In one of my first semesters of college I was assigned to do a research paper on childhood obesity in the United States. The entire semester revolved around this one paper so I spent countless hours reading about eating habits, exercise habits, public school lunch programs, fast food chains and type II diabetes. Sadly, my lack of knowledge concerning research paper formatting and my “living the college life” affected my paper.

 It. Was. Terrible.

( Being the positive person that I am however I would like to note that I learned some informative facts about the United States and obesity in children ages 3- 12. )

 While many of you worry (or should be worrying) about childhood obesity because you’re parents I get to kick back and relax. I realize one day that your concerns will be my concerns, but for now I get to ponder unimportant things. I don’t have to worry about what the nutrition of the schools lunch program… I don’t have to stress about my child watching too much TV and not getting enough exercise… I don’t have to worry about diseases that could be linked to the food my child intakes… you get the point. When it comes to “parental issues” my life is a breeze! (and honestly the thought of all those stresses make my stomach ulcers burn.)

<Anyvaayz…..> Recently I have been experiencing something similar to parental concerns and I’ll tell ya, it’s exhausting.

I never thought I would have to say this BUT, I am dealing with doggie hood obesity. Right now my household is stressing about the size of our Schnauzer.  We are walking on eggshells over here! It’s a constant game of trying to manage our pooches “pooch” without giving Piper a major weight complex: “Michael don’t call her pony-keg!” and “Keighley that is too much food! Stop making her fat.”

Our realization that Piper had a -cough- weight issue began when we started noting an alarming number of people making the same comment. The first thing people started saying when they saw our Piper is, “Whoaaaa is that Piper? She is HUGE! I mean she doesn’t look young anymore… err.”  While some people tried to pull the wool over my eyes with their “she’s definitely no longer a puppy” comments my attention was pulled to her expanding waist. Seriously when your dog is only 15 inches tall the usage of the word “huge” can only be in regards to the waistline.  So here are some photos of my Piper.

(I would have taken more recent picture to show you if my camera wasn’t stll broken.)

(now her hair is really long here so take this into account.)

(Wait! Am I saying that because I’m a parent in denial??? I am so confused.)

Pray for us. Pray that we won’t damage our sweet daughter in the process of trying to make her healthier. Pray that Piper won’t get type II Doggie Diabetes! Pray that we can learn to say “NO” to Pipers food requests.

keighley