Summer is almost here and once again our canine friends have made the news.
The first item I found told the weight dropping story of Obie. Obie is a dachshund owned by Nora Vanatta in Portland, Oregon. Apparently like Moi, Obie likes his treats. The more he ate the fatter he got. When he reached 77 pounds he resembled a large Nathan's all beef wiener than a dog. Nora put him on a diet. You can see from his picture, Obie's legs barely touched the ground. After Obie lost 40 pounds his stomach may not have dragged the ground but 2 1/2 pounds of extra skin did. He had a tummy tuck and now plans to show off his new physique to all those female Hot dogs in his pack of friends.
Years ago I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs on a turkey farm. The males had been engineered to be so big chested they couldn't get close enough to the females to mate. The females had to be artificially inseminated. Fat animals are around us everywhere, my neighbors adopted a dog through a network of friends, this Chocolate Lab looks more like a pot bellied pig than a dog. The base of her tail is as big around as my wrist.
Over weight dogs and cats are at epidemic proportions. Years ago my vet whipped me with a wet noodle for allowing my cat to gain weight. As if on cue, one of the office cats waddled in. His stomach barely cleared the floor and his sides were rounded out like balloons, I looked at him and replied pointing, "You can not say a word to me when you have that waddling around your office."
With the removal of wet food from his diet and a new puppy in the house, Izzy soon lost a few pounds. Not enough for a tummy tuck but enough to have a beer belly swinging back and forth when he swaggers.
Our second dog tail comes to us from Santa Rosa, California. It seems a pooch named Toby was served his water in a shiny, I'm talking buffed to a radiant glow shiny metal bowl. The bowl was so shiny it and the water acted like a prism in a magnifying glass . The Weisbrich's kitchen is a bright, sunny room. Toby's bowl was placed in a bright corner of the kitchen. The bowl caught a sunbeam throwing it back onto the wall. The light was intensified by the prism effect of the bowl and concentrated in one spot. If you ever sat in the sun with a magnifying glass as a kid, you know if you angled it just right it would concentrate the light causing a fire. I, myself, remember burning a small hole in my jeans one day and leaving small, burn marks all over paper. Like the magnifying glass of our childhood the bowl threw the sunbeam back onto the wall. A fire soon broke out. Fortunately it was quickly put out. Needless to say, Toby has a new bowl.
There are as many pet bowls to chose from as there are dog and cat breeds. I used a ceramic bowl with cute paw prints all over it for my two cats until they knocked it off the counter conducting an experiment on gravity. I went to a thick plastic bowl that wouldn't break even under the weight of Obie and his pals. the plastic gave Kayla a rash under her chin so now they eat out of one of those shiny metal bowls. Not to worry, my kitchen is on the dark side. My two dogs used to eat out of matching plastic bowls, the same kind the cats used only bigger. They didn't suffer rashes but when the edges became so rough from being chewed I bought them metal bowls too. Again they are not in the sunlight. The first set of metal bowls I bought came with a stand. I thought my old girl could eat more comfortably if she didn't need to bend over as far. She seemed to like it. Of all the bowls I've used, metal is definitely my number one pick. They are easy to clean, they don't break if the cat knocks it off the counter so he can watch it fall and they don't cause rashes under the chin. What kind of bowl do you like to use?
Well, until next time, keep those metal bowls out of the sun or keep the fire extinguisher handy.
The first item I found told the weight dropping story of Obie. Obie is a dachshund owned by Nora Vanatta in Portland, Oregon. Apparently like Moi, Obie likes his treats. The more he ate the fatter he got. When he reached 77 pounds he resembled a large Nathan's all beef wiener than a dog. Nora put him on a diet. You can see from his picture, Obie's legs barely touched the ground. After Obie lost 40 pounds his stomach may not have dragged the ground but 2 1/2 pounds of extra skin did. He had a tummy tuck and now plans to show off his new physique to all those female Hot dogs in his pack of friends.
Years ago I watched an episode of Dirty Jobs on a turkey farm. The males had been engineered to be so big chested they couldn't get close enough to the females to mate. The females had to be artificially inseminated. Fat animals are around us everywhere, my neighbors adopted a dog through a network of friends, this Chocolate Lab looks more like a pot bellied pig than a dog. The base of her tail is as big around as my wrist.
Over weight dogs and cats are at epidemic proportions. Years ago my vet whipped me with a wet noodle for allowing my cat to gain weight. As if on cue, one of the office cats waddled in. His stomach barely cleared the floor and his sides were rounded out like balloons, I looked at him and replied pointing, "You can not say a word to me when you have that waddling around your office."
With the removal of wet food from his diet and a new puppy in the house, Izzy soon lost a few pounds. Not enough for a tummy tuck but enough to have a beer belly swinging back and forth when he swaggers.
Our second dog tail comes to us from Santa Rosa, California. It seems a pooch named Toby was served his water in a shiny, I'm talking buffed to a radiant glow shiny metal bowl. The bowl was so shiny it and the water acted like a prism in a magnifying glass . The Weisbrich's kitchen is a bright, sunny room. Toby's bowl was placed in a bright corner of the kitchen. The bowl caught a sunbeam throwing it back onto the wall. The light was intensified by the prism effect of the bowl and concentrated in one spot. If you ever sat in the sun with a magnifying glass as a kid, you know if you angled it just right it would concentrate the light causing a fire. I, myself, remember burning a small hole in my jeans one day and leaving small, burn marks all over paper. Like the magnifying glass of our childhood the bowl threw the sunbeam back onto the wall. A fire soon broke out. Fortunately it was quickly put out. Needless to say, Toby has a new bowl.
There are as many pet bowls to chose from as there are dog and cat breeds. I used a ceramic bowl with cute paw prints all over it for my two cats until they knocked it off the counter conducting an experiment on gravity. I went to a thick plastic bowl that wouldn't break even under the weight of Obie and his pals. the plastic gave Kayla a rash under her chin so now they eat out of one of those shiny metal bowls. Not to worry, my kitchen is on the dark side. My two dogs used to eat out of matching plastic bowls, the same kind the cats used only bigger. They didn't suffer rashes but when the edges became so rough from being chewed I bought them metal bowls too. Again they are not in the sunlight. The first set of metal bowls I bought came with a stand. I thought my old girl could eat more comfortably if she didn't need to bend over as far. She seemed to like it. Of all the bowls I've used, metal is definitely my number one pick. They are easy to clean, they don't break if the cat knocks it off the counter so he can watch it fall and they don't cause rashes under the chin. What kind of bowl do you like to use?
Well, until next time, keep those metal bowls out of the sun or keep the fire extinguisher handy.
