On Tuesday 17th June 2008, two perky 8 year old Fox Terriers were surrendered to the Auckland SPCA as their owners could no longer look afer them. Ernie and Bert (as we have renamed them) are morbidly obese due to a poor diet and overfeeding.Ernie weighed in at 20kg which is 67% overweight and Burt was a whopping 117% overweight (32.5kg). In fact, the team at the SPCA were speechless at the condition of these animals. Tracy Dunn, SPCA Operations Manager, mentioned that they often see malnourished and underweight dogs and cats but overweight animals to this degree is an unusual occurrence.
Animal obesity is becoming a major problem in New Zealand. We have a nation of over weight people that are in turn overfeeding and supersizing their beloved pets. Despite their weight problems, Ernie and Burt were happy dogs with wagging tails and bundles of spirit.The team at Hill’s Pet Nutrition (the exclusive sponsors of SPCA feeding program) were called in to help. Hill’s have recommended that both Ernie and Bert are placed on a special weight reduction diet called Hill’s Prescription Diet r/d. The team at Hill’s were so taken by the brave characters of these special dogs that they have happily donated the food for the duration of their weight loss program. Prescription Diet r/d is low in calories, high in dietary fibre and has appropriate levels of protein. This combination will ensure optimal fat loss while maintaining lean muscle mass. From a welfare point of view, the combination of fibre and protein will mean Ernie and Bert feel full while losing weight.
Both Ernie and Bert are now signed up members of the Hills Pet Slimmer program and their weight will be monitored every week until they reach their ideal goal weight which is 12kg for Ernie and 15kg for Bert.Hill’s looked at the dogs current weight and their ideal weight then devised a weight loss program to get the dogs health back on track. Sensible weight loss is loosing no more than 1-2% per week. Ernie’s weight loss plan is predicted to take 27 weeks and Bert’s is going to take 36 weeks. This is the safe period of time to reach their ideal weight, without putting undo stress on the dogs.
Ernie (above) and Bert (below) get their first weigh-in...
The SPCA hopes they can be rehomed together as they are the best of friends.
4 comments:
how could anyone do that are people that brainless and mean
I will be watching this blog closely. All the best to Bert & Ernie on their journey back to good health and ball chasing and big ups to those people at the SPCA who are helping them get there!!
Hello! We are room 16 from Papatoetoe Central School. We have been keeping track of Bert and Ernie's progress. We have been watching the news and reading the paper. We are very excited to see how Bert and Ernie get on. We would like to wish Bert and Ernie all the best on their journey to loosing weight and we really appreciate all of the hard work that SPCA do. So thank you!!!
Arohanui.
firstly a big thumbs up for the SPCA, what a great job u are doing. From seeing this, it just goes to show how over-treating ur pet can lead to many issues. in saying that, i have done some research on dogs and from what i have found out is that Bert may be a cross bred dog. Fox terriers even if over fed, will not grow to be this size. Take Ernie for example, he may be fatter than averaged sized Fox Terriers but is still same in length. therefor from my point of view, it is due to Bert being a cros bred dog that he is seen to be this oversized. in the end i just wish the very best for these two dogs and hope they reach their intended goal..
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