What happens if dog is overweight

8 Ways to Help Your Overweight Dog

Most of the time, its a joy to share things with our dogs. Unfortunately, we share bad habits, too. It turns out our dogs are just as prone to one of our most common health problems obesity.

A few extra pounds on your pup can have serious health implications, putting your dog at risk of experiencing a wide range of diseases and conditions, including a reduced life expectancy. Added weight can also impact your dogs quality of life by affecting their mobility, energy for play, and overall mood.

As in humans, we now recognize obesity as the most important medical disease that affects our companion animals, says Dr. Alex German of the University of Liverpool/Royal Canin Weight Management Clinic.

Talk to your veterinarian for information and guidance when it comes to your dogs diet and potential weight-loss plan. In the meantime, here are eight ways you can start to help your overweight dog.

1. Know Your Dogs Healthy Weight

Different breeds and ages have different healthy weight ranges. Check what the AKC breed standard says about the ideal weight for your breed. If your dog is beyond that range, consult your vet. Its best to get a professionals help as you assess your pets accurate weight, body condition, and diet, determine if the dog would benefit from a weight-loss plan, and set a target weight to work toward.

Note that some dogs may be shorter or taller than their breed standard requirements, so the ideal weight would be within those dogs breed standard height descriptions.

2. Keep Your Dog Active

Just like humans, exercise is crucial when it comes to helping your overweight dog get healthy. Increasing your dogs activity helps burn off energy (and calories consumed).

Dont panic! Exercising your pet doesnt have to mean running marathons or going for long hikes. Regular walks and the chance to run and play in a safe off-leash environment are good forms of exercise for your dog. Participating in AKC FIT DOG is a great way for you to get moving with your pet.

Even creating a stimulating indoor environment that gets your dog moving can help. Remember, different breeds need different amounts of exercise, so consult your vet, breeder, or your dogs breed standard for guidance on how much activity is recommended.

3. Know the Difference Between Begging and Hunger

Begging is not always about wanting more to eat. In fact, its often a ploy to get more attention. (And, when its rewarded, you reinforce and encourage the behavior to continue.) If your dog begs, dont assume that theyre hungry. Trust your instincts and keep track of when the last mealtime was.

If your dog is prone to begging and youre prone to giving in to those puppy dog eyes, talk to your vet about a high-protein diet with a blend of fibers to help manage your dogs appetite and reduce their voluntary food intake. That way, you can feed your dog while knowing that they will feel fuller and stay satisfied longer.

4. Limit Treats and Table Scraps

Even when our dogs dont beg, many of us volunteer too many treats and table scraps. Dogs dont need to share everything we eat. Think of treats and scraps for your pet as you would candy for children to help you keep them to a minimum.

If you use treats for training, look for low-calorie, low-fat options and limit the amount. As an alternative, remember that clickers work great for reinforcement, and theyve got zero calories! After all, a few extra pounds can make a huge difference for dogs, who are much smaller than we are. (Even those large breeds!) So, concentrate on a healthy diet, and curb the urge to treat them with more.

5. Measure and Monitor

Once your vet has designed a weight-management plan, you should have a clear idea of how much your dog should eat at each meal. Be vigilant. Dont free-feed or eyeball how much you scoop out. Instead, use an appropriate measuring device to ensure youre managing portion control.

6. Customize Your Dogs Diet

Not all weight-loss foods are created equal, so its important to match your dog with a nutrition plan that directly addresses their specific needs. Look for a brand that offers dog food designed for your pets own issues, whether its weight management, sensitive stomachs, or something else entirely.

7. Dont Go Cold Turkey

No, this isnt about feeding your dog leftovers. Its important to ease your dog into a new diet, rather than abruptly changing what they eat. Always consult with your vet before starting your dog on a new regimen. A good guideline is to plan for at least a seven-day transition when starting a new type of food. Heres what that could look like:

• On the first two days, feed your dog 75% of their old food and 25% of the new food.
• On the third and fourth days, increase the percentage of new food to 50%, with the other 50% being the old food.
• On the fifth and sixth days, feed your dog 75% of the new food, and 25% of the old food.
• By the seventh day, you should be up to 100% of the new food.

