How to tell if your pet is overweight
Fat pets may be cuddly, but carrying just a few extra kilos can drastically reduce their life expectancy and leave them vulnerable to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, respiratory problems and reproductive disorders.
Have a look at the following warning signs to help you detect if your pet is overweight.
- Can't feel ribs any more: you should be able to touch the sides of your dog and feel each individual rib.
- Loss of discernible waist.
- "Apron" of fat – especially in neutered males.
- Waddles when walking.
- Finds it difficult to move.
- Short of breath.
- Bad tempered.
Causes of weight gain
If your pet is overweight, you need to get to the root of the problem. Typical causes of weight gain in pets include:
- Overfeeding – Pets with unlimited access to food often become overweight. Feeding kittens too much can create fat cells that stay with a pet for life.
- Poor nutrition and overeating – Many grocery foods are loaded with salt and fat for improved taste but can result in over-consumption.
- Feeding habits – Feeding table scraps and home cooked meals can lead to obesity.
- Lack of exercise – Too much food and too little exercise can cause weight gain.
- Age – Older, less active pets are prone to weight gain.
- Gender – Female pets are more likely to experience weight gain.
- Neutering – Spayed or neutered pets are twice as likely to become obese.
Just as Australians have gotten heavier over the years, so too have our pets, with more than 40 per cent of dogs and one-third of cats in Australia either overweight or obese – with a national dog population of 3.9 million, that’s more than 1,560,000 porky pooches!
So if your pet is looking portly, speak to us here at Eureka Veterinary Hospital. Obviously the first step would be to thoroughly check your pet's health and ensure that there are no underlying factors causing them to carry extra weight. Having established that it is a lifestyle problem (we ALL know how hard it is to find the time to exercise and eat well, why should our pets be any different?), your veterinarian may recommend a program consisting of exercise and a food with reduced fat and calories like Hill's Prescription Diet Canine r/d, which has been designed specifically for the management of weight problems in dogs.
For further information on pet obesity, please talk to us at Eureka Veterinary Hospital – our trained staff are eager to help you get started on the road to a healthy pet!!