NEED TO KNOW

• Christine took in Boomer after her grandmother with dementia struggled to manage his weight and care

• Boomer’s weight-loss journey, shared on TikTok, has garnered widespread support online

• Boomer has lost over 20 lbs through portion control, low-calorie treats and short walks, Christine tells PEOPLE

When Boomer the beagle came into Christine’s life, he weighed a whopping 62.2 lbs.

The 28-year-old woman, who is known online as Seafood Clowder, knew she had to intervene when the dog’s size became unmanageable for her grandmother.

“Boomer was adopted by my grandparents in 2016. Not much is known about his background, but he’s always been a happy guy,” Christine, who asked for her last name to be omitted, tells PEOPLE.

“Looking through his medical records, he did have another time when he gained some weight, but my grandma was able to get it off. She was walking him and his brother, Archie, regularly and feeding them a good amount.”

However, things started to change once her grandfather died and her grandmother started showing signs of dementia, which Christine discloses runs in their family.

“At first, she said she was handling it, and we believed her. As the years went on, he kept gaining weight, and we stepped in and tried to help her manage it,” Christine shares. “Her dogs were super important to her, and we weren’t sure how she would react if we took them away.”

The family tried portioned feedings, hiring a dog walker and automatic feeders. After not seeing much improvement in the dog’s weight, she says her family convinced her grandma to let them have Boomer “for a couple of weeks.”

“We intended on keeping him, but anytime she asked, we would say he has a vet visit or something next week, he can’t come back to you yet,” Christine says. “The hard part was done after that.”

The first thing Christine did when she took Boomer in July 2025 was take him to the vet to verify that an underlying medical issue wasn’t causing the weight gain. However, the vets confirmed that it was simply excessive calories and a lack of exercise. From there, they received guidance on how they could best help Boomer.

“We reduced his daily feedings from eight times a day down to only two times a day. We also gave him low-calorie treats like Charlie Bear so he could still get a snack but not a ton of calories,” she shares. “After he started losing some weight and was able to move around better, we started taking him on short walks.”

Christine has been sharing Boomer’s journey on her TikTok account. By sharing her and Boomer’s story, however, she often encounters the same response: that her “Grandma is the villain in his story.”

“Dementia is a disease that affects memories and decision-making. She was overfeeding them because she could not remember that she had already fed them, but she was doing it out of love, not malice,” Christine emphasizes.

“While moving her into assisted living, we had her and her boys at our house. We would feed the dogs and sit down and eat. Multiple times, she would sit up straight, look furious and ask why we were eating when the dogs hadn’t been fed yet,” she continues. “She was devastated when my Grandpa died, and we were worried that just taking Boomer away would push her over the edge.”

While Christine gets hundreds of comments suggesting she take Boomer to a water treadmill, she notes that it isn’t a feasible option for them.

“It can be a wonderful tool to help overweight pets lose weight, but unfortunately, the closest facility is about an hour and a half away,” she shares. “Boomer doesn’t like being in the car and gets car sick. He won’t use ramps, and at his heaviest, he was too unwieldy to pick up. I would have loved to have access to one, but it wasn’t feasible for us.”

While switching up Boomer’s lifestyle was a bit difficult at first — since the pooch was used to handfuls of cheese in his food and having access to entire bags of treats — Christine says she has held firm.

“A lot of pet owners think it’s really difficult for pets to lose weight, especially elderly ones like Boomer. They don’t want to feed their pets less because they act like they’re starving,” she shares. “I don’t give them human food except very occasionally. If I drop a green bean or berry and one dog gets it, I let the others have it, but I don’t give them anything if they’re begging for it.”

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After nine months, Christine says that Boomer is “doing much better now.”

“He struggled to do anything when he first arrived, including just sitting, standing or lying down. He looked like a tick about to burst,” she says. “He would lie in his bed and moan and groan because his weight was crushing his organs. He had multiple bad teeth that have since been removed. He wasn’t able to have dental work done until he lost some weight.”

Now, she shares that Boomer loves going outside and lying in the sun. He is down over 20 lbs., recently weighing in at 39.8 lbs. While Christine would love for him to lose another 10 lbs., she is proud of his progress.

“We recently took him on a short hike in Shenandoah National Park, and he wanted to keep going when it was time to turn around,” she says.

While she was initially hesitant to post about Boomer for fear of judgment, she says that if she had “known he’d have so many people rooting for him, I would have tried posting weekly progress instead of big jumps in time.”

“I underestimated how much people love a good pet recovery story. My TikTok had maybe a couple thousand followers, and he blew up my account, and now he has 24,000 followers,” she says.

While the old dog has “slowed down a bit” now that he’s closer to his goal weight, “he’s still making progress,” she emphasizes.

Read the original article on People