Rehabilitating animals is not easy it takes a lot of hard work and determination.
Dedicated rescuers experience heartbreaking moments and they never quite know what is coming in next case.
For Pam Heggie, the case was about the dog whose name was Kai. He is not an ordinary dog he is one of the largest dogs many people have ever seen but in the worst way.
Plenty of animals in the USA are overweight, because of owners free-feeding or handing off too many table scraps to their spoiled pooches. Kai’s level of overweight was more than mere oversight: It was abusive.
The golden retriever, who should’ve weighed around 70 pounds, weighed an astounding 173 pounds.
His previous owners, who are responsible for the creature’s horrible size, had taken him to the vet and requested he is put down.
“This is the most overweight animal I have ever seen,” the vet said. But, knowing there was more possible for the golden boy, the vet reached out to a local rescue.
When Heggie was selected to foster him through Misfits of Alberta Animal Rescue, she was overwhelmed with his condition.
The vet reassured her, though, saying, “anything you do is gonna help that dog. Anything that he will let you do is good for him.”
“He went five to 10 steps, and then he would lay down and start panting,” Heggie said, according to Good Morning America.
She started walking. It was slow and painful for him, but they increased their distance as Kai built up his stamina.
“We went to the closest neighbor’s driveway and then the next neighbor over. He learned that I was gonna help him and we were gonna be OK.”
To give the least pressure on his joints and improve his muscle strength, Kai also became familiar with an underwater treadmill, and it was a good step to help him trim down without causing more damage to his stressed frame.
With slow, steady work and a right diet, Kai started going on longer adventures and enjoying time at the park. He slimmed down, and after a year of hard work, he’d lost 100 pounds.
Heggie fell for the blond boy and ended up adopting him as her own.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “It’s like raising your child and you look at them and they’re all grown up and you just wonder how that happened.”
“I look at him and forget how broken he was. Now he’s just a regular dog doing regular dog things like everybody else. He truly amazes me every day.”
He’s now been doing great maintaining a healthy weight.
“Beach bod stayed on track, even after my vacation!” the post reads. “Today I weighed 31.25 kg (68.75 lbs). That means I’ve maintained my 100+ pound weight loss for over 4 months now.”
“He shows you how to do a really big task one day at a time,” she said. “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.”