Dr. Donna Spector (who is also the star of my Radio Pet Lady Network show The Expert Vet) helped formulate the Take it Off Teddy! diet for me, using a prescription dog food. She calculated the calories my dog Teddy needed to eat in order to start burning up his fat, which made it possible to bring my increasingly hungry and chunky Weimaraner from 119 lbs. down to his current weight of 98 lbs. On THE EXPERT VET we are inviting people to join our New Year’s Resolution to take those extra pounds off your dog with the help of Halo’s Healthy Weight kibble.
Although we were pretty thrilled that we did manage to drop those unhealthy pounds, people wondered about the lower quality of ingredients used in prescription dog foods. For myself, I accepted that I needed to use these foods because Teddy had so much weight to lose that we needed all the help we could get to jump-start the process and start shedding pounds. Many of the people who were seeking better quality ingredients in a weight loss kibble said that they, too, wanted to shed some doggy pounds. Since I am pretty much of an “ingredient gourmet” in dog food myself — the top-notch ingredients in Halo are the reason why it’s the only kibble I’ve fed my dogs over all these years — I could certainly understand their predicament. I also knew that most peoples’ dogs are not truly obese and would not have as much weight to lose so we could take a less drastic nutritional route to weight loss. In fact, Dr. Donna says there are estimates that a Lab who is only 10 lbs. overweight will live an average of 2 years less than their slimmer counterparts. Sorry to say, that means the majority of Labradors (and most other dogs) in this country. As a country, we have forgotten what a “normal” dog looks like. We accept as “normal” dogs and school children who are pudgy.
Dr. Donna came up with the perfect solution: she told me about Halo’s Healthy Weight Management food — kibble which is nearly 100 calories lower per cup than their regular kibble, but still contains all the beautiful whole-food ingredients in other Halo kibble. We wanted to use our show to broadcast this news — that you can drop pounds off your dog simply by using Halo Healthy Weight Management kibble in place of your regular kibble (or whatever super-premium brand you’ve been using). Halo really liked this message — it would be such a health improvement for millions of dogs — that they generously said they would provide the new weight management food to the lucky chubby dogs we picked every three months to take the challenge.
Please write to me at RadioPetLady@gmail.com and tell me why your dog should be the next one chosen to take the Halo challenge — and still have top shelf ingredients while reducing calories by 100 a cup. Dr. Donna and I will pick dogs of any age who need to lose anywhere from 5 lbs. and up — inviting a different dog every three months, which is the optimal amount of time to achieve a weight loss target. Will you take the challenge with us and make that New Year’s resolution to get your dog down to her 2 year old weight? And once you achieve that weight (as my Teddy nearly has) you can keep the pounds off by using Healthy Weight Management food, as I will with Teddy in another couple of pounds when he gets down to his 2 year old weight.
–Tracie Hotchner
Halo is a sponsor on Radio Pet Lady Network, by our invitation.
