A dog taken in by a foster family has gone viral for an unusual reason—the sheer size of him.
Doug Bishop, 45, lives with his wife and daughter in Virginia where he works as a firefighter and paramedic. The family has been caring for all sorts of animals for years, with Bishop telling Newsweek that they currently have "six rescue dogs, three rescue horses, and a rescue mule" on their 10-acre rural home.
Since 2015, the family has fostered almost 35 dogs from the Richmond Animal League, and the newest addition to their family is beagle foxhound mix, Roscoe.
Roscoe comes from a difficult background after being found alone at home when his owner died, and is, at 103 pounds, "grossly overweight."
Bishop and his family are working towards slimming him down and determining any extra health issues before he goes to his forever family, but while his story is serious, a light-hearted moment went viral as Bishop introduced the new family member online.
Taking to his TikTok account @jdbcubed on December 16, he showed off one of his dogs and called him "our little chicken nugget." The camera then panned to Roscoe, almost triple the size of the other dog, looking back with a smile. Bishop then said, "That's our big thick-en nugget."
The video's text overlay reads: "Look at the size of this foster dog." The video has been viewed over 605,000 times so far.
The video's caption reads: "Poor fella has been grossly neglected. But we're gonna get him slimmed down and back to normal beagle size!"
TikTok users loved the clip, which also has 60,000 likes, and praised Bishop for his work with Roscoe, with one writing: "Poor baby. I'm glad y'all are taking care of him and getting him on the healthy path."
"Aw he's so lucky to be with you and getting quality of life back," another wrote, while a third user commented: "poor beagles gain weight so easily, but they're the sweetest dogs."
One TikTok user took issue with the word "neglect", writing that the dog had clearly been "getting love morning noon and night," but another user pointed out that letting a dog gain that much weight can cause serious health issues and reduce their quality of life.
And this is the case with Roscoe, as Bishop told Newsweek, his joints are certainly causing him pain, and at a medical exam was hard to determine exactly what other issues he may have "because of his recessive amount of fat, imaging wasn't easy to read."
"We do know he has a heart murmur and elevated liver values that we hope will get better with weight loss," Bishop said, revealing the plan is to get Roscoe to 65 pounds with a diet and exercise regimen—and he has already lost 2 pounds since joining the family on December 6.
"He spent the first few days and nights just sleeping and adjusting. Since then, he's been much more active and greets us at the door and happily wobbles around the house," Bishop said, adding they walk him a little longer each day.
Obesity can affect a dog's organs, including putting more pressure on their heart and lungs, according to a report from the American Kennel Club's Canine Health Foundation. It can also cause skin issues as the dog may be unable to properly groom itself, and more prone to skin fold dermatitis and infection.
Reacting to his video going viral, Bishop didn't appear all too surprised, as "people love animals, dogs especially. The little joke I made just happened to heighten the moment."
"If anything I post saves another dog's life, then mission accomplished," he said. "The end goal is empty shelters, and we try our hardest to help that! At the end of day, I enjoy making people laugh and that's all I ever try to do. If I can be someone's joy in a tough moment, great."
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