Posts tagged "obesity"

How to Ward Off Holiday Weight Gain in Pets
By Dr. Ernie Ward via Vetstreet

We're in the final stretch of that terrible trifecta of weight gain: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. The 39 days in between these holidays offer a multitude of meals for your family to gorge upon. The trouble is that we also share these food celebrations with our pets, resulting in the accumulation of unwanted pounds for all of us.

By the time the last bit of confetti has fallen, many of us are in desperate need of a fresh start - and a diet. So what's an animal lover to do? How can we share the holidays with our pets in a more healthful manner?

SEE ALSO: Few Cat Lovers Know Risks of Obese Felines

The good news is that, with a little planning, we can party with our pets without feeding them unhealthy and fattening foods. Here are some cardinal tips for keeping your pets in fighting shape this holiday season.

1. Obey People Food Rules
Let's get one thing clear: I know the majority of you are going to feed your pets from the table. Guess what? Me, too. Perhaps the biggest myth hoisted upon pet owners is that "people food" is bad for pets.

With very few exceptions - grapes, raisins, some nuts and chocolate come to mind - if you're eating healthy fare, chances are that you can share some of it with your pet. My no-no's: anything fried, breaded, glazed or enhanced with extra fat and goodness, as well as bread, fatty meats and decadent sweets that tend to populate party plates.

Just bear in mind that any sudden change in a pet's diet can cause gastrointestinal upset, such as vomiting and diarrhea. Fatty and rich foods can also lead to pancreatitis.

In honor of National Take Your Cat to the Vet Week, Paw Nation spoke with Christine Bellezza, a veterinarian and the co-director of the Feline Health Center at Cornell University. Bellezza gave us the scoop on keeping kitties healthy.

What are the most common cat health problems?
It depends on the age of the cat and the general status of the cat. Indoor cats versus outdoor cats, vaccinated cats versus unvaccinated cats, shelter cats versus pet cats. Each has different problems more common to them.

In general, upper respiratory diseases are some of the most common diseases you would see in cats. Other common health problems include viral disease such as panleukopenia [feline distemper] in unvaccinated cats or kittens. Internal parasites like roundworm, hookworm and tapeworms are a problem, especially for young cats. External parasites like ticks and ear mites are also very common.

In older cats, kidney disease and hyperthyroidism are common, and there is a fair amount of cancer in cats as they get older. Also, obesity is a huge problem in cats. We see diabetes, arthritis, and other problems in obese cats.

What animal lover hasn't daydreamed about ditching their desk job and applying for a job at the zoo? Or at a doggy daycare? Or tracking gorillas in Africa? We sure have, but since most of us may never actually get to work with the animals we love, we thought we'd introduce you to a few people who do.

Name: Jean Marie Cooper
Age: 39
Job Title: Manager and Rehabilitation Coordinator at Water4Dogs, New York City's only pool for dogs.

How did you get into aquatic therapy for dogs?
I thought that because I wasn't a vet, I couldn't have a career with animals. Then I heard of animal massage and enrolled in massage school for humans to learn more. When the first canine pool in New York opened in 1998 -- Bonnie's K-9 Swim -- I went right over and applied for a job. It was there I leaned what a valuable tool water is when treating dogs. It makes exercise easier, more effective, and safer for the dogs. Bonnie's later closed, and the owner opened Water4Dogs two years ago.

Do all dogs know how to swim?
They all have the instinct to paddle, but if a dog hasn't been in a pool before, they may not be very coordinated with that. They may kind of thrash around. Labs, golden retrievers, Portuguese water dogs, poodles, German shepherds and pit bulls are very good swimmers. Rottweilers are great in the water. Jack Russells either love it or hate it. Dachshunds kind of have the big dog personality; they have a lot of confidence so once they get used to the water they're swimming around like nobody's business.

Dogs that are very muscularly dense like bulldogs and pugs, they have short little legs, they can paddle but they don't make a lot of progress, so they need assistance.

We love giving our pets treats, whether to reward good behavior, keep them occupied or because we simply can't resist their plaintive stares or begging. But all those jerky treats, dental chews and milk bones are making our domestic animals fat.

"If I could only point to one factor causing the modern-day pet obesity epidemic, it would have to be treats," says veterinarian Ernie Ward, founder of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention and author of "Chow Hounds: Why Our Dogs Are Getting Fatter – A Vet's Plan to Save Their Lives."

Vets and animal-nutrition experts point the finger at fattening pet snacks: Packed with sugar and carbohydrates, even the tiniest packaged cheese or bacon snack becomes what Ward calls "calorie grenades."

"It's that seemingly innocent extra 50 calories a day in the form of a chew or cookie that adds up to a pound or two each year. By the time a dog or cat reaches mid-life, it's overweight and health risks begin to skyrocket," Ward says. Obesity is being blamed for health problems such as diabetes, joint pain and breathing problems in pets.

That doesn't mean the snacks have to stop, but experts say treats should make up no more than 10 percent of your pet's daily calories. That's not much, considering a 10-pound cat needs less than 300 calories daily and a 40-pound dog should only get about 1,000 calories.

Making things trickier, manufacturers don't list calorie contents on their packages, and they don't have to.

Few would argue that it's cruel to starve a dog. But is it animal cruelty to feed your pet too much? A Scottish court said yes to that question when it convicted a man from Motherwell, Scotland, of causing his dog unnecessary suffering by letting him get too fat, the BBC reports.

