[hokisteph5]

I caught the end of an episode of "It's Me or the Dog!" last week. The trainer also tackled the fat pets and changing their owners' attitudes. One dog, a beagle, had to go to fat camp where it got 2 hours of exercise a day and the food was measured out carefully.

I think there were 2 or 3 other dogs whose owners spent months getting them to lose weight. All had lost weight when they stepped on the scale for a final weigh-in. The show made it a point to say how many years had been added back to the dog's life by them losing just that amount of weight.

I find it sad, but when my now-late beagle was young he was about 10 pounds overweight (40 lbs when he should've been about 30) due to a lot of unnecessary treats. The vet would mention he was overweight, but never got into the "Scared Straight" types of tactics my family would've needed to hear.

I can honestly say Samson and Gretchen are not overweight.