No Airplane Here: Pi's Waistline: A Work in Progress

Recently, I have been struggling with maintaining Pi at a healthy weight. She is kind of yo-yo-ing in a 5 pound range, which is a lot for an ideally 33 lb dog.

This is the only pic I have of her where you can see that she, normally, has
a clearly defined waist from the top. Also, I just love this picture ^_^

Almost a year ago now, two weeks after earning her CGC certificate, Pi was attacked by my parent's neighbor's dog. This dog broke a chain link fence and came into my parent's yard specifically to bite Pi. Understandably, she was not quite herself after the whole ordeal and she actually lost weight because she didn't want to eat.

Ouch! Luckily it was only her front leg

We started doing more fun dog things as summer progressed and Pi got out of her funk. She was running around, she was eating, everything seemed okay.

Look at that fit doggy! Good job Pi!

In fact, I didn't notice she was getting a little thick around the middle until we went to the vet in December (that whole see her every day thing...). Pi had gained about 5 lbs in 6 months! I think part of the problem was that she still had a well defined waist from the side and was still just as energetic as always. What I can really notice, and my personal weight test, is the rib feel. Pi's ribs have never been visible but they are normally easily felt. I don't know why I didn't notice her ribs slowly being covered by a layer of pudge over the summer, but since the vet visit I have been paying a lot more attention!

This is December. After the vet visit we spent more time going to the field where Pi can run off leash.

Around this same time, I learned that one of my roommates had spent the whole summer feeding Pi from the table whenever (and whatever!) he was eating. Not okay. Pi does get a fair bit of human food, like bones, bits of meat, rice based left overs, and stuff that we spill on the floor. However, normally when someone gives her something significant during the day they tell me and I adjust her dinner serving accordingly.

Anyway, I've been trying harder to get her enough exercise for the last few months but her waistline is not slimming up as much as I might have hoped. At least her ribs are definitely carrying less fat. One problem is that I have been adding oil to her food to help with dry winter skin issues and I am not a good judge of exactly how much less kibbles to give her to account for it. Hopefully, now that spring is coming and there's more daylight, Pi and I will be able to get out some more.

And so here she is today. More or less no definition from the top but still with a decent tuck from the side.