Chase is chunky right now. When he was 2 years old, he weighed about 78lbs, as he matured and packed on muscle he weighed a healthy 88lbs. Last summer his thyroid went nuts and crashed for about 6 months, he ballooned to a whopping 110lbs. Now that his thyroid has levelled off, he lost 12lbs and stands at 98lbs.
He still has a pouch on his belly, and you can't see his ribs when standing. I say another 10-12lbs down and he will be fit. A random stranger said that he looked like he had some groceries on him, I told her that he does indeed needs to lose about 12 pounds. She froze and said 'that's way too much, who told you that?' I told her both the vet and I think he needs to lose that much weight. She said thats unhealthy, he just needs to lose a few pounds. I told her he does, he weighed a healthy 88lbs last summer, that's what we are aiming for. She told me no, he looks fine, don't do it.
Excuse me? Do you know he has a thyroid issue? Do you know the health risks letting a dog stay overweight? Do you understand that a Doberman is an athletic breed and should look that way?
I've been told Ilka is too skinny. She weighed 49.3 pounds at the vet's today (I think their scale is a bit off, though, and that she actually weighs more like 48). You can just see her ribs, but she is well muscled, despite her lack of exercise while I was sick for three months.
When that person thought "they would know better" regarding him losing 12 lbs (that would have annoyed the hell out of me), I think it's because most people who aren't familiar with the breed don't understand the sleek and muscular curvature that a Doberman should possess.
That person you encountered is another example of what I like to call "diarrhea of the mouth." Unless someone specifically asked me my opinion regarding their dog's weight, I would NEVER tell someone their dog should lose weight, and then proceed to tell them HOW MUCH.
Wow! Chase is coming along nicely there! It's already such a drastic improvement on the weight he has lost so far! :nicejob:
LOL!!! Count yourself lucky...the best of the know-it-alls that I've had tell me stuff about my dogs was the guy who found me walking my brand new Champion male before we went back to the hotel to go to bed.
He leaned out the car window (he was the passenger) and said "HEY! I bet that's a KING Doberman..." I grant you that Toad is 28-1/2" but that hardly qualifies him as a "king" Doberman. I told the guy that he wasn't a king Doberman and there really wasn't any such thing. King just meant it was an oversized dog.
Guy, then says "Why, I bet that dog weighs 120 pounds!" I said the dog weighed 89 pounds. So then he said--"NAW! You need to weigh him on good scales like at a feed store--they'll show his real weight"
I'd had about as much as I wanted to deal with at that point and was trying to escape through the gate of a chain link fence when my "friend" yelled--HEY!!!!! My buddy says that it's illegal to show those white dogs--so you must not be here for this dog show, huh?"
We were under a street light--and I was righteously irritated by then. I pointed at Toad and said--"This dog is fawn--not white, he's Champion of record--he finished his championship here today--he doesn't weigh 120 pounds and he's not a King, Gladiator or Warlock Doberman--and frankly none of those dogs exist--their just oversized Dobermans bred by morons who don't have a clue about the standard or what they are doing!"
I escaped back into the fairgrounds and hid behind someones motor home until they finally went away. I HATE the ignorant public sometimes.
Good luck though--there are more of them around than you'd ever believe.
The only disagreement I get on my dogs' weight is people constantly guess Fiona is 90+ lbs. LOL And when I tell them she's 75 lbs, they'll say, "What? Are you sure? No, she's bigger than that..." Uh, yeah, I am sure. So says the vet scale!
A lot of people guess Tali is a puppy (LOL!) because she's so much smaller than Fi (she's really not tiny, but her smaller size - 24" and 60 lbs - is emphasized when next to Fiona). *sigh* People also guess Fiona is Tali's "boyfriend" because she's bigger. LOL My poor girls. They'd be so confused if they knew half of what people say about them.
The general public has no clue what they're talking about when it comes to the most things dog.
Heck, at Mila's young age, I get more people questioning her breed rather than her weight :rolleyesww:
"Is she a Min-Pin?" <-- most common comment
I'm sorry, but my BARELY 5 MONTH OLD DOBERMAN won't be moose-size for a few more months, she's just a baby and I can assure you is NOT a Min-Pin... :screama:
People who open their mouths about dogs without the slightest shred of knowledge... make me wanna teach Mila "sic 'em" :ranting2: She's a 45 pound Dobergirl with gigantic paws, does she look ANYTHING like a frickin' Miniature Pinscher?!?!
I take my dogs to my office every once in awhile and despite me telling them NOT to feed Ellie treats, they do! I clearly tell them, that I need to watch her weight, and they tell me no, she's hungry.
Well, she is going to look hungry if you wave treats at her! Drives me insane!
Considering most of the dogs I see on the street are either extremely obese or very malnourished, I don't think I will ever take what some stranger says about my own dog's weight to heart, because I feel that the general public around where I live has no clue on what a healthy animal should look like.
I'm happy that Chase is getting back on track to a healthy weight. He looked excellent in the first photo! Not that he looked bad in the second one, just can tell he has some chunk there. Still handsome though.
Unless a dog looks seriously sickly either way I dont think its another person's place, esp a stranger to say something. If its a family member or close friend that might be a tad different.
I do think a total stranger is out of line making a comment about your dog's weight. However, people are SO touchy about it. I'm a groomer and I can visibly see the discomfort some of these dogs are in. I wish there was a good way to say "you should probably stop free feeding or feeding people food". Same goes for health concerns. People think you're attacking their qualities as an owner if you point out a health concern. Drives. me. NUTS.
