabolic disorder making the dog prone to obesity, or there's just plain ignorance. but extreme cases like this are often because owners were no longer able to properly care for their pet
My mom got a dog from a friend of hers at work, who had got it from a relative of hers. Relative was a chef who would cook for the dog, and not healthy stuff.. He was 3 years old and up at 125 when we got him and resembled a jumbo marshmallow on toothpicks. Chef had a massive heart attack and couldn't care for the dog anymore, my moms friend took him just long enough to find him a home and accepted food from the restaurant to feed him. He didn't eat for two days after we got him because it was kibble. We got about 20 pounds off him in the first 2 years, he was lazy and the only thing he excelled at was sniffing out unguarded food- he once stole the entire turkey carcass off the counter as we are in the next room. Then my mom got another dog off a co-worker, who had gotten a puppy for her kids that were shoving her in a crate because she was too energetic. Puppy never left fat dog alone, chasing him around the house and the backyard, constantly wanting to play. Within five months fat dog was at 60 lbs and whilehe tried his best to go back we kept him down.
Great story! Thank you for sharing. What a fantastic way to get a pet in shape (sort of by accident).
I have a very food motivated dog and we actually feed her.slightly less kibble most days because she is expert level at finding food and eating it.
Reducing kibble to account for treats is the easiest way to do it IMO.
This is actually a thing- we average humans can't keep up with most dogs. If you've got the space for two and they get along, automatic diet. Plus the get to act like dogs in ways they just can't with humans. I watch them plow each other over, play fight, chew, tug... They're better able to communicate boundaries with other dogs than with humans in many cases. This let's them self regulate so much better.
Of course this isn't always an option, personality conflicts, lack of space, $and other resources can limit options. But it's a great strategy where possible.
A second dog was the best thing that happened to that big boy, but he was still lazy when he could be. We took then to my aunt and uncle's house with 4 other dogs there and he just hid in some bushes as the puppy ran the other dogs into exhaustion in turn.
I honestly think you missed the most common reason. Conflating food with love, and over feeding out of mis guided attempts at love.
Sad really. And common.
There are also owners who do it purposefully
Awhile ago I got into a stupid reddit argument with someone who gave their dogs ice cream and sugary stuff as treats and I was just like what the hell?
I will admit to giving my labrador an ice cream cone, from Dairy Queen, about once a year. We walk there and back, so it's about 5 miles. It's not the best for her, but it's the big treat in the summer.
I’ve got a mutt that no matter what seems to like to stay overweight. Dieting and exercise doesn’t seem to help her get into shape, just maintain her where she is. Vet says nothing is wrong with her (as in no health conditions that would cause her to be overweight). I figure maybe it’s just her mix of breeds or genetics. My other dogs are in shape.
That being said, she was nowhere near as bad as the photo in the OP.
Same, my dog is SLIGHTLY chubby and diet and more exercise hasn’t changed her body much, but I would never let her get to that point.
We've got 3 chihuahuas - all get the same amount of food twice a day and 2 treats a day; 2 are healthy weight, one is a chubber. Same level of activity for all of them. Not nearly like the OP's dog, but definitely a chubby chihuahua.
We had a cat like that, lived to 17. meanwhile his healthy brother died at i think 6 or 7 to (we think) a heart attack.
I have a cat who's half the weight of the other (she's has both a smaller frame and is skinny for a cat in general) however she eats more food that's also higher calorie than his. It's nuts, but it's just metabolism
Most people don't meal feed their dogs. They're just free fed. This is fine for like 99% of breeds. Mostly smaller breeds are genetically predisposed to obesity (most humans are as well!). This means that they'll try and eat as much so that their body has large fat stores to survive famines.
My basset hound gets two meals a day. Free feeding would be an absolute nightmare with her. She currently weighs around 45 pounds which the vet says is perfect for her. Basset hounds are fantastic gainers so I stay on top of her weight and that would be impossible with free feeding.
I would say this is wildly inaccurate. Some breeds are definitely worse than others, but the majority of pets we see that are free fed are overweight regardless of breed. It goes for cats as well.
For cats at least, if they're being free fed it means they're eating kibble, which is known to be a big contributer to weight gain in cats. The first thing a vet will tell you to do is put your cat on wet food if they're too fat. Wet food is also much better for their kidneys.
It's more of an open access to calories issue than it is the kibble itself. At my clinic, we don't typically recommend a straight switch to exclusively wet food, we trend towards meal feeding instead. Or having a set amount of food per day that they get in a food puzzle toy if they're inclined to them just to give the cats something to work for through the day.
