Weight Control in Dogs

Watch the weight - overweight dogs are more likely to have problems.

Is My Dog Overweight?

Use the following chart to decide if your dog is overweight.

Overweight dogs are more likely to get:

Arthritis, stiffness, torn ligaments, spinal disorders, heart disease, breathing problems, diabetes, heart problems and skin disorders. Just like people can! It is important to keep your dog slim.

Some of these health problems can lead to weight gain due to innactivity. If you are at all in doubt about your pets health do not hesitate to make an appointment with one of our vets. Just ring 01254 53622 for an appointment.

The benefits of slimming:

As your dog loses weight he/she will become more alert and active and look younger and happier. You will be glad you helped your dog lose weight, and he will reward you by living a longer healthy life, and the cost of his medical care will be less too!

How to slim your dog:

1. Make up your mind to do it! Feed your dog less food. Simple!
2. You could feed a true low-calorie diet such as Hills r/d, which is probably the most effective slimming diet available. "Light" diets do not reduce weight as quickly.
3. Feed nothing but the low calorie diet.
4. You could make an appointment with one of our nurses or vets. We will advise the best way to slim your pet, give guidelines of the best weight to aim for and make sure there are no underlying medical reasons why your dog is overweight. You may want to bring you dog for a weight check every 2-3 weeks with one of our nurses to see if the diet is working.
5. Cut out all tit-bits. There may be someone who cheats in your household. Find out who "cheats" in your house and bring them with you to your pets at the next weight check, get them involved.
6. After slimming - stay on a reduced calorie diet to stop weight rising again.

My dog is not losing weight!

Sometimes it can be very difficult to get a pet to lose weight. If this happens it is best to make an appointment to see a vet. There are some illnesses such as hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) that can prevent a pet from losing weight other disorders that reduce your dog's activity can prevent your dog from losing weight. We may have to treat an underlying medical problem, switch to a prescription slimming diet or use slimming tablets.

Underweight dogs

Dogs can be underweight too. There can be many reasons for this, such as not being fed enough food (rare), digestion failure, diabetes, liver problems, hormone problems, tumours, etc. If your pet is underweight it is better to make an appointment to be examined by a vet, just in case there is anything wrong.

John Davies MRCVS Daisy Street Vets Blackburn May 2015

30 years ago..... (David Higginson MRCVS remembers)

Many dogs were so obese they couldn't stand up for more than a few moments. I can remember removing fatty tumours bigger than the dog, and obese dogs with heart problems we could do nothing for. These dogs were not happy! We dealt with the results of obesity but we didn’t do much to prevent it. Now we weigh all our patients regularly and take action if weight seems to be rising. We have walk-on scales, a range of effective diets and trained nurses to run our pet slimmers sessions. Dogs live longer, happier and healthier lives as a result.