Do you have an overweight pet? -- Cindy and Friends

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Date Posted: 01:46:18 05/15/02 Wed
Author: Anonymous
Subject:

Do you have an overweight pet?

Guidelines for fighting pet obesity:

� How easily can you feel your animal's ribs when you run your hand along its side? You don't want to have just skin and bones, but it shouldn't take any digging to feel the ribs.
� Viewed from above, your dog should have an hourglass figure.
� From the side, your dog should have a waist; that is, after the chest, the dog's figure should go up.
� Is the animal having difficulty getting around? Sleeping a lot? Being bad-tempered? All are possible symptoms of a weight problem. Have your pet checked before starting a weight-loss program. Weight gain is a symptom of some diseases, such as hypothyroidism, which big dogs are prone to.
� Cut down on treats. Dog biscuits are basically sugar and fat.
� Cut back on food -- a bit at a time. You don't want to make the animal go hungry.
� Monitor the animal's body condition. Commit everyone in the household to helping the pet lose weight.
� Get away from table scraps.
� Measure the pet's food in a cup, rather than scooping it out.
� Boost exercise.
� Monitor progress. The amounts are so much smaller, so ounces a week can be fast enough.
� To cut down on the temptation to feed table scraps, feed the animal before you eat.
� If you have more than one pet, try feeding your animals at the same time, to cut down on one stealing from another's bowl.

Or put your cat's dish on a counter to keep it away from a dieting dog.

-- LOIS M. BARON

Wendy Weirich, a veterinarian, puts the latter figure at closer to 50 percent, including pets that are 10 percent over their ideal weight. Pets generally pick up pounds for the same reasons people do -- they're overfed and underexercised. Sometimes, though, weight gain is a symptom of a disease, so a vet should look at your pet before you put it on a diet. Advancing age and declining activity level play a role in weight gain, as does having a pet spayed or neutered; and some breeds, such as Labradors and cocker spaniels, are prone to be portly.

Extra weight puts pets at risk for diabetes and heart disease. It stresses the joints (exacerbating the effects of arthritis, for example), makes breathing difficult and can impede animals' ability to keep themselves clean, leading to skin problems.

Rebecca Krafft said her chronically overweight cat developed diabetes, and she and her husband had to give insulin shots twice a day.

Jan Martin's Lab mix started gaining weight when the family moved from a house adjoining the woods to a place with a fenced back yard. Arthritis was becoming an issue, so Martin thought the small yard would be OK. She got a shock when she took Big Moo in for an annual checkup. "The vet said we could get the weight off of her or put her down," she said. "He may have lacked for bedside manner, but he scared the hell out of me."

Martin slashed the portions she was giving her dog, substituted small rawhide strips for dog biscuits, stopped sharing the Doritos and started taking the dog for walks.

Big Moo moves much more easily now, Martin reports, which has the side effect of improving her mood and her behavior. Her veterinarians are happier, too.

Sasha the beagle finished the trip around the lake, and Bowers immediately contacted the vet. He put the dog on prescription diet food; she lost too quickly at the beginning, so they adjusted the amount given. Bowers threatened her husband with a fate worse than death if he slipped Sasha any treats or table scraps.

Vets warn that all members of the family need to be on board with a pet's diet. Bowers acknowledges that being strict with Sasha has been very hard. "I can't tell her why she can't get all that `good stuff' anymore or that I'm doing it for her own good," Bowers says. "I have to look at her questioning face in the kitchen and say, `No, none for you.' "

People dream of losing 10 pounds a week, but it's no healthier for animals to drop weight abruptly than for humans. If cats stop eating or lose weight too fast, they can develop a liver disorder (hepatic lipidosis), a potentially fatal disease that occurs when fat cells accumulate in the liver, Weirich says. Dogs also can suffer organ damage from a crash diet.

For starters, follow a vet's directions or the instructions on the pet food bag, using a measuring cup to be precise, Weirich suggested. But don't be surprised if you have to make some adjustments.

Cats, never the most tractable of pets, can get irritated with owners who try to control their diet. Alane Keller found her cat didn't "self-regulate" how much it ate and blew up like a raccoon. The vet recommended a half-cup of food a day, which made the cat thinner but frantic. "He stole our food if we didn't hide it in the microwave, and once during a party, I heard him lapping soup from the pot on the stove," Keller said. He also became aggressive, she said, to the point that she ditched the diet.

Another woman had a cat who, offended at being put on a diet, swatted earrings and other items off the woman's dresser onto her head while she was sleeping.

More exercise is the other part of the equation. Other pet owners have found that adding a puppy or kitten to the household drops the older pet's weight because it becomes more active.

Exercising a cat requires more ingenuity than dealing with a dog. One cat owner takes her cat downstairs with her when she does laundry so he has to walk back up three flights.

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