Gramercy before and now - Part 1 of 4

When sweet Gramercy arrived to us in late December we were a bit surprised at how "thick" he was.  Poor Gramercy was overweight and bloated.  I'm guessing this was due to a variety of things which include:  poor quality of food, lack of portion control and lack of exercise.

 

The shelters do the best they can with the resources they have and they often feed whatever food they have on hand.  Likely Gramercy was eating food that was not grain free.  We've see that a grain free food makes a big difference for a dogs overall health and mental well being.  Gramercy, like most terriers likes to eat. So, if they just put multiple bowls of food in the dog runs (where he was housed with other dogs) I'd bet Gramercy would chow as much food as he could get to.  Then of course the shelter don't have the staffing to exercise the shelter dogs.  All of this brought us a chubby Gramercy. 

 

Gramercy's shelter picture

So today Gramercy has lost close to 4lbs.  For a 15lb dog that was a lot of extra weight he was carrying.  He still needs to lose about 1 more pound.  It's not good for any dog to be overweight and for our small terriers it's even more important to keep them at their idea weight.  A few extra pounds can really affect a small dog - more than I think many of us realize.  I will say that sitting in the waiting room of the specialist vet clinic for hours on end was an eye opening experience for me. There were a lot of overweight dogs coming in for medical issue related & complicated by them being overweight. 

 

Here's an article that talks about Health Risks in Overweight or Obese Dogs

 

The vet told me that one of the biggest things we can do for Gramercy is to keep him thin.  The more weight he carries, the more stress is put on his spine, vertebrae's and legs.  He like other type B ratties have the long back and carrying extra weight increases the probability that these shorties can develop intervetebral disc disease.  Also the heavier the dog, the more stress is placed on a dogs knees. This should catch your eye as  Luxating patella is a common concern for all rat terriers and other small breeds.

 

 Here's a great article to answer they question Do you have a tubby dog?

Gramercy looking & feeling good - April 2013