Girlish figure and manly physique

Alert friend Jackie at Pooch Smooches alerted me to this great blog hop over at Dawg Business: Show off Your Dog's Waistline Campaign. Well I just had to join in!

 Pet Obesity is a subject I've blogged about often and it's receiving a great deal of media attention, as more than half our pets in the U.S. are obese or overweight. My yellow lab, Hudson, was overweight. Then my little spaniel Kelly started to get pudgy around the middle. That's when I realized that my bad habits (too much food, not enough exercise!) were affecting my dogs.

So as many of you know, Kelly and I motivated each other to lose weight, and wrote about it in our book, Dieting with my Dog. I lost about 40 lbs and Kelly lost 6 lbs, which put us at exactly the right weight. She's maintained her weight loss and good habits. The thing is with Kelly it is tough to see her waist because she has a lot of thick, flowy hair. But here's her waist!

Under all that fur is a slim waist.

We've only had Brooks for less than a year and still trying to get a clear idea of what Brooks' weight should be or how much we should feed him. But I think he's just about right. Even though he's 11 years old, he loves to go on walks and keep active.

Brooks is doing well at keeping in shape.

Here are some of our tips:
1. Adjust amount of food to make up for treats. My dogs do get a lot of treats during the day, so I feed slightly less at meal times.

2. Measure the food. If you don't, it's easy for your scoop to get out of hand.

3. Offer fruits and veggies. Kelly loves baby carrots. Brooks loves bananas.

You can do it! Keep on keeping fit and healthy with your dogs!


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