Buckaroo’s Healthy Weight Journey
My name is Buckaroo and I have a weight problem, which I call the “Battle of the Bulge.” My weight issues have been ongoing for several years.
I’m a seven-year-old Australian Shepherd who lives with 7 other Australian Shepherds and two humans. One is the nice human, Peter, the other is the food police, also known as “Nurse Ratched.”
My nicknames “Buckaschmoo” and “Mr. Schmoo,” have evolved because of my specialized talent in schmoozing humans…in order to get more treats, of course.
None of my other pack members have a weight issue. However, being the largest dog of the pack has its advantages: I can broadside another human or canine as well as any linebacker on an NFL football team. I can plow through the pack at will, like Moses dividing the Red Sea. I take up so much space when I stand on the walkway to the backdoor, no one can get past me. I also intimidate new delivery drivers who see me as some kind of canine Titanic. I have heard Nurse Ratched refer to me as a walking version of an ottoman.
Peter says I am just big-boned.
Nurse Ratched and two of my Aussie pack members spend the winters in Florida. This leaves Peter and me to enjoy three wonderful months of sharing peanut butter, potatoes, spaghetti, pie crust remnants, plus a never-ending supply of dog treats, a heaping dog food bowl twice per day, and I get to lick the casserole dishes clean. I can also schmooze one or two of my pack members into stealing eggs from the chicken coop. Thunderbear is usually my first choice, because he grabs an egg, takes it out, drops it, and then goes back inside for another egg. Of course, by the time he has the second egg, I’ve eaten the first one. This is my kind of life.
Peter and Nurse Ratched also have different training techniques. I figured Peter out pretty quickly, and know that if he says, “Schmoo, let’s go,” and I just sit there, he will get a treat out to motivate me. I have trained him pretty well.
Ratched takes a decidedly different approach. If she says, “Let’s go,” and I pretend that A- she’s speaking Swahili, or B- I didn’t hear her, she then appeals to my inner Aussie curiosity. She says, “Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing; oh, it’s going to be good,” which of course riles up the rest of the pack in pure excitement. Never does she whip out a treat. If I still stay sitting, she just leaves with the other pack members, and then of course I really want to join them: treat or no treat.
When Nurse Ratched returns from Florida, I go into food purgatory. She measures the amount of food in my bowl and always errs on the side of “less is more.” Heck, I can eat my breakfast in about 3 nanoseconds. I lick that bowl so clean I can see my reflection. When she gives treats, I get ¼ of a treat. Can you believe it? The others, oh, they get a whole treat, not some smidgen that I can barely taste.
For a time she added kelp to my breakfast, which along with her starvation diet actually did reduce my waistline over a period of several months. I actually got down to under 80 pounds. She was elated. I felt deprived. I could schmooze Peter into giving me a treat when Ratched wasn’t looking, or sharing his peanut butter with him in the Man Cave, or even conning him into taking me to Tractor Supply where the nice lady at the counter always gives me several treats because she says I am handsome.
Big-boned and handsome, that’s me.
Early this summer Nurse Ratched started me on a new weight loss supplement: BioStar’s Optimum K9 Healthy Weight. If you think I’d turn my nose up at supplements, you’d be wrong. I’ve never met anything in my food bowl that I didn’t immediately inhale.
One day, about two months later, I came strolling into the kitchen because Peter was cooking, which means spills on the floor that I am happy to clean up. Ratched was in the kitchen too, undoubtedly working on some evil plot to reduce my portion size again.
She looked at me, and moved closer, feeling my ribcage, and said to Peter, “Wow, Schmoo has a waistline!” Peter, my friend, my bro, my comrade in eating, stepped away from the stove, and bent over me. He said, “Poor Schmoo, a shadow of his former self.”
Even I know this isn’t true, but Ratched started laughing and I body blocked Peter, ‘cause that’s what guys do to show their true affection.
“Don’t you feel better, Schmoonie?” She asked with her nice voice.
I hate to admit it, but actually, I do. My stamina is better, and I am not as stiff when I get up after a nice long nap.
Optimum K9 Healthy Weight features the patented ingredient Crominex 3+ providing bioavailable chromium for carbohydrate, fat, and protein metabolism, shilajit for metabolism, and Indian Gooseberry for circulatory support. Healthy Weight also includes vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant support, and kelp for thyroid support, plus medicinal mushrooms to support the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis.
According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, as of 2018, 56% of dogs in the US were overweight or obese. Breeds most affected by obesity are Beagles, Scottish Terriers, Yorkies, Bulldogs, Boxers, Dachshunds, Golden Retrievers, Rottweilers, English Mastiffs, Pugs, Newfoundlands, Basset Hounds, Labrador Retrievers, Cocker Spaniels, and Chihuahuas.
I can empathize with my fellow canines who carry a few extra pounds. Even exercise and portion control may not be enough to reduce our love handles.
I am hoping that if Nurse Ratched keeps me on Optimum K9 Healthy Weight, and Peter remembers to give it to me twice a day so that maybe she won’t come back from Florida, take one look at me, shriek, and remove all the food goodies in my life.
Maybe Peter will say, he’s big-boned and he’s buff.
A buff Buckaroo. Has a nice ring to it. Now can I have a treat?
