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Bob, a four-year-old black Lab, weighed 141 pounds when he was removed from his owner, Ralph Dryden, in January. Dryden claimed Bob was already hefty when he adopted him off the street, the BBC reports. But feeding the dog four tins of dog food each day, plus a fish dinner each night, certainly didn't help.
Dryden's sentence was deferred for good behavior, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, Bob is looking more svelte with every passing day. After moving into his new home and starting a strict diet-and-exercise plan, the portly pooch has already slimmed to 90 pounds.
"Bob had to be lifted into the car when we first got him. He couldn't even walk the distance from the car to the front door of the house," his new owner, Paul McShane, said in an interview with the BBC. Now, McShane added, Bob's a new dog. "The difference in him is amazing. He has got a spring back in his step," he told the BBC.
Bob's isn't the first case of legal action being taken over obese dogs in the UK. In September, a dog owner in Wales was fined 1,170 pounds (about $1,900) by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), after animal officers discovered his rotund 154-pound dog, which should have weighed closer to 55, the BBC reported at the time.
"Hopefully, the level of fine should send a clear message to people that sometimes overfeeding a pet is as bad as starving one," RSPCA inspector Kevin Paton told the BBC.
Will it become the norm to punish owners who let their pets get too portly? Let us know in the comments whether you think this new trend is smart, or just fat-headed.
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They don't remove children from homes when THEY are obese! I don't condone overfeeding your pet, but I also don't condone their removal from a loving home! How absurd!
I work in a veterinary hospital as a technician. Most animals that we see are a little overweight but some animals are obese and some are extremely obese. In some cases, this is due to some type of disorder. In most cases, it is a result in the owner overfeeding and feeding their pet junk food! If you don't want to be healthy yourself, that's one thing, but a pet depends on you. A pet doesn't have the choice. They will eat what you feed them. If you feed them high calorie foods that are also high in fat, you aren't doing them any favors. You are harming them. Kudos to the UK for doing something about this problem. Hopefully the US will follow suit.
Wow, that's really stupid. Don't get me wrong, the dog definitely shouldn't be allowed to get that heavy but just as Lynn said, it's definitely a huge difference between starving someone in your care and letting them get to fat. And this is coming from a rescue worker/vegan/animal rights person. I definitely don't think the owners should be faulted so heavily, very stern warnings and then small fines if they didn't attempt to change the situation, but I think the UK is taking it way to far.
So you'd let an owner keep a dog they've been told not to overfeed until that dog dies from some horrible health problem due to overeating?
I worked at a vet clinic for a year and when one lady brought in her two abnormally obese dogs, the vet threatened to find a way to get the dogs away from her if she didn't follow the diet he had given her several months before. One of the dogs was having trouble walking. The other couldn't walk at all and couldn't breathe through the rolls of fat on his chin and throat!