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Good evening, everyone!
I come to you seeking counsel and suggestions on how to go about a condition my mother's dog is facing. To give you some background on the dog, her name is Piglet, she is a female 3-year-old pug, and weighs about 25 lbs. My mom has told me that a pug of Piglet's age should weigh about 18 lbs, and regardless, we are pretty certain that Piglet is overweight and so far we have been approaching the problem from that position. However, I wanted to talk a little bit about Piglet and her behavior before we spend too much time working on her diet and potentially ignore what could be a worse ailment. My mother is very attached to her dogs (as all of us pet owners are) and every time she loses a pup she is just devastated, so I thought this community would be a great place to reflect with and draw insight from. I have already taken a read through the stickied dog obesity article and found some great information in there.
Piglet lives with another pug named Toby who is a bit heavier than she is and about two years older, and a small long-haired puppy named Roo who weighs about 10 lbs and is only about a year old (I am unsure of Roo's breed).
To start off with Piglet's symptoms, she seems very lethargic and unwilling to do certain things such as climb steps, which she used to do with no problem until very recently. These problems did not begin with her becoming obese as that condition has existed for a long time; however, I know that just because she has been obese for two years does not mean she needs to have been sick for that entire duration. When Piglet is confronted with a step, she will simply sit and wait on someone to help her. She does not act as if she is in pain whether she is carried or ultimately walks the step(s) herself (although sometimes she flat-out will not) so I think she is having mobility issues related to her weight. She has not been coddled and only very recently started acting as if she cannot triumph a simple 5-inch step.
Recently my mother put Piglet on a diet of 3/4 cup ground turkey, mixed with a very tiny amount of rice, twice daily (for the past five days). My mom is continuing this diet and I am concerned that consuming food intended for humans may make the matter worse in some cases but do not have the experience myself to say for certain. The only thing that I am somewhat certain of is that we should probably be feeding Piglet only 1 of these servings daily, if at all rather than a formulated dog food.
She does not have a lot of additional symptoms, but at the age of only three, we feel that something must be wrong given this recent lethargy and refusal to climb steps. Some questions I have are:
-Has anyone experienced this with their dog? What action did you take? Did you find any solution? What size/breed was your dog? Did you consult a veterinarian?
-Do you agree that this is most likely due to Piglet's weight? What other factors should we investigate (such as a particular kind of parasite)? Piglet is up-to-date on all shots and vaccinations as are recommended and/or required in the state of Maryland under the advice of her veterinarian. Her cohabitants are all up-to-date with the vet in the same manner.
Unfortunately we have had a very select few of our dogs pass a little too suddenly in the past and I want to make sure I do everything I can to ensure that Piglet lives a long and healthy life, but we are not a high-income family so I want to exhaust every possible resource before we opt to have the veterinarian examine her. We suspect the vet will have to board her in order to observe her behavior further and right now the problem doesn't seem urgent, so I'm hoping we can solve this in-home (with the help of a few kind internet friends, of course).
Any feedback or information is helpful - I've only just joined so I'm still making rounds to the various great discussions and informational topics on this forum but, for my mother's sake, I feel a sense of urgency that I cannot salve right now only with reading. Please share any experience or knowledge you have with Piglet's condition. Regardless of her ailment, we are putting Piglet on a diet to help get her in shape in the safest way possible (I am currently researching how to optimize her diet on dogforum now) but I do not want to find that something serious was going on and that we only discomforted Piglet during her final few months. Sorry, we are the worrying sort and I am especially sensitive when it comes to my mother's pets. Thank you so much in advance for any and all information you are able to direct me towards or provide me with!
If you would like any more information on Piglet or her cohabitants, pictures, etc. - please just let me know! Anything that will benefit our pup or add to your enjoyment of aiding us is a request that I will be thrilled to oblige!
Much thanks,
Will
I come to you seeking counsel and suggestions on how to go about a condition my mother's dog is facing. To give you some background on the dog, her name is Piglet, she is a female 3-year-old pug, and weighs about 25 lbs. My mom has told me that a pug of Piglet's age should weigh about 18 lbs, and regardless, we are pretty certain that Piglet is overweight and so far we have been approaching the problem from that position. However, I wanted to talk a little bit about Piglet and her behavior before we spend too much time working on her diet and potentially ignore what could be a worse ailment. My mother is very attached to her dogs (as all of us pet owners are) and every time she loses a pup she is just devastated, so I thought this community would be a great place to reflect with and draw insight from. I have already taken a read through the stickied dog obesity article and found some great information in there.
Piglet lives with another pug named Toby who is a bit heavier than she is and about two years older, and a small long-haired puppy named Roo who weighs about 10 lbs and is only about a year old (I am unsure of Roo's breed).
To start off with Piglet's symptoms, she seems very lethargic and unwilling to do certain things such as climb steps, which she used to do with no problem until very recently. These problems did not begin with her becoming obese as that condition has existed for a long time; however, I know that just because she has been obese for two years does not mean she needs to have been sick for that entire duration. When Piglet is confronted with a step, she will simply sit and wait on someone to help her. She does not act as if she is in pain whether she is carried or ultimately walks the step(s) herself (although sometimes she flat-out will not) so I think she is having mobility issues related to her weight. She has not been coddled and only very recently started acting as if she cannot triumph a simple 5-inch step.
Recently my mother put Piglet on a diet of 3/4 cup ground turkey, mixed with a very tiny amount of rice, twice daily (for the past five days). My mom is continuing this diet and I am concerned that consuming food intended for humans may make the matter worse in some cases but do not have the experience myself to say for certain. The only thing that I am somewhat certain of is that we should probably be feeding Piglet only 1 of these servings daily, if at all rather than a formulated dog food.
She does not have a lot of additional symptoms, but at the age of only three, we feel that something must be wrong given this recent lethargy and refusal to climb steps. Some questions I have are:
-Has anyone experienced this with their dog? What action did you take? Did you find any solution? What size/breed was your dog? Did you consult a veterinarian?
-Do you agree that this is most likely due to Piglet's weight? What other factors should we investigate (such as a particular kind of parasite)? Piglet is up-to-date on all shots and vaccinations as are recommended and/or required in the state of Maryland under the advice of her veterinarian. Her cohabitants are all up-to-date with the vet in the same manner.
Unfortunately we have had a very select few of our dogs pass a little too suddenly in the past and I want to make sure I do everything I can to ensure that Piglet lives a long and healthy life, but we are not a high-income family so I want to exhaust every possible resource before we opt to have the veterinarian examine her. We suspect the vet will have to board her in order to observe her behavior further and right now the problem doesn't seem urgent, so I'm hoping we can solve this in-home (with the help of a few kind internet friends, of course).
Any feedback or information is helpful - I've only just joined so I'm still making rounds to the various great discussions and informational topics on this forum but, for my mother's sake, I feel a sense of urgency that I cannot salve right now only with reading. Please share any experience or knowledge you have with Piglet's condition. Regardless of her ailment, we are putting Piglet on a diet to help get her in shape in the safest way possible (I am currently researching how to optimize her diet on dogforum now) but I do not want to find that something serious was going on and that we only discomforted Piglet during her final few months. Sorry, we are the worrying sort and I am especially sensitive when it comes to my mother's pets. Thank you so much in advance for any and all information you are able to direct me towards or provide me with!
If you would like any more information on Piglet or her cohabitants, pictures, etc. - please just let me know! Anything that will benefit our pup or add to your enjoyment of aiding us is a request that I will be thrilled to oblige!
Much thanks,
Will