A big wet nose. A sloppy tongue. Silly flappy ears. Big soppy eyes. Little short legs. A giant wobbly belly.

I’m not going to lie. Fat dogs can be hilarious.

Especially if they happen to be of certain funny bread already (for example, bull dogs, and pugs).

However, there is a serious side to these poor dogs. Unfortunately, they are ‘being killed with kindness’. As pet owners, we love to feed them the things that make use happy, because we think they will love us for it. It may be that we start to eat our dinner, and they pull the puppy dog eyes on you, and you can’t resist them. But you should be careful. The bigger your dog gets, the more its quality of life is going to be affected.

Just like us humans, an excess of weight can have a massive effect on our ability to do just the simplest things. it can stop us from exercising, playing with our children, walking to the shops, etc. and much like us humans, it is also a recurring cycle. As the dog gets bigger, it can do less exercise, and thus will just continue to gain weight.

Obesity can also cause great stress on your pet’s joints, which can cause a great amount of pain. And it can be a horrible process to watch. I had a dog that was 21 years old, (that’s the equivalent of a 97 year old human) and as he got older, his legs gave in and we had to put him down when they collapsed, and he was perfectly healthy. It was something we couldn’t avoid because of his old age, but it was a horrible process to watch. Now imagine how much worse it would have been had it been an avoidable fate.

If you have an obese dog, it is important that you try to control its diet with a calorie controlled dog food. You should also make sure that they are getting the right dose of any wormers or other medication they are taking – much like a human, the larger the patient the larger the medicinal needs.