Is your dog lazy, or is an underactive thyroid to blame?
My first dog, Ouzel, a quiet and gentle Lab mix, seemed to have an old soul from the start; a toddler could walk him on a leash. When he was two and staying at a friend’s while I was out of town, he tolerated being sat upon by her Aussie, Okra, pretty much the whole weekend. My friend suggested that he might be hypothyroid. And indeed he was.
He had the classic signs: weight gain, lethargy, cold intolerance, and skin and coat changes (yeasty-smelling fur; dark, lacy patches in his groin), vague and subtle symptoms that had snuck in slowly. Basically, his metabolism was working at a crawl.
via Whisker Therapy