When you own a dog, one of the things you must do for your beloved pet is to walk him or her every day. Come rain or shine, dogs, like humans, need their exercise or they could become overweight from remaining as sedentary as their owners. This nearly happened to my neighbor's pet who was such a pampered pooch. Her name is Maxie and she isn't a purebred, rather, she's a mongrel my neighbor's adopted from the RSPCA. She has the sweetest face a dog could ever have, and a really sweet temperament to match. She never bites and is always up for a belly rub or two.

My neighbors find her adorable, and give her lots of treats. To reward her, to give her a compliment, any time they had an opportunity to feed her, they would. Human food, dog biscuits. Until they noticed that she took longer to walk around and started to lie around a whole lot more than before. She looked a lot fluffier too. But they just thought she looked cute and gave her more treats. The thing is, she got overweight. And by the time her owners realized it, she needed a lot of walking to get her weight back down, not to mention cutting back on treats and banning human food entirely from her diet.

Because they were at work the whole day, they hired a dog walker to give Maxie the exercise she needed every day. Dog walkers help busy owners by walking their dogs for them, at pretty affordable prices. Guess who they hired? Yup. Me. I had to make Maxie walk and walk and walk. And run occasionally. And play all sorts of running games to make her move more. As a result, svelte Maxie is back and she's looking healthier and happier than ever. To think that not walking your dog could make her fat!