Catching up

It's been like forever since I wrote a lengthy post on this blog, so it's time to catch up with life with Jackson. In fact the last real post was telling you about how, with Jack's help, I was going to get myself into decent condition by taking frequent long brisk walks. I set a personal goal of losing nearly 50 pounds by my birthday.

Somehow, throughout the horrible winter, I was able to accomplish my goal. On my birthday in early April, my weight was exactly 140.0 lbs. I had not reached that weight at any time during the 8 and half months since I started towards my goal. I had not weighted that little since I was in my 20s (a few score ago). But with Jack's desire to take these long walks (plus help from my wonderful wife, encouragement from our kids, iPhone apps, a health monitor and some personal will power), I reached this goal.

Unfortunately, without realizing it, my son (now living in his own apartment) came to visit us and thought Jackson had gain a bit of weight. It was like I was transferring my weight loss to his weight gain.

A little background about Jack's eating habits;
in the year since we adopted him, we struggled to find the right food for him. He'd eat one kind for a little while then leave most of his food. Since both my wife's and my heritage is "more food = good parenting", we were concerned that Jack was not eating enough. So we tended to feed him things we knew he would eat. Some of those things were cheese and treats. We finally found a combinations of dry and canned foods (health dog foods) that Jackson would gobble up. But perhaps, we were giving him too much overall.

When my son saw him and my daughter noticed via photos that Jack had gained weight (I think they called him "Fat Doggie"-siblings can be cruel), I weighted him. A year ago, he weighted 16 pound. Now he was over 21 lbs. When you weigh 150, 5 or so pounds isn't a huge weight difference, but it's significant when you're supposed to be 16.

Our vet confirmed the weight gain and described Jackson as fat, not obese. He recommended we cut out most treats and cut back on the overall amount we were feeding him.

Our training shifted focus from me to Jackson.  Our walks became more intense. In the 2 month's since his vet visit, he has lost maybe 1/2 a pound. We still have a ways to go.

Next post: Jack Attack, part 1