Wolfgang the Obese Beagle Loses Half His Size — and Finds His Forever Home

In May 2019, Erin McManis of Phoenix learned of a stray, morbidly obese beagle at a local shelter who needed her help. As soon as she and her husband Chad Schatz met this 90-lb. beagle, they knew he was special.

"He was just a super-friendly, happy-go-lucky dog," McManis, 39, tells PEOPLE for the Half Their Size issue.

She and Schatz, both lawyers, decided to foster the plump pooch and named their latest addition Wolfgang. The couple started fostering animals in 2009 and had successfully rehabilitated five obese dogs by the time they met Wolfgang. When they brought the beagle home, "He couldn't fit through our existing dog door, so we had to get a special, extra-large dog door for him," McManis remembers.

Under a vet's supervision, McManis started making high-protein, low-calorie meals for Wolfgang that mainly consisted of ground turkey meat and vegetables. Although "he was surprisingly mobile for his size," she says, he couldn't walk for more than 20 feet without taking a break.

Schatz, 39, started taking Wolfgang on short walks to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, slowly lengthening his distances over the next six months. Since Phoenix summers are so hot, the foster parents had to walk the dog at 5 a.m. or late at night after the sun went down. "The vet told us his heart and organs had to work extra hard to support his weight, and he could suffer from heatstroke if he was in the sun too much," McManis says.

Although McManis and Schatz initially planned to foster Wolfgang, he charmed them into adoption. "He was so sweet and friendly," says McManis. They loved how he always brought a toy with him wherever he went, whether to the farmer's market or even to exercise on a doggy water treadmill.

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"He's never eaten or destroyed a toy — he doesn't understand the concept of fetch or anything," says McManis. "We say it's his little workout buddy. He just wants his little friends to come with him."

Since 2019, Wolfgang has dropped 61 lbs. and is now at a healthy weight of 29 lbs. He looks a bit larger than that due to excess skin, says McManis, but since "it's mostly a cosmetic issue," there are no plans to remove it.

"Chad and I feel passionately that morbid obesity is a form of animal neglect. Allowing a dog to get to be 90 lbs. when he should be 25 or 30 lbs. is a form of abuse," she says. "We try to advocate and educate when we can."

Wolfgang now fits through the existing dog door, which McManis jokes is the canine's "crowning achievement" in his weight loss journey. Only after Wolfgang started to fit did his owners allow treats — the beagle's favorite is a Starbucks Puppuccino. "He gets so excited," she says. "But we only let him have a couple of licks."