A Fat Whippet

[john gregory]

Join our free community today.

Connect with other like-minded dog lovers!

Login or Register

I was out with the girls this morning and came across a man and woman with a Whippet bitch, she looked at mine and said to her bitch ' that's what you are supposed to look like '. I looked at hers and it was the fattest Whippet I had ever seen, the poor girl had no shape at all. The lady said she put weight on after she had been spayed and the vet said as long as she is happy it's ok. I asked her what she fed her on and she replied 'I don't give her a lot of food '. I said does she run around, the reply was 'oh yes she runs', well she did'nt when Poppy was raceing around like a demented luny trying to get her to chase her. I wished I had my camara with me to show you all.

 

[eve]

It is funny how fat whippets look like ordinary dogs with small heads.

Poor little thing.

The 'lite' diets work really well and it is a pity the owner does not make a bit more effort to get his whippet to a weight that is both comfortable and does not strain her joints instead of making a joke about it. I cannot believe that any vet would support an owner allowing a whippet to get fat. :angry: :angry: :angry:

 

[fallenangel]

i never get this excuse of its cos there spayed hafe my girls are hafe arnt and you cannot tell by there weight who is spayed they run as much as they did before eat the same and if there any signes of any putting on weighe i just up there walks. I can bet her dogs doesnt have a lot of food but has a treet or 10 all the time lol. lets hope after seeing yours she think about helping her dog lose weight before it affects its joints

 

[peppermint lady]

i hate seeing fat whippets, they look so uncomfy, whippets are lean fit energetic dogs by nature

since mine have been spayed they are in better shape and holding an even weight and infact lighter than before the spaying :thumbsup:

 

[bertha]

My 10 year old bitch is spayed, she isn't fat!!!!!!!!!!!! She has thickened a bit over the loin, but apart from that she looks an acts like a two year old. A proper diet and plenty of exercise is the secret. My greyhound is also spayed, she is now 6 and still retains her figure.

Poor little fat whippet.

 

[TTT]

Yes, speying is a poor excuse for letting a dog get fat, but trying to get some people to understand the dangers is hard. I know someone whose dog was very, very fat. Its knees crumbled under the stress and it had heart trouble, they spent loads running to specialist vets across the country but the dogs quality of life was gone. It was shocking that they could not see why this happened. The dog died....they got a new one......same thing happened again

 

[fallenangel]

one of the major red alerts i would get when doing home checks and i heard this quiet a lot was we want to adopt a greyhound , lurcher, whippet and get it nice and healthy looking like a realy dog every signel time i herad this and asked more they ment fatten them up so they had no shape left they thought they would be doing a dog a faveour getting it to look like a lab

 

[whippetwise]

I met a fat whippet in the park a few weeks back, the owner asked how I kept mine so trim. Her excuse was her dog was a counter surfer!

Arent they all! Just keep them out of the kitchen or else keep the food off the counter, simple! :blink:

Her fat bitch was not spayed and my two trim bitches are spayed!

 

[Hula]

When I got my whippet Dina she was almost 8 years old and weighed 18kg .

When I brought her home my husband didn't know what breed of dog I had got !

She was not spayed at that time either !

I fed her normal food and the weight just fell off her .

She now is spayed and weighs 12 kg which the vet says is correct for her size and build :thumbsup:

 

[JAX]

Apart form having a stupid vet dosnt this knumbnut realise shes KILIING her dog <

I bet the vet thinks oh well , if it gets diabetits(sp) then I can make loads of money off the owner (w00t) They ) owner and Vet ) , make me so cross :rant: :rant:

 

[Hula]

Apart form having a stupid vet dosnt this knumbnut realise shes KILIING her dog <

I bet the vet thinks oh well , if it gets diabetits(sp) then I can make loads of money off the owner (w00t) They ) owner and Vet ) , make me so cross :rant: :rant:

I can't believe you would think that a vet would want a dog to get diabetes so that he could make money ?

Every vet I have ever met wants dogs to be ultra thin :wacko:

Who knows if the persons vet even said the dog was fine being fat ?

 

[Sadie]

One problem with older people and their pets is their desire to treat or spoil their dog/cat. They mean well but don't see the pounds piling on. Also, a whippet in home surroundings can look acceptable but take it onto the streets and it becomes glaringlingly obvious if it's overweight. Another case of the owner being educated I suppose....

