Jessie, our food obsessed Golden Retriever, had a bit of a shocker over Christmas. On a walk she trod on a bit of glass and it sliced open her paw. Really sliced it open, there was blood everywhere.
She needed to have stitches, which required an anaesthetic and was off games for 6 weeks. That is 6 whole weeks of no walks which, for an active pup (in her mind that is, she is in fact 7 1/2) was torture and purgatory. There was abject misery for the humans as well, with a £500 bill to pay.
Now, it has been said before that Jess is a greedy dog. She has no off switch when it comes to food and she is not, at all, selective in what she eats. She will, and frequently does, eat anything. Be it fox poo, bin detritus, bread for the ducks, other peoples picnics, she will just help herself whenever possible. Keeping her trim has been a long and hard battle (although it does have to be said it is a lot easier to put a dog on a diet than it is to put a human onto one, I guess their inability to open the fridge door and help themselves to a glass of wine must be a factor).
With 6 weeks of inactivity coming up we were worried that she would start to put on weight again, so we cut her rations. She lost some weight so we put her rations back up again. Unexpectedly she still lost weight. Overall she lost 3 kg in 6 weeks (being about 10% of her body weight). We were confused, she was eating as much as we ever gave her, but doing a lot less exercise.
Time passed, her foot healed and she is once again out and about. After about 3 weeks of normal walking we noticed that her weight is back up to normal levels. A light bulb went on. We have always known that she scavenges a lot of food, but we had never quite realised just how much.
So, here's to our Jess. The only creature for whom trying to lose weight consists of doing less exercise.