We all love our dogs and sometimes, we love them a little bit too much. It may cause us to give in and feed them every time they ask for food. That being said, what the previous owner of one golden retriever did was shameful. They tried to put him down because he was overweight.
Kai, the golden retriever was brought by his previous owner to visit the veterinarian. Immediately, the vet contacted the Misfits of Alberta Animal Rescue, and before long, Pam Heggie was put together with the dog. They had the goal of helping Kai to find a home and to lose the dangerous weight he was carrying around.
Heggie gave an interview to Good Morning America. The new foster mother wasn’t familiar with Kai and what happened in his past but she did know that he needed some desperate TLC. Kai was the most overweight animal that the veterinarian had ever seen and said: “anything you do is gonna help that dog.”
When Kai first went to his new foster home, he weighed 172 pounds. Since that time, he has dropped over half his body weight.
It took Kai 20 minutes to climb the small set of stairs outside of his new foster home when he first arrived.
Heggie immediately started to take Kai for three walks every day, in the morning, when she got home from work and before bed. He struggled at first but eventually, things started to get easier.
Heggie told GMA, “Literally, he went five to 10 steps, and then he would lay down and start panting. But they kept at it and each day he pushed a little harder. We went to the closest neighbor’s driveway and then the next neighbor over.”
Kai got started on water therapy to strengthen his back legs and build stamina.
A strict diet was given to Kai and even though he was a chowhound, he trusted his foster mom to take care of him.
“He learned that I was gonna help him and we were gonna be OK,” she said.
Kai continued to gain strength and to reach some goals, including getting onto the bed, walking around the block, climbing the stairs and enjoying some run time at the dog park.
“I look at him and forget how broken he was,” Heggie said. “Now he’s just a regular dog doing regular dog things like everybody else.”
Heggie loved being a foster mom so she adopted Kai.
Since his transformation was so inspiring, he was featured on Good Morning America
“He shows you how to do a really big task literally one day at a time,” said Heggie.
“He doesn’t worry about yesterday, he doesn’t worry about tomorrow, he just focuses on what needs to be done today and he does it. We can learn a lot from dogs.”
You did a wonderful job, Peggy!
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