Public perception vs dog community norms

I'm always baffled by the fact that a pretty good percentage of the obese dogs I know are owned by incredibly fit, active people.

As for my own public interactions - I don't change much. There isn't much I do that might come across badly to people, I don't think. I do lightly smack/kick Gusto when he's tugging, including on the leash, but I'm usually chattering at him and play growling back, so I think it comes across as the game that it is.

I do talk incessantly to my dogs when I'm not in public, including having voices for them, and I make an effort to not do that in front of others - and sometimes forget. Oh well. I'm okay with being the crazy dog lady.

Thank you. The vet told me she wasn't concerned by Middie's weight at all, and thought he looked great threw me for a loop. I immediately asked her exactly how fat most of the dogs she sees are if she thinks he looks good. I think he's 3-5lbs overweight. Every single person who sees him insists that it would be cruel for me to get him slimmer. He has rolls.

This freaks people out. The voice we use for Middie sounds a lot like Morty from Rick & Morty.

so much this.

Merlin's voice sounds like part pre-pubescent frat boy part I'm making fun of the mentally challenged.
I make a real effort to not do it in public lol

Gusto has a southern twang. Don't ask me why, he was living with the Amish in upstate NY. I think he just fakes it to sound foreign and cool.

oh god, Wesley also has a southern twang. He picked it up from his girlfriend american bulldog, Dixie, who was born in the south and brought up north by a shelter. YES.

And somehow from people tacking on 'says wesley, says ____,' to the end of random sentences people in my house have said, Wesley and my rabbit Steve have evolved into this giant inside joke where they're married and have baby dogbunnies, and there's one named Pancake that Steve has to hide in a basket because Wesley always tries to eat him, and another named Legless Baby that's a poodle and has no back legs (that Wesley 'had'), and a rottweiler puppy they adopted named Marigold, and seven other various dogbunnies.

I have no idea how it all escalated.

This can go the other way though. Lol. I routinely recommend that patients that are probably at the upper end of "fine" to lose 3-5 lbs because I like a little lean over a little pudgy... and probably also because I have greyhounds. I don't ask dogs in the middle of the ideal range to lose weight, but that upper third? You betcha. And it's probably a little unnecessary. Lol. I try to remember that most dogs aren't agility greyhounds....

Isn't this the same as what is being discussed? Cringing because a confo handler is 'yanking on a dog's neck' seems the same to me as Facebook people crying abuse when that flyball handler was loading her dog's rears legs/hips onto her lap at the start.

That would be nice. Everyone I know thinks he looks great and I want to starve him to death.