Overweight American Dogs

December 26th, 2007

I previously wrote about our struggle with Big Ras Bob the Giant Mutant Mountain Poodle when he developed systemic cancer - a dog version of Hodgkin’s Disease - and our surprise that there was actually a chemotherapy treatment for dogs. Which we of course invested in, hoping that maybe his cancer would go into remission as it sometimes does with people who undergo chemotherapy.

fatpood

It might have added three months to his life, though in the end we did have to take him in for “The Shot,” crying all the way. The most awful thing about the chemo was that it not only made poor Bob’s beautiful hair fall out in fistfuls, it also made him gain weight like nobody’s business. Some of that was no doubt the drug effects themselves, but another part of it was that he was voraciously hungry all the time and we just didn’t have the heart to deny him. By the time he died he was at least 20 pounds overweight, which is a very considerable amount for a fine-lined dog such as a poodle.

It reminded me of a friend we had way back in the 1970s, who was sort of short and chunky even though he was a confirmed vegetarian. I figured it was just his particular frame and metabolism, because you’d have to eat a whole lot more carrots, spinach and rice than he ever did to put that much weight on. He had a dog named Fasha, a mostly white beagle-like mutt with serious attitude, who proved the adage that people and their dogs tend to look alike. Fasha was as chunky as our friend, but actually did eat enough to account for it.

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Filed under Cancer, Health, Longevity, Nutrition | Comment (1)

Thanksgiving Dinner Fit for a Poodle!

November 15th, 2007

T'givingDinner

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, always a major Big Deal here on the mountain. That all started decades ago when we lived in Oklahoma, and signed on as the communications directors for a grant-based hunger project called “The Whole World Family Supper” that was scheduled to be a Thanksgiving feast for everybody, everywhere.

All of a sudden our little family gatherings just weren’t enough anymore. By the time we’d moved to Florida and became full time performers - with a friends list that included circus folk, traveling medicine shows and all sorts of other itinerant musicians and crusty jugglers - Thanksgiving became an annual pilgrimage to a St. Augustine boatyard an ex-Air Force friend managed. Price of admission was at least one homeless person or otherwise destitute person, and it got bigger every year. By the time we moved to North Carolina the boatyard Thanksgiving feast (a pot-luck affair) offered 4 turkeys and two hams pit-cooked by our host, at least 60 people, and stretched out with leftovers for the entire 4-day holiday weekend.

Now that we’re here on the mountain it’s still a Big Deal. We average at least 24 people every year, which is a heck of a crowd to host in a 28′ square cabin complete with dogs. And we often have 7 or 8 dog guests too, friends of our poods and strays, part of our many friends and family’s families. They get Thanksgiving Dinner too. It is a family supper, after all, and dogs are family.

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Filed under Family Feasts, Health, Holidays, Nutrition | Comment (0)