Bob, a four-year-old black Lab, weighed 141 pounds when he was removed from his owner, Ralph Dryden, in January. Dryden claimed Bob was already hefty when he adopted him off the street, the BBC reports. But feeding the dog four tins of dog food each day, plus a fish dinner each night, certainly didn't help.

Dryden's sentence was deferred for good behavior, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, Bob is looking more svelte with every passing day. After moving into his new home and starting a strict diet-and-exercise plan, the portly pooch has already slimmed to 90 pounds.

"Bob had to be lifted into the car when we first got him. He couldn't even walk the distance from the car to the front door of the house," his new owner, Paul McShane, said in an interview with the BBC. Now, McShane added, Bob's a new dog. "The difference in him is amazing. He has got a spring back in his step," he told the BBC.

In honor of National Cat Day, we're answering some of your most pressing cat-health questions. Paw Nation spoke with Christine Bellezza, a veterinarian and the acting co-director of the Feline Health Center at Cornell University, to get the scoop on healthy kitties.

What are the most common cat health problems?
It depends on the age of the cat and the general status of the cat. Indoor cats versus outdoor cats, vaccinated cats versus unvaccinated cats, shelter cats versus pet cats -- each has different problems more common to them.

In general, upper respiratory diseases are some of the most common diseases you would see in cats. Other common health problems include viral disease such as panleukopenia [feline distemper] in unvaccinated cats or kittens. Internal parasites like roundworm, hookworm and tapeworms are a problem, especially for young cats. External parasites like ticks and ear mites are also very common.

In older cats, kidney disease and hyperthyroidism are common, and there is a fair amount of cancer in cats as they get older. Also, obesity is a huge problem in cats. We see diabetes, arthritis, and other problems in obese cats.

How can you tell if your cat is too fat?
Healthy weight for an individual cat might be anywhere from 7 to 14 pounds, depending on the cat's build. Owners should be able to run their hands down the cat's side and feel the ribs easily without having to push through a layer of fat. When they look down at the cat, the cat should have a waist, a slight indentation. The cat shouldn't look like a basketball.

Indoor cats are at risk because they move around a lot less. People can schedule regular play sessions. Set aside five or ten minutes twice a day to play with the cat. Feathers on a wand or toys on a string are great for cats to chase. One of the most important things is not to free-feed cats dry food. Schedule mealtimes and feed them set amount of foods.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight.

After finally accepting the fact that Tino and DeeDee must lose weight, I made an appointment with the obeasts' vet for advice on a game plan.

It had been a little over a year since the two had officially been weighed and I knew both had added on some chub. It wasn't until they got on the scale that it became obvious just how much had been added to their heft. DeeDee weighed in at over 19 pounds -- a pound or two up from last year. Tino, meanwhile, was over 18 pounds -- less than DeeDee, but considering he was 14 pounds just last year, that meant he'd put on about 30% of his body weight. Ruh-roh!

In medical terms: "That's insane," according to my vet.

Game Plan
I was asked, how much was I feeding them? Brace yourself. They split a can of wet food at night, and then have a "couple of scoops" of dry stuff throughout the day. My vet asked me how big a scoop was, then winced when I held up a one-cup measure. I was then informed that DeeDee and Tino should only be getting the canned food plus a 1/4 cup of dry food each. Oops!

I mentioned that Tino had been drinking more water than usual, so the vet tested his blood sugar, as weight gain and water drinking can be a sign of diabetes. Sure enough, his sugar was off the charts, meaning not only does Tino need to be on a diet, but he needs insulin injections and urine monitoring. Fun.

With this diagnosis, she recommended that the cats be switched to only wet food (a suggestion many of you made in the comments last week).

Health Stats
Diabetes is far from the only risk for fat cats. Veterinary researchers at Cornell University found that obese cats are also more likely to suffer from lameness due to arthritis or muscle injuries and non-allergic skin conditions. Read: Two things I'll have to be on the lookout for.

Even scarier? The report also found that fat cats are "twice as likely to die in middle age, which for cats is 6 to 12 years." Tino and DeeDee just turned 10, so they really have to pull it together! Diet starts today.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight.

The obesity epidemic in America is a major health threat that affects almost half of all citizens. But what many don't know is that the pet obesity epidemic is nearly as prevalent. In fact, it currently affects up to 100% of all the cats in my household.

Meet Tino and DeeDee. They're brother and sister, rescued from the mean streets of Brooklyn by good people, then adopted by me, only to be overfed into rotund walking risk factors.

DeeDee and Tino recently turned ten years old and have started to slow down and plump up.

My vet had previously recommended they lose weight. I briefly tried to put them on a diet, but gave in when they started complaining daily at 4 am. When I noticed they were actually getting bigger, I was too embarrassed to take them to the vet again. So they just kept ballooning.

Recently I bought a scale and did that old weigh-yourself-then-weigh-yourself-with-the-cat trick to gauge just how portly they'd become -- and both cats clocked in at around 20 lbs. Eek!

I shared this information with my helpful brother, who'd noticed Tino's weight gain. JP responded, "I told you. Living in Kansas for six months now, I am able to be considered an expert when it comes to fat. I know a thickburger when I see one." The bottom line? These cats have to drop some pounds, so I took the first step in any human diet and fitness regimen: Procrastination.

Then I made an appointment with the vet to get professional advice on the healthiest way to successfully get them in shape.

Join the three of us here weekly as we check in with the tubs to measure their progress. I also hope you'll share in the comments your own experiences with helping your pets lose weight.