A weighty canine problem

We had bad news from our veterinarian last month.

Crossing his arms and rubbing his chin, he did his best Marcus Welby as he groped for a way to deliver the message sensitively.

He nodded toward our 2-year-old golden retriever. Cooper, he said, his voice assuming the gravity of Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments," was "tending toward the point of obesity."

"It's OK, Doc," I replied. "We can take it. Just tell us he's fat."

He said Cooper wasn't fat — not yet — but could stand to lose 15 to 20 pounds.

When 15 to 20 pounds represents between 13 to 18 percent of an animal's weight, that's fat, at least to my layperson's way of thinking. Maybe not morbidly obese, but definitely in the I'm-no-longer-a-supermodel category.

The vet rattled off a litany of health problems that can plague fat (excuse me, tending-toward-the-point-of-obesity) dogs: joint pain, hip dysplasia, heart problems and diabetes.

(Diabetes, by the way, must be pronounced the way Wilford Brimley does in those commercials for free testing supplies: die-uh-BEAT-us.)

My wife, always the loving mother, rationalized faster than a chocoholic at a Weight Watchers meeting. "He's just big-boned," she said. Yeah, and denial is just a river in Egypt.

"And he likes his treats," she continued, referring to the economy-sized box of dog bones that we refill every week or two. "When he's a good boy, he gets a bone."

My wife's definition of "good boy" was synonymous with "breathing boy." Whatever the dog did, he got a bone — go outside, bark at cats, look at her adorably, jump on furniture after we told him to get down. He received a bone when she left for work in the morning (to quell separation anxiety, she said) and another when she came home (to celebrate a joyous reunion).

In retrospect, his weight gain should have been obvious. Just a week before, we'd ordered a custom-made harness when his no longer fit. "Custom-made" reminds me of the pair of Levi's with a size 76 waist that hung in a downtown clothing store for so many years.

Poor Cooper, it seems, has joined the ranks of the 36.7 million dogs in this country -- a fur-bristling 52.5 percent -- who are overweight, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. (And just the existence of such an organization might say all that needs to be said about America.)

APOP believes the causes of pet obesity are the same as the causes of human obesity: More calories coming in than going out. We eat too much junk (or maybe too much, period) and don't exercise enough. Our animals do the same.

But fixing a dog's obesity is much easier than fixing a person's, especially since a dog doesn't have opposable thumbs to open a cookie jar, can't make a late night run to Taco Bell for Fourth Meal and can't break the padlock off a refrigerator door.

It's a simple prescription: If your dog's fat, stop feeding him so much and take him around the block a few times a day.

In the weeks since we learned Cooper was "tending toward the point of obesity," we've virtually eliminated treats (my wife still has to give him a bone when she leaves for work — it's practically a tradition). We've also cut out the little ice cream cones from Dairy Queen, pizza crusts and any other "people" food.

Now that the weather's nicer, we're walking him farther than just the stop sign on the corner, going instead to the park and putting some miles on those pork-chop legs. He comes home exhausted, but guess what? He's losing weight faster than Obama's losing credibility.
Maybe Cooper's not quite ready for an American Kennel Club photo shoot, but at least he's stopped waddling and jiggling like a Walmart shopper in pajama pants.

"It's been rough," he says over the fence to the neighbor dog, a rail-thin Great Dane. "But at least I'm not a statistic anymore. Did you know that 62.7 percent of golden retrievers surveyed were overweight? It's an epidemic."

Like most empty nesters, my wife and I expend far too much time and energy creating a rich fantasy world where our dog watches TV, checks email, makes phone calls and talks like a baby.
Pathetic, isn't it?

Almost as sad as a world where a dog's weight has to be spoken of in euphemisms, for fear we'll offend.

"Tending toward the point of obesity," indeed.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com
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