Question

A dog owner is told by the veterinarian that his dog, Max, is overweight and needs to lose 4 to 5 pounds in order to live a healthy life. The dog weighs 126 pounds when he is put on a special diet to aid in the weight loss. The vet predicts that the diet will allow Max to lose 4 ounces per week. Max is brought to the vet every 2 weeks for a weight check. Write an equation to represent the doctor's prediction, and the relationship between Max's weight in pounds, y, and the number of times Max's weight is checked, x, in periods of two weeks. Reduce all answers to the nearest tenth of a number. __=__-__

Answer 1

Weight of the dog = 126 pounds

The dog will lose 4 ounces per week.
1 ounce = 0.0625 pounds
4 ounces = 0.25 pounds
So, we can say the dog will lose 0.25 pounds per week.

The visit to veteran is after every 2 weeks. So in a period of 2 weeks the dog will lose 0.5 pounds of weight.  

If x is the number of visits to the veteran, the weight lost will be 0.5x in x visits. The weight after x visits will be 126 - 0.5x

So, the relation between Max's weight y, and the number of visits to veteran will be:

y = 126 - 0.5x

Answer 2

y = 126 - 0.5x is the answer