This Super Common Dog Owner Habit May Be Shaving Years Off Your Pet's Life
Giving your dog an extra treat or some tasty food scraps is tempting, and something nearly everyone has done from time to time. Who can resist their pup’s big eyes or the pure joy that comes as they eat some leftover chicken?
While it isn’t inherently bad to give your dog extra food, it can lead to harmful outcomes. While chubby dogs are often seen as “cute,” it’s anything but cute for their health. Data shows that roughly 59% of dogs are overweight or obese.
“Most owners do not recognize their dog is overweight. Changes occur slowly and weight gain isn’t readily apparent,” Michael Stone, an associate clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told HuffPost via email.
If your dog is overweight, your vet should tell you, or you can use online charts to measure your dog yourself. All three vets who spoke to HuffPost recommend the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) Body Condition Score chart, a numbered chart (one through nine) that lets you (or your vet) assess your dog’s size based on their “ribs, waist, as viewed from above, and abdominal tuck,” Stone said.
“Five is perfect, and four is probably even better, because you’re nice and lean,” added Joe Wakshlag, the section chief of nutrition at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University in New York. You can look at this chart online, or ask your vet for your pup’s score at their next appointment.
It isn’t always enough to know your pet is overweight, you have to believe the data and do something about it.
“One of the biggest problems that we have is that dog owners will bring their animals to see their veterinarian, and their veterinarian will say things like, ‘Oh, your dog is overweight,’ or ‘Oh, they could lose a little weight, they’re obese,’ and the pet owner looks at their dog and says, ‘No, they’re not. They’re perfect. They look totally fine,’” said Katie Krebs, an assistant professor of clinical primary care at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Ignoring your pet’s weight only harms their health and their longevity. Here’s how their health is impacted and what you can do to help them lose weight:
Overweight dogs don’t live as long as those who are a healthy weight.
“Having excess fat on a dog is basically like creating a low level of inflammatory disease pretty much all the time,” Krebs said.
“The biggest risk of obesity, or maybe the most concerning one to pet owners, is that having an animal that’s overweight or obese actually does shorten their lifespan,” Krebs added.
A study in labradors found that the dogs who were fed an appropriate amount of calories and maintained a healthy weight lived roughly two years longer than overweight dogs.
Obesity can also lead to arthritis, joint issues and chronic diseases.
“Carrying around that excess weight ... can lead to arthritis, joint pain,” Krebs said.
Arthritis and moving around more slowly are already common among older dogs, but having extra weight to carry around can bring on the development of arthritis earlier in life along with more severe pain and mobility issues, she added.
Pets who are overweight are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, according to Wakshlag.
“Urinary tract problems, dermatologic problems, kidney issues, some people say cancer, you name the chronic disease condition, it seems to be associated with obesity,” Wakshlag said.
Obesity in dogs is also associated with respiratory issues and metabolic disorders, Stone noted. “Thus for dogs, as with the condition in humans, data supports the classification of obesity as a disease.”
To help them lose weight, first make sure they’re eating the right amount of food.
The amount of food your pup needs to eat daily depends on a variety of factors including breed, age and activity level. Feeding them more than they need could be the reason they put on weight, and it isn’t always simple to figure out just how much food they need.
“If you look on the side of a typical dog food bag, it says things like ‘between 2 and 5 cups for a 70-pound dog,’ — that’s a huge difference, right? Where do you choose between that 2 and 5 cups?” Wakshlag said.
Pet food companies have to provide guidelines for every dog, whether they’re a hunting dog who is running around every day or is a couch potato dog, he said.
“That’s why it’s good to talk to the vet and say, ‘Hey, what should he really be eating based on what you’re looking at?’” Wakshlag explained.
Your vet should be able to tell you how much food your dog needs daily to maintain a healthy weight.
You may be told to reduce their food intake.
If your dog is eating the recommended amount of food, but still gaining weight, you’ll need to reduce their food intake, said Wakshlag. Your vet should be able to help you determine just how much food to cut from their diet.
That could mean feeding them three cups of food a day instead of four, or two cans of food instead of 2 1/2, Wakshlag noted.
Or try a weight loss specific dog food.
“If they’re at the point where they’re obese, or we’ve tried cutting back their food and it’s just not working, then we do have things like veterinary weight loss diets that can be really helpful to get these pets to lose weight,” Krebs explained.
Krebs said many pet owners worry their dog will be hungry if they’re put on a diet, but Krebs said the nice thing with veterinary weight loss diets is the food is formulated so you feed the dog approximately the same amount of food, it’s just less calorie-dense.
“So, they’re not going to be nutrient-deficient, they still eat the same volume of food, but they’re not getting as many calories because the kibbles have fewer calories in general,” Krebs said.
“Weight loss diet can be really, really helpful, especially in the significantly obese and pretty overweight animals,” she noted.
Cutting back on treats can also be helpful.
Giving your dog a treat is a common way to show your pup love, but vets say it can be problematic when you show them this kind of love too often.
“A spoonful of peanut butter has a lot more calories and a lot more significance to a dog than it does to a human,” Krebs said. “And so even one extra treat or some extra table scraps adds a lot of calories to a dog’s diet.”
This is harming your pet in the long run, not showing them love, she added.
“We say that treats can make up approximately 10% of a dog’s daily caloric intake, so it’s not that they can’t have any treats, it’s just when we get to an excessive amount of treats that we start to think about maybe we should cut back a little bit,” Krebs said.
Fruits and vegetables are a great treat alternative for pups (just make sure the produce you’re feeding them is dog-safe).
“I just tell people, get a baby carrot, get a green bean. They’re low calorie — add some fiber to the diet,” Wakshlag explained. “Those are the things that we should really be reaching for rather than reaching for that cool thing that’s on the shelf that looks like a meat stick or whatever.”
If your dog won’t eat produce, there are also low-calorie treats available in pet stores and online, according to Krebs, who noted that mini-milk bones are pretty low-calorie, too.
Exercise is important for a healthy dog, but may not be key for weight loss.
Dogs need exercise to stay healthy, active and engaged. As with how much food they need daily, their movement needs depend, too. You can chat with your vet to determine just how much exercise your pup needs, but know that it may not be what’s most important for weight loss.
“You can’t just say, ‘et’s increase exercise in a dog,’ that’s not really going to do enough to get them to lose the amount of weight that they probably need to lose,” Krebs explained.
Bottom line: If your dog needs to lose weight, talk to your veterinarian to make a plan.
“While weight loss may appear straightforward ― consuming fewer calories and burning more calories resulting in weight loss ― it’s not always simple,” Stone said. “Have your dog examined by a veterinarian before beginning a weight loss program.”
Since more than half of dogs are overweight, it’s likely that you’ll hear from your vet that your pup does need to lose weight.
According to Wakshlag, malnutrition (and obesity falls into the category of malnutrition) is the number one disease seen in clinical practice.
While it’s easy to ignore the fact that your dog needs to lose some pounds, you should take it seriously for their future health and happiness.