Obesity is considered to be the most common form of malnutrition seen in small animal practice affecting a quarter of pet dogs and cats in the UK. An animal is considered obese when it is greater than 20% above normal body weight.

The list of diseases associated with obesity is extensive. These include mobility disorders (arthritis, hip dysplasia, spinal disc problems), cardiac and respiratory problems, diabetes mellitus, arthritis, fatty infiltration of the liver, poorer response to infectious diseases, increased surgical risk (anaesthesia risk, slower wound healing and technical difficulty), heat intolerance and feline lower urinary tract disease. Obesity is a medical problem and therefore, owners should not be embarrassed to ask their veterinary surgeon for help to deal with the issue.

Initially overweight animals should be thoroughly evaluated to rule out any medical cause. Occasionally, metabolic disorders can result in a pet becoming overweight, but overfeeding and under-exercising are much more common causes of excess weight. The evaluation will include your vet taking a history and performing a physical examination, possibly with blood and urine tests. Following this, a weight loss program will be started based on decreased energy intake, increased physical exercise (where possible) and behavioural management.

1.      Diet

Feeding a reduced quantity of a normal diet will not only reduce calories but also the daily intake of nutrients essential to maintain health in your pet. It is therefore more advisable to use a diet specifically formulated for safe weight loss. The vets or nurses at Highcliff will calculate a target weight for your pet and be able to work out the exact amount of food to feed each day in order to achieve this. It is very important that your pet eats only what your veterinary surgeon recommends. This means educating the WHOLE family and visitors not to give titbits or treats.

At Highcliff, we use Royal Canin Obesity Management diets which are highly palatable, hunger-satisfying complete diets for adult dogs and cats for use during weight reduction.

Your pet may need to have a gradual transition from the old to the new diet, with increasing amounts of new and decreasing amounts of the previous diet fed each day for 5 days. This should prevent stomach upsets and refusal to eat the food. Even though the Royal Canin diet has been developed to provide a generous volume of food, any pet on a low calorie diet may feel hungry, especially to begin with. This usually abates after about 14 days on the diet.

Key features of Royal Canin Obesity Management diets are:

·       Ensures safe, healthy, controlled weight loss

·       Maintains balanced intake of protein, vitamin and minerals during weight loss

·       Chondroitin and glucosamine help maintain normal mobility in the highly stressed joints of obese pets

·       No excess insoluble fibre so maintaining good skin and coat condition

·       Essential fatty acids (omega 3 and omega 6) and trace elements (copper, zinc) promote a healthy skin and shiny coat

·       Contains L-Carnitine to aid in fatty acid oxidation, so reducing conversion to, and storage of body fat.

·       Weight loss programme ensures maintenance of lean body tissue

·       Average weight loss of approximately 1-2% per week

·       High palatability

·       Enriched with an optimum antioxidant complex (vitamin E and taurine)

The length of time your pet will stay on the diet depends on how much weight needs to be lost. Weight should be lost slowly to ensure your pet loses only fat tissue from his body and stays healthy. To achieve this, your pet should lose 1-2% of his body weight per week. After reaching his ideal body weight, your pet may need to go onto a "light" diet to keep the weight off.

The nurses at Highcliff run a free "Weigh-in Club" to monitor your pets slimming progress on a graph. Please ask for details at reception.

Rabbits - rabbits are not exempt from this topic. Obesity in pet rabbits is of huge concern, especially in summer when Fly-strike is a problem. Rabbits are coprophagic animals. This means that they produce two types of dropping - hard round faecal pellets are produced in the daytime and soft pellets at night, mostly in the early hours - which we don't see. These small, soft faeces contain high levels of vitamins B and K with twice the protein and half the fibre of hard faeces. The rabbit eats these soft faeces straight from its anus in order to re-digest previously undigested nutrients and re-inoculate the gut with essential nutrients. Rabbits that are too fat, cannot reach around to their back-ends to these soft faeces or "cecotrophes" and the faeces soon become matted in the fur. Flies are attracted to the site and lay their eggs on the skin. The eggs hatch into maggots which eat the surrounding flesh and burrow into the rabbit. It must be incredibly painful and it can happen within 12 hours of the eggs being laid in warm weather. In the worst cases, there may be severe tissue necrosis where the maggots have literally eaten the rabbit alive. The toxins produced by the maggots can kill the rabbit. It is vitally important that rabbits are checked twice daily and brought into the vet as soon as a problem is found. We can help prevent this in fat rabbits by clipping the fur in this area to help owners keep the back-end clean. "Rearguard" is a product that can be applied to the hind quarters to prevent flies attacking your rabbit and laying eggs. Burgess Supa Rabbit Excel Light - a diet food for rabbits is available from your vets, please ask for advice and help your rabbit loose weight before it's too late.

