Dog Obesity: An Overview

Dog Breeds

Obesity is one of the most common nutritional medical disorders affecting companion animals, with approximately 24-40% of pets being classified as overweight.

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Symptoms of Obesity in Dogs

The signs of obesity can be subtle, especially to owners who don’t recognize their dogs’ gradual weight changes. Longhaired breeds make obesity even more difficult to identify. There is no uniformly-accepted medical way to measure whether a dog is or isn’t obese. Most veterinarians and owners assess their dog’s weight on a “look and feel” basis. Dogs are considered to be at their ideal weight if you can feel their ribs as individual solid structures, without using very much pressure, and if their chest, abdomen and hips form a well-defined, waist-like “hourglass” shape when viewed from above.

Other signs of obesity include:

• A “waddling” gait (rolling from side to side when moving)
• Lethargy
• Exercise intolerance
• Difficulty breathing (respiratory distress; dyspnea; increased respiratory effort)
• Noisy breathing (sterdor; stridor; wheezing; crackles)

These signs can be associated with conditions other than obesity. It is important to have an overweight dog examined thoroughly by a veterinarian before it is put on a diet or on an exercise program, so that any potential underlying physical causes for its weight problem can be ruled out.

Causes of Obesity in Dogs

There are essentially three things that can cause a dog to become obese: overeating, insufficient exercise, or an underlying medical condition. Sometimes, a combination of these factors causes obesity.

Path to Obesity

Extra energy from a dog’s diet is stored as fat. Factors that can contribute to a dog eating too many calories include being fed table scraps, snacks and other treats between meals, being fed energy-dense, high-fat, highly palatable commercial diets, or simply being fed too much of a well-balanced diet. Other factors can include age, breed, sex, heredity, hormonal abnormalities and lifestyle. A strong human-animal bond often contributes to overfeeding and excess snacking, because owners succumb to feeding their dogs treats.

Dogs that are not given regular exercise can become overweight even when they eat an appropriate amount of food. Older animals, and those that are spayed or neutered, frequently become less active than they previously were and thus become predisposed to putting on weight. Aging dogs usually live an increasingly confined and sedentary lifestyle. Hounds, Beagles, Cocker Spaniels, Labrador Retrievers and Shetland Sheepdogs are some of the breeds that more commonly are affected by obesity. Statistically, dogs that live with overweight owners are also more likely to become overweight. Finally, dogs with certain hormonal or metabolic disorders, such as hypothyroidism, can be prone to obesity, because their body’s normal rate of metabolism is slowed down, which decreases their energy needs (that is, the number of calories that they need to take in.) Many domestic dogs are hypothyroid. However, most obese dogs are not.

Managing Obesity in Dogs

The best way to manage obesity is to prevent it in the first place. Assuming that there is no underlying medical condition causing a dog’s weight problem, most obese dogs can be treated by reducing the amount of calories that they eat or increasing the amount of exercise that they receive, or both. As in people, this is not always easy to achieve.

Diet Change

Dogs should be fed a high-quality, palatable diet that is not too high in fat. Feeding small frequent meals, or changing to either a low-calorie or a less-flavorful food, can be helpful to keep a dog fit and trim. Just cutting down on the amount of regular maintenance kibble is not a good way to manage weight problems, because the dog may not get its full daily nutritional requirements. Special reducing diets tend to be better, because the volume of food fed doesn’t have to be greatly reduced, yet daily nutritional requirements are still met. Most experts recommend that table scraps and “people food” be avoided, because they usually contain a lot of calories and fat. Some owners can’t resist their dog’s begging and desire for treats. Raw carrots, rice cakes and even green beans have been used to make dogs feel fuller when trying to get them to their ideal weight.

Avoid Overfeeding

Overfeeding puppies may lead to excess production of fat cells and a tendency to become overweight later in life. In puppies, overfeeding may also accelerate their growth rate, which in some breeds can increase the risk of potentially serious skeletal diseases. Young dogs should be fed an appropriate daily amount of a well-balanced, high-quality food with enough calories to promote a normal rate of growth.

Exercising

Mature companion dogs should be given a reasonable amount of regular exercise, such as one or two brisk daily walks. Swimming is another great exercise for dogs, as it is for people. Exercise increases should be made gradually, to avoid potential cardiac or orthopedic problems. Certain medications have been used in combination with dietary and exercise programs to aid weight loss in dogs. A veterinarian is the best one to discuss an appropriate dietary and exercise regimen with the owner of an obese dog. For any weight-reduction program to be successful, the dog’s owner must recognize that a problem exists and honestly be committed to doing what it takes to correct it.

Outlook of Dog Obesity

Even a moderate amount of excess body fat can reduce a dog’s lifespan and increase its chances of early death. While this association may not be completely direct, obesity does increase a dog’s chances of developing other conditions that can shorten its life, such as infectious disease, cancer, arthritis, skin disorders, high blood pressure (hypertension), respiratory disease, reproductive irregularities, diabetes mellitus and heart (cardiac), neurological and musculoskeletal (orthopedic) diseases. This is why it is so important to maintain a dog’s optimal body weight as best you can.

Problems Associated With Dog Obesity