8. Stick With It

Like human, like pet! Studies have shown that after successfully losing weight, approximately half of all dogs regained weight. The good news is that researchers also found that rebound weight gain was significantly reduced by keeping dogs on a weight-loss diet, even after achieving their target weight. So, now that youve done the hard work and transitioned to a new formula thats working, stick with it! As with so many things in our dogs worlds, consistency is the key.

Obesity in Dogs: A Major Health Threat Hiding in Plain Sight

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Theres a weight problem in America and it isnt just affecting humans.

The most recent statistics classify the majority of dogs in the U.S.56%as overweight or obese. While that makes obesity a major health crisis for dogs, its a problem thats often overlooked, as many pet owners may not even realize their pets are overweight.

I see people coming in constantly with 90-pound Labs and they say, she looks great, says Dr. Ernie Ward, DVM, CVFT, and founder of theAssociation for Pet Obesity Prevention(APOP). Well, actually, that dog is 15 pounds overweight. But weve normalized it. This kind of dog embodies what APOP has called the fat pet gapthe misalignment between what we think a dog should look like and what a healthy body composition should really be.

Obesity in dogs comes with significant consequences. In fact, Ward and other vets call it our pets biggest health threat. And its not an isolated issue; obesity is linked to a whole raft of health problems including arthritis, chronic kidney disease, bladder/urinary tract disease, liver disease, low thyroid hormone production, diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure, and cancer. We think its very important that people understand this isnt just a cosmetic issue, says Dr. Ward. There is a physiological consequence to this.

A slimmer margin of error

While obesity is loosely defined as 30% above ideal body weight (there is no universally accepted definition forpets), veterinary experts say just being overweight impacts pet health. And thats one of the challenges in addressing this issuemany pet owners may simply not realize thereisan issue.

You look at your dog and it seems healthy and its active and doesnt have any apparent health issues, says Ward. So you say, its normal, and by extension its morphology, or its size, is normal. But the problem is that we often dont know what what normal is when it comes to dogs, so we project our own human-centric perspective. In human terms, we think we just need to drop five pounds, says Ward. Well, the amount of physiological impact of a few pounds is much, much greater and more concentrated in pets than in people. Five pounds on a cat is catastrophic. Five pounds on a Lab is significant. We think a few pounds off my Lab; what could the consequence of that be..? But the consequences are that Labs hips are deteriorating, its causing damage to the kidneys, its probably causing high blood pressure which is causing a constellation of problems, and its increasing cancer risk.

Dr. Carol Osborne, an integrative veterinarian at Chagrin Falls Pet Clinic in Ohio, echoes the fact that a dog doesnt have to be clinically obese to experience health consequences. Being just 10% overweight decreases a dogs lifespan by one-third and predisposes him to heart, kidney and liver disease as well as diabetes, arthritis,and cancer, she says.

Osborne says that adipose tissue (aka fat) is filled with blood vessels, and the added rich blood creates inflammation. This all creates an environment attractive to cancer cells and increases a dogs risk of developing the disease, she says.

Cancer is the number one killer of dogs today, says Osborne.

And, for some smaller breeds, extra pounds make a huge difference. Three extra pounds for canines in the toy category is the equivalent of gaining approximately 30 pounds for you or me, she says.

Holistic veterinarian and researcher Dr. Jean Dodds, of Hemopet veterinary center in California, says the health effects of having even a marginally overweight dog include reduced energy with resultant less exercise, easy keeper (gains weight on small amounts of food), skin and hair coat conditions, and irregular female reproductive cycles, if intact.

Conversely, obese dogs may benefit from even just slight weight loss. According to aclinical trial published in 2010,obese dogs with osteoarthritis showed a significant decrease in lameness from weight loss starting at 6.10%.

Another study,published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine in 2018 found that being overweight was associated with a shorter lifespan in the 12 dog breeds studied. The estimated reduction in lifespan for the overweight group was up to two-and-a-half years.

