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“Is my
dog too fat?” “Is my dog too thin?”
These are
two questions clients often ask me. Only the second one regularly gets
answered: “No.”
How can
you tell if your dog is fat? It is not always easy: a dog’s fur coat, like
a person’s clothes, can make fat a lot less obvious.
The best
way to evaluate your dog’s fitness is to feel the body through the fur
rather than merely looking at the dog. A canine in good physical condition
will have minimal fat layering the ribs, just enough to keep the skin from
sinking in between them. There should be a narrowed waist just behind the
ribs, in front of the hips, and the abdomen should tuck up rather than
hanging down.
Cause and Effect
The cause
of obesity is disarmingly simple: calories eaten are greater than calories
burned. The prevention or treatment of obesity can be frustratingly
difficult, however.
Let’s
look at the metabolic needs of dogs, and particularly how they change
through life. As puppies, our dogs need to eat for growth, maturation,
basal metabolism, and activity. Growth stops well before the first year is
past and maturation is complete before two years of age. The need for
calories diminishes with each of those life stages, but we rarely reduce
the intake accordingly. The activity of most dogs gradually diminishes as
well during this period (usually to our great relief) and continues to
decline later in life. This also signals a reduced need for food intake.
These
changes in your dog’s caloric needs occur gradually (though much more
rapidly in dogs than in people), so we often don’t notice them or fail to
respond with proper dietary modification.
Food is Love (Not!)
As
caretakers of our beloved canine companions, we delight in giving them
pleasure to repay the way they enrich our lives. Most dogs exhibit
enthusiasm over the food bowl, so it makes us feel good to feed them. For
some dogs, the feeding ritual is the highlight of the day, as it
represents loving contact and is probably the most frequently reinforced
caretaking ritual in their lives. Love sponges that they are, we can
hardly expect our dogs to forego food even when they aren’t really hungry.
Equating
food with love isn’t the only psychological aspect of canine obesity. Just
as humans do, many dogs overeat because they are bored and/or stressed.
Truthfully, our dogs are often eating for pleasure rather than to satisfy
an actual need for calories. If we substitute other forms of pleasure and
practice some portion control, we can prevent obesity.
Medical Concerns
Medical
problems that cause increased hunger or diminished metabolism (such as
diabetes and hypothyroidism, respectively) should be ruled out if a dog
seems inordinately hungry or is not losing weight despite calorie
restriction. In most young or middle-aged overweight dogs, however,
obesity is the primary medical problem, at least initially. Unfortunately,
obesity is often just the first stop on the road to ill-health.
Many
people are aware of the burgeoning human health problems associated with
obesity, such as heart disease and diabetes; as a society we seem to be
eating ourselves to death. Veterinarians fear that our clients may be
feeding their pets to death, as well.
Dogs can
suffer premature arthritis and cardiac, musculoskeletal, digestive, and
respiratory problems as a result of poor dietary habits and indulgent
owners.
Taking It Off
As with
people, quick fixes for weight problems are ineffective and potentially
dangerous. Faced with a mildly overweight canine patient, I recommend a
twenty-percent reduction in calorie intake and a gradual increase of
exercise. In the truly obese individual, increasing exercise can lead to
significant damage to overloaded joint cartilage, so I recommend thirty-
to forty-percent calorie restriction and non-strenuous exercise like
walking -- or, even better, swimming – until some pounds have been shed.
Then running and off-leash play can be gradually increased.
Owners
usually find that dogs are more enthusiastic about exercise when they stop
carrying around all that excess weight. Needless to say, the ability to
enjoy exercising without injury makes it easier to keep the fat off, as
well.
For those
of us who can’t find time to exercise our dogs properly, the Bay Area
offers many professional dog-walking services. My patients who have
professional dog walkers are very often happy and well adjusted dogs, as
well as being fit and trim. They have their own packs and enjoy canine
social contact on a regular basis. I have observed that dogs with canine
friends don’t seem to need as much “friendship” from the food bowl.
~~~
I believe
that if we truly love our dogs, we should feed them appropriate amounts
of high quality food and provide them with plenty of exercise and play,
especially with other dogs.
That’s my
prescription for a healthy and truly happy canine.
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