Dogs are also subjected to obesity

Obesity is proven dangerous for the dog’s health. Though healthy dogs appear attractive, no owner would want their dog to be over-weight and unhealthy. According to a recent survey, more than 20% of the dogs are subjected to obesity. And obesity is not restricted to dogs only, cats are an equal target of obesity.

What exactly is obesity?

Obesity is usually referred to over- weight, that is around 20% extra body weight than the optimum point is referred as obesity.  The basic medical reason behind this over powering issue of obesity is that certain insoluble fatty substances accumulate to increase the body weight and when it exceeds above 20% obesity results. The major causes of obesity in dogs and cats are discussed below.

Causes of obesity

•    Surplus of caloric ingestion over energy exhaustion, the surplus is stored as fat.

•    Breed, age, hormonal abnormalities, sex, and some other factors such as diet intake and lifestyle all contribute to the increasing obesity rate.

•    Certain strongly palatable and energy dense dog and cat foods lead to obesity if consumed at high rates.

•    Interestingly, a healthy bond between owner and the pet can lead the owner to over feed the pet thus making it liable to obesity.

Obesity prevention

First and foremost, the fattening value of the food should be reduced in order to prevent increasing body weight. There are two main ways of reducing and controlling this high caloric consumption: The high rate method, and the moderate method.

•    Using high rate method can dramatically reduce calorie intake by complete subjection to

starvation. But this proves to be difficult for the owners to carry out and required vitamin supplementation that leads to unnecessary loss of lean body mass.

•    By feeding about 10 to 20% fewer calories by reducing the volume of regular food Moderate weight loss can be accomplished. But reducing calories also reduces protein, mineral and vitamin intake.

On the whole it is recommended that a regular diet plan be followed that reduces calorie intake but the nutritional imbalances should be prevented. Cats are mostly unable to tolerate high calorie reduction so moderate calorie reduction plan is suited for them. A healthy balance of diet that is devised according to the needs and toleration of the pets is what is required of the owner in order to see your pet healthy and fit.