We look at a dog with obesity and if a dog loses as little as 6% body weightthats six pounds on a 100-pound Retrieverit makes a difference, says Ward. It doesnt take a lot of weight loss to make the pet feel better. I really try to emphasize that when Im talking to (pet owners) because its a quality of life issue as much as a longevity and disease-prevention issue.

Osborne says shes seen this quality of life improvement from weight loss time and again. One of her clients came in with a two-year-old male Pomeranian named Smokey that weighed in at 45 pounds. When he first visited, the dog already had one cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) surgery on a hind leg and was about to have a second. Osborne changed his dietwhich involved stopping the dry kibble and replacing it with chicken and fresh vegetables.

At this point he is down to 22 pounds, she says. He acts, feels and looks like a puppy instead of sleeping under the kitchen table most of the day and barely moving at all. Hes running around the house, ready to play and having a ball. And he wont need another surgery after all.

Rewriting your dogs future

For pet owners with dogs who are not obese and who arent showing obvious health symptoms, the concern may not seem as pressing. But Ward warns against not taking action when you can.

I see too often a 10-year-old Lab mix and suddenly they cant get into the car because of crippling hip arthritis caused by obesity, he says. But if you can rewind the tape, you dont have the years of cumulative damage. (Obesity) is a slow and insidious and silent killer, and people may know its happening, but they dont take action until theres a crisis. I say that nobody treats obesity until theres a catastrophe. And when its catastrophic, you may not recover.

A guide for dog owners: How to assess your dogs weight

The question remains: How can pet owners determine the ideal weight for their dogs?

The rib testOsborne says it begins with keeping regular track of your dogs body condition. She recommended the rib test.

Stand behind your dog, gently run your hands along either side of the rib cage, she says. You should be able to easily feel, but not see each rib, and your dog should have a waist or a tucked up area in front of the hind legs. If you can pinch more than an inch and/or your dog has lost his waist, its probably time to think about reducing.

The standing testWard opts for another method. I recommend you do the standing test. Look at the dog from the sidelean down and look from the sideand see [if] their abdomen or stomach is sagging, he says. Then I look from the top: From standing I should see an hourglass indentation in front of the hips. You should see the chest extend out and the waist tapers in making an hourglass.

While dogs vary widely in body shape and volume of hair and fur, Ward says this test should work for 95% of dogs (he notes that exceptions include English Bulldogs and Pugs).

Food matters most

Many vets agree that weight loss begins and ends at the food bowl for dogs and cats. Based on available literature and experience, Ward breaks down the weight-loss math this way: 60-70% diet and 30-40% exercise.

So, knowing exactly how much to feed your dog becomes key. Like many experts, Ward cautions against using the guidelines on most commercial dry dog food packages to determine how much youre feeding. The parameters, which are based on adult dogs for all life stages, are far too broad to accommodate every dogs needs. For example, Ward says, spaying or neutering a dog reduces their energy requirement by 20-30%. So already, if youre feeding according to guidelines youre overfeeding a pet who is spayed or neutered, he says. I see so many pet owners say Im feeding exactly what they say on the bag, and its like no, thats too much.

Its a good idea to work with your vet to assess your dogs body condition, muscle condition, lifestyle and any concurrent medical conditions and determine how many calories you should be feeding.

You can also consult the tools available online(including on APOPs site)which provide a good estimate of weight ranges and caloric needs by breed and size.

As to food quality, Osborne recommends fresh food including lean protein like chicken, turkey, fish, eggs and tofu, and fiber through fresh vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and spinach.

While some dog owners hesitate around the idea of feeding people food, this kind of real, fresh food is more nutrient-dense, and more bioavailable than dried, processed food. Those planning to prepare fresh food at home for any length of time should be sure to consult their vet to ensure meals are correctly balanced and contain the necessary vitamins and nutrients.Subscribing to a fresh-food plan makes it easier, and safer, to feed nutritionally balanced meals.

While food is the biggest factor, pet owners should also plan to exercise dogs for a minimum of 20 minutes, twice a day. And be careful with snacks. You can use fresh veggies as healthy treats and avoid processed mystery-ingredient treats and things like pig ears, and bully sticks.

If you dont eat it, neither should your dog, Osborne says.