Food is not Love

I was flipping through the channels Monday night why isn't there anything on? click! why does everything suck? click! why isn't there anything on Monday nights? click! and I ran across Animal Planet.


Fat Pets. Oh Really? They think they know from fat pets? I decided to tune in. It was set in Great Briton, where ,the show told us, is the highest concentration of over weight pets in the world. I don't remember being polled, I could have shown them fat pets. But anyway. One of the fat pets was a fat cat. A very fat cat and it looked just like The Kitty. Just like The Kitty when The Kitty was fat, in fact, I think it may have been fatter then The Kitty. It was hard to say because they kept saying X number of stones - Which was fine for the Brits but the voice over person could have said "X number of pounds" when she was voicing over. They gave the dogs' weight in pounds but not the cats, perhaps because there aren't that many stones. I'm not even the only one to post about it, Tuesday there was a flood of entries about it. It was a veritable pet blogging meme.

The animals they featured, two rottweilers, the kitty's cousin, and some sort of spaniel were all patients of a special clinic for over weight pets and where the pets were getting care and a lot of tough love. The rots were really sad, there is no reason for a rot to be 160 pounds! The spaniel person and one set of rot owners totally took responsibility for their dog being huge. The rot people also were totally having to pay for the dogs new knee (four hours of very expensive, dangerous, surgery) because the old knee couldn't hold up the animals fat body anymore. All the owners except one really felt terrible about their dogs weight and embraced the work to get the pets back into shape. And it is a lot of work. Dogger needed to lose about three pounds just for aesthetic reasons and it's been hard work for both of us. I put her on diet food, cut about 1/3 of a cup out of her daily allotment and started an exercise regime for her. For three pounds! and I'm not sure she has lost it. I know she looks a little better but she may have just tightened up a little, maybe just redistributed the weight. I think she looks better. And girl dog was not fat.

The poor people on the show had to change their lifestyles. Have you ever tried to make a cat work out? Tried to explain about getting up and moving around to a creature that naturally sleeps 23 hours a day? They don't make kitty sweat suits for a reason. Cat beds, cat blankets, cat pillows yes, cat treadmills? cat work out videos? cat Pilate's? Not so much. Once a cat gets fat, it's pretty much going to stay that way. The cat's people didn't let that stop them though, they really did everything they could and it paid off.

I didn't work hard for The Kitty. He had to develop a gluten intolerance on his own, because that was a diet plan that worked for The Kitty. It worked too well. I don't have any pictures of him when he was starving because skeletons don't photograph well. He photographed well when he was fat, mostly because he moved so slowly and couldn't get away from me and if he did manage to waddle away, he never got far because he was too fat and it limited where he could hide, he couldn't fit under anything, behind anything and there was no no space smaller than an open door he could wriggle through. He pretty much flomped in the middle of the room and dared you to pick him up.

Old and Busted


The New Hottness


The show followed the people and their fat pets through their weight loss program. One of the couples went so far as to hide in their room if they wanted a snack because they didn't want the dog to see them eating! They also stopped buying junk food of any kind for themselves so they could set a good example for their dog. The cat owners also worked really hard for their pet and saw some good results. All the people lost weight too. All except the one dog person who would not stop feeding her dog. The poor animal weighed 180 pounds! She said she didn't want to deprive her dog. She's going to be deprived when the poor thing dies years too fast because it's organs wear out. It's poor eyes were so sad, it's person was too busy stuffing it's mouth to ever bother looking into it's eyes.