eleven month writeup on getting our "big boned" golden retriever from 94 pounds back to 71, the appointment where our vet finally stopped being polite about it, why the measuring cup was lying to us the whole time, the three weeks of theatrical starvation acting, the family member who was sabotaging us with toast, and what actually changed at the other end

Hank is our 6 year old golden and for most of his life we described him the way everyone describes a fat golden, big boned, fluffy, "hes a solid boy." at his annual in august he weighed 94lb and our vet, who had gently mentioned his weight at the last two visits, put her clipboard down and said the version she had apparently been softening. body condition 8 out of 9, thats not stocky, thats obese, his early arthritis is being loaded by every extra pound, and the kindest thing we could do for him would cost us nothing but attention. i drove home annoyed at her, which in hindsight was the reaction of a man who knew she was right.

the first honest thing we did was count, and the counting was humiliating. his "cup" of food was a plastic scoop from a rice cooker that turned out to hold about 1.4 actual cups, and he got two heaping scoops twice a day, plus dental chews that turned out to be 90 calories EACH, plus training treats, plus whatever fell off the counter, plus, and this took a month to discover, a corner of buttered toast every single morning from my father in law who lives with us and swore up and down he wasnt feeding the dog. we added it up against the number the vet gave us, roughly 940 calories a day to lose weight at his target of about 71lb, and Hank was taking in somewhere between 1800 and 1900. we werent overfeeding him a little, we were feeding a dog and a half.

what actually worked was boring. a $12 kitchen scale and weighing every meal in grams, because after the rice scoop incident i dont trust volume measurements ever again. same food, no fancy diet formula, just the right amount of it, vet approved. meals split into three instead of two so the day had more events in it. a quarter of his daily kibble set aside in a jar every morning and used as the only training treats, green beans and carrot coins for the moments when his acting demanded a response, because weeks one through three were a full theatrical production, sighing at the empty bowl, leading guests to the food bin, staring at us through dinner like a dickensian orphan. week four the performance mostly stopped, which is how we learned it was habit, not hunger. the toast situation required an actual family meeting and honestly it was the hardest part of the whole project, my father in law was expressing love and we had to give him a different currency, so now he does the evening green beans and calls himself the vegetable guy.

eleven months, 23 pounds, roughly half a pound a week, with a plateau around month five that the vet said to just wait out and she was right. free monthly weigh ins on the lobby scale became weirdly the highlight errand of the month. and the other end of it is not subtle. he jumps into the car again, first time in two years, he plays fetch past the fourth throw, the panting after normal walks is gone, and at this months recheck the vet moved his arthritis med from daily to as needed. the part i keep telling other golden people is that nobody was being cruel before, we just genuinely could not see it, the weight went on over four years and the dog in front of you always looks normal. put your hands on the ribs and weigh the food in grams, the eyeball has a conflict of interest