November 10, 2011 Weigh In.......Whew!

Weight = 26.8 lbs

Chest = 25 inches
Waist = 23 1/2 inches

Better news this time.  She dropped 1.2 lbs by increasing her exercise.  She still can't trot, but her lameness in her right shoulder is starting to improve.  I am still giving her glucosamine and occasionally she gets an NSAID if she's especially sore.
At this point, she has decided that diet dog food tastes pretty good and I can just mix dry R/D with a small amount of canned R/D and she gobbles it up.  In the past, she would sort out pieces of dry food and refuse to eat them.  To combat that, I would mix her dry and canned food with a little water and place it in the refrigerator until the next feeding.  This got the dry food softened and she was less likely to pick it out.  Fat dogs do need to eat.  You don't want the dog's body to go into starvation mode, and if they are eating so little that they don't meet their protein requirements, their weight loss will be slow.

November 3, 2011 Weigh In.......Uh Oh!

Weight = 28 lbs.

We've stalled at 28 lbs!!!  Why does this happen and what do we do?  It's not time to panic.  This happens when people diet as well.  Honestly, I usually blame the pet owner for this.  Maybe they got lax with the exercise program or they're giving more treats, or not measuring the food carefully.  Maybe I need to rethink this, because I'm not giving Olivia any extra food and we're not missing our daily exercise routine.  So what I did to try to jump start the weight loss again, was to increase her exercise.  As this point, she is tolerating more and more exercise, so we just increase the time and intensity and leave the diet exactly the same.

October 24, 2011 Weigh In

Weight  28 lbs  (We're down 6.5 lbs from her peak weight!)

Chest  25 1/2 inches  (that's minus 2 1/2 inches)

Waist  25 inches  (that's minus 3 1/2 inches)

Slow, but sure progress....