My favorite is the person that feeds her greyhound EIGHT cups of food a day. The dog looks like she ate a basketball but the mother just says "She looks so sad if I feed her less"
Kind of a weight story, but more of a "bastardized numbers" story:
I had a stranger stop me when I had my last Great Dane foster, she asked "what is he, a buck and a quarter?".
I kind of paused and thought to myself, is she really asking me how much he costs? My response was that he is a rescue and I'm not sure how much he cost.
She looked at me with a very confused look and asked for his weight, to which I answered that he was around 130lb. She shot back full of attitude, "yeah, about a buck and a quarter". Of course! How could I have not known! :rolleyesww:
I hold numbers sacred and would never bastardized them like that. Anyways, that's my stranger story about fussing over a dog's weight. I guess I should just be happy that she was right.
Bubba always looks too thin to me, and several people have remarked on his leanness but the vet says he's perfect at 98 lbs. I do find it pretty irritating that just random people feel they have the right to just just walk up and start giving advice.
I had a random guy tell me my Lucy was too scrawny and that she had mange.
She was four months at the time and had some patches of hair missing from her ears due to the taping. Random people are always going to give their opinion, as annoying at it is. Just got to ignore it sometimes. Sent from Petguide.com Free App
oh yes they do. A bratty knowitall woman came up to me the other day with my 90lb 31.5" doberman. She told me mine was small and her BITCH was bigger.
I said, well he is 31.5" inches tall, that's the lower end of some great danes..... She proceeded to tell me "Well she is ATLEAST that, and she weighs over 95". I certainly hope her female doesn't weigh that much.
Really? Woman? Usually it is the men who have a "my ____ is bigger than yours" contest.
People ask me all the time how much Rowan weighs. When I tell them he's about 85lbs (haven't weighed him in a while, but he's about that), I always get comments back..."really? That's it? No way, I thought he'd be like 100lbs!". Then there's Monroe, my 31lb 4month old puppy. Always get the "Oh, she's gonna be huge! Just look at those paws!" :rolleyesww: They are always surprised to hear she will prob be roughly 60-70lbs.
I think dobermans just have such a presence about them that makes them appear bigger than they are. That, and people are idiots.
:roflmao: you can't fix stupid I'm told. I've had both ends, random stranger told me my dogs are waaayyyy too scrawny. Soter is 65 lbs and Coco is 60 lbs, both the vet and their breeder agree they're perfect. Second random stranger calls out across the street "Wow, that dog is huge (Soter) he must weigh what, a good 100 lbs or so?". Seriously!?!? :rolleyesww:
Princess isn't even big, she is average, about 26-27 inches and varies from 68-72lbs.
People always think she is huge- even her previous owner was surprised when I told her what she weighed. I have had one skinny comment. I have one person tell me they "only like" the king dobermans. People guess her weight around 80lbs and she DID look like a big bitch compared to the little 50lb boys we fostered LOL. She must just have a huge presence.
When my pup was growing, she always bordered on skinny. I couldn't keep weight on her easily. Quite a few people commented on it, that she should be a cute chubby puppy, etc. It was annoying, but I stopped trying to educate the idiots because they don't listen anyways. :rolleyesww:
She is finally "filling out" but is still petite, at 26 inches and 60lbs. I am completely content with that size, because she's healthy. Both my vet and schutzhund trainer were encouraging with her size, always telling me it was ok that she bordered on skinny, because that is better than bordering on fat.
I have had two Italian Greyhounds (yep, skinny!) and it is hilarious what children say about them! They are just too honest. We had a very overweight adult approach us and say we needed to feed them, and my husband made a comment about how maybe they themselves should eat less. Oops! LOL.
I think it is beyond rude. You never know what someone else's situation is. It could be a recently acquired rescue that's severly underweight if the dog is bone thin, or sick with something else.
On our last trip ever to the park with my girl Julian, after deciding it was time to let her go but wanting a weekend of doing all of her favorite things, some b**** came up and commented that she was overweight and I needed to do something about it. I almost lost my mind on that person. I replied the bloated look was not an overweight dog, it was the impact of the extraordinarily high doses of steroids keeping her alive and comfortable while she battled cancer. That is the closest I have ever come to hitting someone.
I feel the exact same way. Over feeding is animal abuse in my opinion. It just takes longer to kill them and they are in horrible discomfort for years. Ugh. I am an overweight person. I will never allow my dogs to be the same.
I was walking both my dobes at the park a few days ago. Baxter is a shelter rescue, undesized for a male, but very much in shape foe a 7 yeal old. Elsa is a 8 month old Doberman rescue puppy. Had this guy drive by and yell out the car window at me about abusing my skinny dog and telling it to the authorities. Just had to laugh! Sometimes it's just not worth trying to talk to an idiot!
On a facebook group someone posted a picture of their gorgeous fawn male doberman. I commented how handsome he was, but did add that he was a bit chunky. Apparently he weighed 120 pounds.
Suddenly I was being called a 'cyber bully'. I wasnt being rude, just saying his dog looked a little chunky. if my dog was overweight Id want someone to tell me.
My boy borderlines on skinny. I had an aunt tell me I should feed him more, and I acknowledged her point and said I had hoped to get 5 more pounds on him, but if he got too much food, he had loose stools. I also noted that I would rather he be skinny, then too fat.
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