All Righty, Chi-Chi is just Fat

Normally when you are waiting for blood test results, you are hoping for them to be negative, right? How come I was disappointed when the vet called me to say that Chi-Chi does not have a thyroid problem? I guess I was hoping that was the problem so we could just put her on meds and she would lose the excess pounds. Does that make me a bad surrogate mommy??

Crap. Well, now we just have some work ahead of us. We've been testing out the new food. She loved the wet stuff, but it did not love her. She got the runs from it. We won't be using that food. Just as well though because it was difficult setting up the dog food because they were both eating wet and they were both different formulas. Now if I were the one who fed them, this wouldn't be a problem. My 71 year old dad feeds them in the afternoon and I had to label which one was which. I already prep the food for him and put the correct amount in the bowls, but he could still give the dog the wrong food because once the label was off, they looked the same.

She likes the Purina OM (overwight management). I didn't try the wet OM because of the first attempt with another wet food. I went right for the dry. She ate it. Now we'll see how she does with diet food. I am hoping that it makes a differnce. I am also trying to exercise her more. The two have to have an effect, right? Stay tuned.

Chi-Chi update, a.k.a. the Fat Chihuahua

Chi-Chi also went for her check up in June. It was supposed to be May, but I just couldn't get there then. After being on No-Snacks and dividing up her food to two 1/4 cup portions twice a day, I was expecting her to weigh less. I have to say though, that she did not look smaller to me.

When we were in the waiting room, others who were waiting struck up a conversation with me. "What kind of dog is that?" they asked. I knew what they were really asking though. They thought that she couldn't possibly be a chihuahua because she was so big. When people think chihuahua, they think Paris Hilton's Tinkerbell. You know, that anorexic bitch. And her dog is so skinny too....

Okay, first off. My dogs are both real chihuahuas. The "teacup" or "pocket" type dogs are not real. They were bred down to get them that size. It is dangerous to have them that size because they have lots of breathing issues and get hurt very easily. They are often severely injured by falling off of a couch because they are so fragile. They are not recognized by the American Kennel Club as being chihuahuas. My dogs are the real deal. They are both spayed and so that puts extra weight on them.

Okay, enough of my fat rant. So I tell them that she is a fat chihuahua. They laugh and say that they thought she was a chihuahua, but that she was so big they weren't sure. blah, blah, blah. We finally get to see the vet. She weighs Chi-Chi on the cat scale and her weight was 13.6 pounds. My dog has to be the only dog that can go on a diet and gain weight. I was upset. The vet said that they could run the blood work-up on her to see if she has a thyroid issue. She said it was up to me because the blood tests are very costly. I wanted to go ahead and do it because if it is her thyroid, it would just be a matter of putting her on a medication. If her blood tests come back negative, then we will switch her food to a diet food to see if that helps.

The vet sent me home with a giant bag of various brands of diet dog food. Some wet and some dry so that I can see which ones she likes best before buying any. That was nice of her.

Okay, Chi-Chi also has skin irritations. These come and go. I can't pin it down to a particular time of year. It was pretty bad this winter. Then she will scratch and scratch and make it worse. She has very little hair as it is, so I have to keep her nails short and filed down or she will easily tear her skin due to the scratching. I asked if she had seasonal allergies. Since she wasn't sneezing at all, she thought it was more likely that Chi-Chi had an allergic reaction to food. Great. More food issues. She was going to give me a cream to put on her to soothe the itching.

When I went to pay, the cashier was calculating the bill. Chi-Chi also was getting Advantage for flea prevention. Then the vet came by and gave the cashier the bag of food (free samples) along with the lotion. The cashier looked at the lotion and said, "I am not charging you for this. You are already paying so much" and she just tossed it in the bag without adding it in. I thought that was very nice of her. The bill was $650! Thank goodness I have pet insurance.

Seriously. If you do not have pet insurance, you should really consider it. I wasn't sure it was worth it because my regular office visits are $75, and everything they do is extra. Shots etc. The pet insurance gives you like $15 back for an office visit. So I was thinking that I would be paying more in premiums than what I would be getting back. Until I realized that I wasn't paying the premiums for the routine stuff anyway. In the event of something serious, I did not want to make a decision based on what it was going to cost me. My dog has cancer? Okay, start chemotherapy. That isn't something I would be able to afford unless I had the insurance. Thankfully, none of my dogs have had anything catastrophic like that, but Pinky's surgery was expensive. I was able to recoup 2/3 of what I paid for that. Yep, pet insurance is worth the premium.

Still Fat

Okay, so Chi-Chi is still fat. Everyone in the house is instructed to not give either dog any snacks. Pinky can't get a snack because Chi-Chi can't have any. I can't give to one and not the other, so they are both dieting. I weighed Chi-Chi one week after the no snack rule and she lost 6 ounces, which is a lot. However, since then she seems to have added on weight. I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment, but I think she is back to 13.2 pounds.

Pinky has reacted oddly to the no snack rule. It has turned her into a chow hound. The second she hears any kind of bag crumbling, she is right there! She is begging like mad. I swear you would think that this dog never eats, but she is getting fed twice a day now. Chi-Chi doesn't come running when Pinky does. You would think la gorda would run for food, but she doesn't and she isn't begging either. A strange role reversal for sure.

Chi-Chi goes for her check up in May. They will weigh her and see if she has lost weight. If not, they will do blood work to see if she has a thyroid problem. Isn't that the oldest fat excuse in the book? I have an underactive thyroid...well, we shall see. The snow is melting so it will soon be time to take piglet on daily walks. That should help.
3/23/2007

Fat Chihuahua

So how much should a chihuahua weigh??? I'm not talking about those teacup varieties, either because they aren't the real deal and are not acknowledged by the American Kennel Club (AKC). The accepted breed standard disqualifies any dog over 6 pounds or under 3 pounds. Unless your chihuahua is supposed to be a show dog, it doesn't matter as long as she's healthy. My vet says that there are weight variations for pets just like their are weight variations for people. Some Chihuahuas had bigger parents and so they are likely to be bigger.

That being said, Chi-Chi is fat. She is starting to look like a football with legs. Here she is looking very football-like.













She is 3.5 years old. She was a very thin chi for the first year that we had her. We went on a trip for 3 weeks and when we came home, I swear she looked enormous. My dad definitely overfed her. Well, here it is 1 year later and she is chunkier than ever.

We were just at the vet on January 30, 2007. She was having some pain when she moved backwards so I took her in. Of course, by the time I was able to get an appointment, she seemed to be in no pain. I was worried that her weight was causing the problem. The vet said she weighed 13.8 pounds. The vet's biggest concern was that I was feeding her and Pinky just once a day. She told me to break up their food into two meals, giving them less. I brought the ingredients of Chi-Chi's dog food and she said it wasn't the food that was making her fat. It doesn't matter if I bought diet food or not because if she is getting snacks during the day, that is going to be the culprit.


I know for a fact that both dogs are getting snacks and tidbits during the day. She advised that we cut out all snacks immediately. Feed her 1/4 cup of food twice per day and then they would re-weigh in May when she comes in for her annual check-up. She should show a loss by then. If not, they will do blood work on her to see if she has a thyroid problem.

I weighed her last night on my scale and she weighed 13.2 pounds. Because it is a different scale, I don't know if she really lost any weight at all, but at least I have a starting point for our home scale. I shall weigh her once a week to see how she is doing.