Is My Adopted Greyhound Getting Portly?

A clinic client brought her two dogs in and as they walk through the door I said, 'You're dogs are overweight!" To this, she replied, "Oh no, they can't be overweight! They look fine!" I said, "Wait just a minute."

I went into our office area and retrieved Queenie, one of our greyhound models and beloved pet of one of our employees, and put her on the scale. She weighed 62.1 pounds. Then we did the big weigh in like in the biggest loser. Her female weighed 72 lbs! The owner said, "Oh my! You are right!" We put her male on the scale and he weighed in at 82 lbs! In a deeper voice, she said, "Oh my, you were right!" We then proceeded to talk about what was necessary to reverse this trend.

Dogs, like people, consume food that has calories. Dogs, like people, also burn calories. Obviously, the idea is to either have your greyhound consume less calories, which may mean less snacks, or help it to burn more calories. The good part about burning calories is that you, as the adopter, can force or enforce the burning of calories and burn some of your own at the same time through daily walks, runs or play time. Wow! What a great idea! Of course, following through on that might be more difficult for the owner.

Photos below show our three models.