Even though the moisture from canned food is great for their kidneys, we see increased tartar buildup in cats that are just on wet food, so we don't recommend it by itself usually.
Wow. TIL. We have cats who are free fed but my dog has scheduled mealtimes and STILL puts on weight, no way he could handle free feeding. I had no idea this wasn’t the norm!
Ya sure he’s not eating the cats food? Cat food is really fatty- my childhood dog would scarf the cats food any chance he got.
That's because it is, they're making that up
"Most" animals are definitely not fine being free fed. Even if they don't eat too much cats and dogs thrive on a consistent schedule.
Free feeding dogs definitely is not the norm
This really is an incredible change. Bravo to both owner and doggo for commitment to improvement!
Impressive. Diet Milk bones do the trick ?
As far as I know it was a measured diet on Diamond Naturals Dry Food, also a supplement called Cosequin and then just natural exercise outdoors. He did have to have expensive surgery for the excess skin after all the weight loss but all is great!
That’s one loved dog by the sounds of it !!
The looks of it too, in the before especially. Food is love to some people even if they don't see the harm its doing.
IIRC it was an elder person with dementia or something similar who could not remember if she had fed the dog and fed it a lot. I think it’s not that uncommon, unfortunately :/
Dachshunds will also never say no to a second, third, fourth or tenth dinner either. Freakin guts.
plastic surgery for a pet, yeah that's a loved dog lol
It honestly could have easily been done because the skin causing quality of life problems. For example he could have been getting bad sores from his belly dragging or fungal problems between the folds.
In fact I doubt it was a cosmetic reason at all. It might have been cheaper to just get the surgery over continually treating the other issues it caused.
But yeah, the idea of plastic surgery for a dog is also just hilarious lol.
Plastic surgery isn’t just about cosmetic enhancement.
My fiancé was rear ended by a cement truck while driving an old work van, whiplashed into the steering wheel and gave us a chance to clean her skull.
SQUEEMISH FOLK TURN BACK
When I walked in and saw her injury I was in shock, I wasn’t expecting something so... intense. About 5 inches, along her brow line, just peeled up. I could have signed my credit card on her skull.
The plastic surgeon was cleaning the wound when I got there, and she was conscious and speaking. She had no damage to her skull miraculously, so the surgeon was just prepping to close the... evulsion.
No ‘plastic’ anything, just a skilled surgeon, and some special sutures. The results are nothing less than breathtaking. She’s incredibly beautiful, and this accident wouldn’t have changed that. But this surgeon saved her face as she knew herself, and we didn’t expect that. A subtle, lightened line and some facial numbness/stiffness is all that remains. It’s remarkable.
Plastic surgery serves many important purposes in medicine, human and animule. :)
My ex was attacked by a dog and bitten in the face while at work. Face was sutured and healing carefully monitored with only one tiny scar remaining. Minimizing disfigurement is truly a wonderful calling, even if I do hate all the fake stuff people do to themselves for other reasons, using a surgeon.
Im actually really curious to see the before picture.
I think Cosequin is for joint health. The pup might have been on it, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the weight loss except getting the dog to be able to be mobile.
Definitely is.
Source: have a dog that takes it for arthritis, as recommended by my vet.
Cosequintly, the dachshund's joints are going to be doing a lot better with all that weight off.
I feed mine with a scale, to the gram. It takes so little extra to make a doxie a chonker
We have 4 and even a slight increase or decrease in amount per feeding over the course of 2 weeks can change their shape. Gotta starve em out even if theyre really active. Thats how they feel about it anyway.
Same with my cats. If there is a hole in the bowl, I’m starving them. They get fed what they are supposed to and get treats. But it means nothing if they can see themselves in the bottom of the bowl.
Buy a custom food bowl with kibble painted on the bottom. Problem solved! (I think, never tried it)
I was wondering about the extra skin but was too afraid to ask.
Was this your dog or someone else’s? Thanks for the diet tips!
How the hell did they get SO fat? Looks like he could probably barely even walk. Glad to see the loss.
Most of the time when pets get that big it’s because their owner has early stage dementia or something else that causes memory loss. The owner forgets whether or not they’ve fed their pet, so they assume a pet begging for food is hungry.
I don’t know if that’s the case with this particular dog, but it’s not uncommon for morbidly obese animals to get that way because of undiagnosed medical problems with the owner.