2.      Physical exercise

Used in combination with diet, exercise promotes fat loss whilst maintaining lean tissue. It is important to take into account co-existent health problems and grossly overweight animals should not be subjected to immediate increases in activity. In general, walking is relatively easy to apply but other activities such as swimming may be more suitable. For example, for arthritic dogs.

Many pets fail to maintain their initial rate of weight loss. As caloric intake decreases, an animal's basal metabolic rate (BMR) falls, reducing the amount of calories they need. Exercise can partially prevent this reduction in BMR.

3.      Behavioural management

Dogs - It is not the dog that fills the feed bowl!!! And nowadays we have no excuse of being ignorant as to what type of food we should be feeding since it comes in ready formulated balanced rations straight from the tin or sack - it is therefore us owners that are responsible simply by feeding too much. The dogs wild ancestors would have had a fluctuating body weight dependant on the availability of food. They were not designed to be fed every night at 6pm on the dot; rather to eat as much as was available as and when, and put on fat in times of plenty to see them through the scarce times. If they got too fat and lazy, they failed to catch prey and this natural fasting stopped them from becoming obese. Today's dog doesn't hunt for his food, but for many (Labradors especially it would seem!) still have the same desire to eat as much and as frequently as possible.

Begging is a trait many obese dogs have learnt and may not be related to hunger as social or other factors have overcome these individuals mechanism for satiety. It is unlikely that any diet would stop this behaviour and therefore it must not be reinforce with treats. Persistent begging can be modified by rewarding the dog only after performing some other task (sitting, laying, fetching) rather than simply begging for food.

It may not be possible to cut out treats as these form an important part of the companion animal bond, but by replacing them with low calorie ones such as raw carrot or raw-hide chews, or by putting aside a portion of the daily ration, you need not increase the daily energy intake. Dividing the daily ration into smaller meals given more frequently will help prevent the dog becoming so hungry. The process of digestion itself uses energy and so more meals means more energy used.

Cats - Cats present a particular problem when attempting weight loss programs because "outdoor" cats hunt their own food or visit a neighbour instead (occasionally not coming back if the food is better there!) and "indoor" cats are often sedentary, sleep 18 hours a day and can't be made to expend more energy. To understand how to deal with these problems, we need to apply some knowledge of feline behaviour.

Humans and dogs are similar in their eating patterns, both being diurnal feeders and attaching a social value to meals. Humans are omnivores requiring 3-4 meals a day whereas dogs are opportunistic carnivores needing 1-3 meals a day. Cats are different. They are naturally solitary hunters and obligate carnivores. They will eat 7-20 meals during day or night in the wild and attribute no social value to meals. This can be difficult for us to understand as we reflect our own perceptions of feeding onto our pets. For many owners, especially those with unaffectionate cats, feeding time is a rare opportunity for social exchange. However, although social interaction with their owner is important to the domestic cat, unlike dogs, it has no need for social interaction at the time of feeding. The action s we perceive to be our cat asking for food (rubbing, purring, vocalisation), may just be him asking for social attention which he has learnt is rewarded by food. He will therefore expect a food reward each time he asks for attention. Instead of food, reward him with play, or make him search for a small amount of food. Obese cats should be on a calculated volume of a low calorie diet but this is often resented and so gradually increasing the proportion of diet food and decreasing the normal food over time may be necessary. If you have more than one cat, try feeding them away from each other or putting the thin cat's food in a place only he can get to through a narrow entrance!

Whereas dogs in the wild hunt in packs, going out frequently but for long durations and sharing the kill, cats hunt alone and only an average of 1 in 15 expeditions is successful. Therefore, a wild cat may spend 6-8 hours a day hunting to supply enough energy. If the cat waited until it was hungry to do this, then it may be too weak to catch the prey and would risk starvation. Therefore hunting and eating are independently motivated and your cat will instinctively always be poised to catch prey. Feeding your cat more will not prevent it hunting, although it may stop it eating it. The low success rate of hunting means that the cat spends much of it's time searching for food. For indoor cats, hunting opportunities will need to be provided via play. A puzzle feeder can be made cheaply from a washing liquid ball and sink plug-hole grill and filled with small cat biscuits (taken from the daily ration!) to allow your cat to "hunt" for food. Alternatively, food can be hidden around the house. High pitched, rapid unpredictable moving toys are usually preferred - feathers on string or paper balls moved by the owner can help stimulate them to "hunt". Once your cat has lost some weight by using a calculated amount of a correct weight loss diet, it should show an increase in activity and interest in playing and predation.

Conclusion

Helping your pet lose weight is not easy. High quality weight reduction diets are not ordinary diets and are correspondingly more expensive than those from supermarkets. However, consider that obese animals are more frequently presented with health problems - the increase in vets costs can be up to 10%, and that your veterinary practice will support you with regular free weigh-in's and advice, and you'll agree, it is worth it.