Loving your Dog to Death

I love my Luna she's the sweetest, smartest, bestest dog that ever has been in the world. She's great. Today I was at a friend's house and he cousin was there with her dog. Her dog is a portly terrier mix. He's seriously one of the most obese dog i've ever seen. He looks heavier then the largest dog on this chart and he's so small.

The dog searched and found some tootsie rolls and when my friend asked her cousin if he could have one, the cousin said yes. This dog does NOT need candy. I mean he does have health issues, he goes potty a lot and has this soft growth between his front legs. His skin is white, except his stomach near is back legs there it's almost black. He's could be big because of health matters but I rather suspect the candy his owner gives him to show her love contributes to his obesity.

This reminded me so much of a time I spent 3 weeks in Cuernavaca Mexico on a homestay and the 'mother' of the house mentioned that the vet had told herr to keep her dog to a specific diet because it was obese and she did not stick to the diet. She said she loved the dog too much to not give her the treat she was begging for.

I kinda think she'd showed her love better to take her dog on daily walks and feed her the prescribed diet. :shrugs: It makes me wonder why we humans use food to show affection. When I'm feeling stressed, I eat. Take today, I've 3 major due dates next week and I'm sitting eating Doritos and blogging the opposite of what I should be doing. But this isn't about me, it's about the poor dogs who get fed too much because their woners have some mistaken belief that the food they give their pets means love. Food is sustance. It keeps us alive and allows us all to do the thing we enjoy, but it shouldn't be the most important thing in our lives. When we find ourselves thinking about food constantly, we need to back up and wonder why. Of course, its hard to when you're honestly hungry.

Back to dogs I will brag a bit and say that Luna is the perfect weight because I feed her the recommended amount of quality food just a few treats, we play fech every day and I do take her on walks. She did get a little big a couple of months ago because my wonderful sisters were putting food out constantly for her.

Every time the bowl was empty, they would put a cup of food in. I nagged them about that and they don't do it any more. Luna actually did lose a fair bit of weight when we went on vacation and I was the only one feeding her again and we were also going on lots of walks. She hasn't gained the weight back since we've returned, so I'm assuming my sisters haven't been giving her extra food.

Anyway, the gist of this entry is that giving your dog extra food he or she doesn't need is not love. Food is not love. Many other things can be love, but as a culture, we really need to get away from food as a reward or example of love.