The owner was indeed in bad health and later passed away
If you haven't checked it out already, check out Obie the dachshund, who went from 70 pounds plus to a normal weight. He also ended up getting skin removal surgery after his weight loss.
Wow that’s mathematically equal to like a 600 pound human going back down to 200. Some sturdy genes
The OP dog went from 56 to 9. That's like 930 to 150
Oh God my weenies name is Obie. Couldn't imagine him getting any bigger than his current 13 pounds!
I'm currently fostering an overweight cat and she's overweight because her previous owner had dementia and over fed her. The owner sadly passed away earlier this year.
Exactly. My sister has short term memory loss and doesn't remember anything for even 30 seconds. Last time I visited her she was constantly trying to feed her dog and cat. If they so much as looked at her she would jump up and say, oh, I think she's hungry! She is also not able to walk much any more so the dog is just let outside and not walked. The dog has rolls on her rolls.
An automatic set timer type of feeding bowl might be best in this case.
You could buy her an automated feeder as a gift sometime or suggest setting alarms for when she is supposed to feed the dogs!
Somebody ITT also cited the "food is love" mantra. Some older people may feed their pets table scraps or other "treats" because their dogs or cats beg, and the owners can't say no. This is also why a lot of small dogs are not house trained. I've seen it myself.
This well-meaning, indulgent behavior results in unhealthy pets raised in an unhealthy environment. The people, and their pets, all need help in such cases.
i feel a clickbait article coming on, "you won't believe what these morbidly obese pets revealed about their owners! #3 will make your jaw drop"
My old wiener dog loved to eat and was lazy as hell. It never got near this level, but I can imagine how that might happen.
We had dachshunds all through my childhood, and they will happily get fat if you let them. One of ours got into a bag of cat food and ate so much her legs would barely touch the floor (cat food swells up in water). She had to take a couple of days off eating so she could clear it out of her system (under vet's advice) and came through fine.
We also started sealing cat food instead of just putting it out of reach.
Dachshunds are like bottomless pits when it comes to food. More so than any other breed I’ve seen. They just will not stop eating.
eat food no walk
This is amazing! I’m really surprised his skin isn’t all loose. And look at that tail GO!
He had surgery for the loose skin that’s why he looks so good! :)
Totally worth it, he looks adorable and that tail wag blur is priceless. Does his former weight cause any long term joint issues?
I really can't imagine that that kind of weight didn't lead to some kind of long term damage. He looks like he was 5 times as big as he should be to be healthy. It takes a long time to get to that kind of weight and he must have been very overweight for a long time.
If his starting weight was 56 lbs he was more than 6x his healthy size. Totally crazy.
Yeah, that's insane. One of my dogs is a husky mix and he's around 60 lbs. To imagine that that small dachshund on the right used to be as heavy as my big dog...that's just horrible. Poor guy.
Do you have any pics from before the skin was removed?
Weird fetish
Ah, thanks. Makes sense!
I’m working on my blue heeler. He spent a year with Grandma and gained so much weight. He went from 40lbs to 60-65lbs. We’re both going to hit exercise hard this year.
Hey, speaking of heelers. Did you have yours from a puppy? If so, was their growth rate weird? Ours is only 5mo old and already 30lbs. Not fat, vet says healthy. I’m just worried we accidentally got a heeler/mammoth hybrid or something. 😅
We got him at 8 weeks old. He grew full size in about a year. He’s short and stout lol. Before he went to grandmas house he was strong and muscular about 45lbs exercising every day, energetic, and playful. Then I got him back fat potato with no energy and wants to sleep and gets winded easily.
kinda sounds like me
2021 goals
This is my great uncles dog? I have no idea why it just popped up here but thats pretty crazy. He was in bad health so she took the dog in after he passed and put him on a diet I know there's an Instagram page somewhere of it. Really weird ass coincidence tho
Really?
Yeah lol lemme try to find the Instagram the pic from the right is 2018ish I think?
Is this Obie?
Nah. I'm pretty sure this is Dennis.
It is Dennis. He's from Ohio and owned by a woman named Brooke.
She doesn't happen to live in West Allis? Rented an apartment there for 6 months , and saw this older lady always walking her dog that looked EXACTLY like before pic..
His name is Dennis. He was on CBS This Morning back in the day.
This should be top comment. I hate that more people don't know about him and his journey. It was a big story a couple years ago. I think his owner's name is Brooke, she was in nursing school. OSU Vet Hospital did his surgeries. She got him from her uncle, and gave this little mister a new lease on life! ♥️🐾
The “before”-picture looks like one of those medieval paintings, where the livestock was made to almost rectangle like proportions. To symbolise wealth or something...!
