Dear Loulou,

I am packing on the pounds and my parents are worried. They said getting too rotund is bad for doggies but I just love eating!  I especially love eating sticks of butter when my mom leaves them out on the counter, bread when my mom leaves it on the counter, vegetables when my mom leaves them on the counter… Are you sensing a trend here? You look very svelte in your photo. Lady to lady, what do you recommend to drop some of these extra pounds. And don’t you dare say no butter.

Thanks,

Siggi

PS the photo is of me in my slimmer days. Mom almost sent in a photo of just me laying on my back with my belly showing but I gave her my puppy dog eyes and she reconsidered

Dear Siggi

I hear you honey. It’s really hard. Especially if your parents are setting you up for counter-surfing by leaving lucious bread and butter in easy reach. 

This is NOT your fault.  Almost every dog I know (unless they have arthritis and can’t reach the counter) will go for food left there.

My suggestion is going to sound a bit strange.  You must break your parents of their bad food management habits, and the only way to do this is to up the ante.  If there is even food-like stuff on the counter…like orange peels… GO for it.  If you can get into the garbage …Go for it. If they leave things on the counter that are really bad for you, like raisins….eat a couple (just 3-4 and no more)… that will scare them half to death.  Most parents will respond after a week of this and keep their kitchens tidier.

Your parents will probably get mad and scold you. But hopefully they will shape up. It’s for their good AND yours.

The other thing is exercise. Are you really good about communicating excitement about going for walks?  If your parents take you to the dog park, do you put on a good play show?  Do you bring them your leash to suggest exercise?  Or maybe your parents are not into exercise themselves and don’t take you for good long walks or sessions of ball-fetch.  If you have a slothful parent problem the answer is, once again, a difficult re-training program. You have to demonstrate to your parents that you need more exercise. That means being annoyingly active in the house: running around, maybe even tearing somethings up. 

Training parents is not easy. First of all, they are often too self involved and blame you for their problems. Sometimes they are stupid. They can get lazy about exercise or cleanup. Don’t be too hard on them. They have their own problems and, after all, our job is to make their lives easier. But we have our needs. As dogs, we don’t like to use negative reinforcement and punishment, but we have very few positive tools available.  We have love. But love does not get them to change.

Good luck Siggi

LouLou