Hannah x

Apart form having a stupid vet dosnt this knumbnut realise shes KILIING her dog <

I bet the vet thinks oh well , if it gets diabetits(sp) then I can make loads of money off the owner (w00t) They ) owner and Vet ) , make me so cross :rant: :rant:

 

[sasha66]

Hi,

I've just rejoined after a long absence, I don't usually post, but this one I couldn't ignore. (I am not a vet, breeder etc, just a whippy owner)

The bitch you saw may have piled on the pounds after spaying, and eating too much with too little exercise, it's probably a correct assumption over 99% of the time. Having said that, there are other reasons that dogs put on weight providing she is a Whippy with correct body type for the breed and not one of the "bully whippets" etc.

If any of you had seen my dear old girl in her later years, you'd think she ate like there was no tomorrow, and never got off her bed! She was spayed but very slim until her last years. My old girl Sasha became overweight, despite diet and best efforts to exercise. She died after 3 years of Cushings disease (basically untreatable Hypothyrodism). I don't know what triggered the disease. She started off a litttle heavy but managing to exercise quite well (ie: gained weight without a decrease in exercise or increase in calories). Over the course of the disease, I took her to the vet many many times regarding her weight, for stitches, and everything else, but it wasn't until a lady said something one day that I knew what I was looking for. She had Greyhounds and mentioned Cushings, she was also a vet nurse but was just walking by one day, she could have said nothing. After this encounter, I took Sasha to another vet, who diagnosed the illness. Eventually, as the disease progressed, Sasha's blood thickened could not manage as much exercise. She fainted on several occasions with me carrying her home over several kilometres. She eventually couldn't walk to the end of the street, after years of 10km a day walks. She had no interest in other dogs.

That's enough sad stuff, my long winded point is that if the owner is feeding the Whippy appropriately and is exercising her as much as she can take, then she may be ill, especially if she's lost that familiar Whippy Spark. Besides unexplained weight gain, the other signs that my vet and I both missed were a dull and brittle coat, thinning of the tail, slow healing of wounds, and easily torn skin (we blamed our new pup for savaging the old girl, but her skin was paper thin, 3 lots of stitches within a few months), her eyes also changed (at least I thought so).

If you see that fat whippy again, perhaps you could recommend a good Whippy vet, just to be safe- it can't do any harm as dogs with any cause of obesity need careful management, but so do dogs with Cushings and other causes of weight gain. Most Whippy owners realise that the breed is not always straight forward and appreciate that not all vets understand the breed- (at least in Australia where Whippies are not that common). A second opinion can help, ours came too late, our first vet obviously didn't realise how seriously ill our girl had become, he just thought all older dogs got fat.

 

[TillynPip]

I know someone with a beautiful little cross breed rescue, aged 6 yrs, he is now so fat that he can just about walk. We made the mistake of going for a walk with them but my dogs got so bored and frustrated (and cold) with ambling along that we had to leave them and get our couple of miles in before they had got home!(they walked around a field) She feeds him everything she eats ie M & S dinners, cottage pie etc and nothing will persuade her that she is killing him. :rant: Apart from his weight, I can't imagine what his salt intake is. So sad because he was a cracking little dog.

 

[TillynPip]

Re Sasha66's post, that is so sad for you and your whippy. Did you ever inform the first vet of his lack of knowledge?

 

[Lal]

A few years ago I met a lady who had a little whippet bitch and a beddie x whippet. The beddie x was in great shape but the whippet girlie was very fat, they were both older dogs. Talking to her she explained that her whippet had cushings disease, she was finding it so difficult because she had previously enjoyed a very active life. May well be worth a mention if you see these people again?

 

[FeeFee]

Spaying doesn't make dogs fat, eating more calories than they burn off makes dogs fat :-

Dogs may need a little less food after neutering to keep them trim, just as they may need less as they get older and not so active. It's not rocket science - if your dog starts putting on weight reduce their food and/or increase their exercise.

I'm disgusted by their vet saying it's OK so long as she's happy. Being overweight is not OK, it causes all sorts of problems with joints, heart etc later in life and is completely unnecessary :rant:

 

[wild whippies]

The fact the owner is aware of what her dog is supposed to look like does show she isn't completely ignorant. The fact she's approached a vet about the dogs weight does show her concern for her dogs well being. I'm with Sasha and Lal on this - one shouldn't jump to conclusions and maybe some advice and support to the owner would be a little more pro-active after all she did approach a fellow whippet owner and was complimentary of their dog, it's a different matter altogether when you come across folk who think your dogs are starving!