Glad this one is doing better now! :)
EDIT: Example of such a painting.
https://d3d00swyhr67nd.cloudfront.net/h300/collection/BBO/MERL/BBO_MERL_M_24-001.jpg
It looks like the dog from the Tom & Jerry movie
This one.
Someone cared enough to save his life 💕
I wanted to make a hot dog joke but i dont know my saugages....
Good for him btw!
Looks like the Wurst is behind him. Helping him lose that weight must have been such a chore-izo.
If you keep up the puns I’m gonna come in there and kielbasa you!
Keep that up and I'll call the coppa on you! The wurst is yet to come. Andouille will be laughing at you.
Please please please post this on r/dechonkers!
I like how it's smiling in both.
I think he's gasping for air in the first one.
I can hear it in my head
If a dog could lose 80% of his body weight, surely I can lose 10-20% of mine.
This is like a Human at 1100lb losing down to 180lb, Very impressive.
holy fuck 56?! good god
I have a very hard time believing that number haha
This is my inspiration
That tail is a blur lol
My lady said, "He looks so happy in the before picture"
I said "Baby, he's most likely literally struggling to breath cause of all that fat around his, everything. Probably panting all the time. The after photo is how he breaths normal, mouth closed, through his nose."
Whomever let that dog get to 56 lbs is a piece of shit
Saved its life!
He is so cute
this dog (and their owner) deserve high praise!
a 56 pound DACHSUND? So fucking negligent, good on you for getting that little one back to health!
Wow I need the secret
Eat less calories than you use in a day, and exercise occasionally.
Haha I know! Only a joke!
I guarantee he is 1000% happier now.
If a dog can lose that much, then we all can!
PSA from a trainer:
Measure your dog's food people. Stop using a coffee mug, child's cup, weird scoop you have, or anything other than an actual measuring cup. You can use a cheap plastic one.
The guidelines on the bag are generally always high. After all they want you to go through food so you can buy more. Additionally, dogs are individuals. Their lifestyle, just like ours, will dictate how many calories they need in a day. An active working dog, like one who is literally working livestock all day, needs a different amount of calories than your dog who goes on 45 minutes of slow walks and maybe gets a ball tossed around.
A pretty good rule of thumb is to follow this visual body condition chart, and only feed the dog the amount for their healthy weight. If your dog is 80# and should be 60 - don't feed them the 80# amount.
Also, pro tip: The majority of "picky dogs" aren't picky. They're just fat and not hungry, but will still be interested and will eat table scraps or other things that are "better" than their kibble. If your dog is not able to finish their meals in one go, it's too much food.
How to slim your dog down
I'm not a vet, this is not medical advice. Take it with a grain of salt. Fat dogs come to me ALL the time for training and our first course of action is to get the weight down. Obesity affects your dog behaviorally in different ways, which can make solving an issue without addressing the weight pretty futile.
Make sure you're feeding the right amount, measure it. Check your treats, there are tons that are very high calorie and essentially flavored balls of fat and shit you don't want in your dog anyways. Either stop giving treats or switch to a healthy alternative: boiled chicken breast, small bits of apple, green beans, broccoli, carrot. You can also use your dog's kibble as their treats throughout the day, just make sure it's part of their meal you've measured out.
It's ok for your dog to act hungry and pester you for food. After all that's probably what got them food/treats in the past and into being overweight. They're not starving, they're just begging and trying to manipulate you for more treats. Imagine if you could get easy money out of someone by being a little bit of a thorn in their side, you'd do it too. Cut your dog off, or reserve some of their daily rations to treat them with.
Next lets talk about exercise. This is NEVER the first thing we do. Food/meal adjustment is always the first thing you want to address. Extra weight of any kind is very hard on your dog's joints and most dogs who are overweight would be borderline morbidly obese if they were humans. The stress and strain on the dog's body rules out hard exercise. Avoid hard surfaces like pavement if walking your dog. Avoid running them or having them go up and down stairs. Avoid them doing very repetitive and strenuous activities like fetch.
Swimming, walking/playing in sand, these are the best things to do. Alternatively walking or doing light jogging on grass is also good, but higher impact.
Exercise shouldn't be the only thing you're doing. It really isn't that effective on its own and as mentioned it's hell on already strained joints. Modifying food is the best way to get the weight off. Hands down.