Dog obesity is animal abuse

[Spanielstail]

I saw a friend yesterday who I haven't seen for some time. Her dog has absolutely ballooned. It looks rectangular when you look down on it it's got so wide. She walks it an insufficient amount for its breed and it's quite apparent she doesn't know what that breed's purpose is. It's a dog bred to run for hours but she gives it 20 minutes round the village.

It makes me so sad seeing so many dogs waddling about as they are fed rubbish, walked too little and their breed type is not understood by the owner. Don't own a Springer if you want to pavement walk around the block - a greyhound is a much better breed.

Aibu to think that more needs to be done to make owners to step up and stop abusing their animals. I think you should need a licence to own a dog at a minimum which gets revoked if you are found to not be caring for it.

Sad thing is rescue centres are already overrun but people can't keep being allowed to harm pets with obesity with no consequence.

Wouldn't go as far as to say it's animal abuse as there are a number of factors that could cause a dog to gain weight and become obese which aren't necessarily down to exercise and diet. In your friends case in which she is purposely doing it then yeah I'd class that as abuse

I'd say it's definitely animal abuse, if weivh

Agree.
Everyone (rightly) judges an underweight dog, and an overweight dog is just as cruel and unhealthy.

It has skewed people’s perception of heathy dog weight to the point where lean dogs are seen as underweight.

Oops posted to soon, but if weight gain is due to other issues, then diet and exercise and appropriate food needs to be fed.
There is a similar issue amongst horses, causing metabolic disease and crippling laminitis, which has resulted in prosecution of owners in some cases.

There’s loads of factors that can cause a dog to be overweight and just like humans, it’s different for every dog.

We have to watch our dog’s weight closely because if we don’t, she gets really fat. A moment in the lips is definitely a lifetime on the hips for that girl. It’s really hard to keep her at a stable weight and that’s despite regular decent length walks and controlling her food intake. The vet says it’s because she’s a spayed butch of unknown breed (Heinz 57) so nobody’s sure what shape she’s meant to be or how much she’s meant to weigh.she has a lot of fur and after a good grooming, she looks so much slimmer!
What I do know though is that she’s a healthy hound.

Ugh. Typos galore today. You get the idea.

Few people seem able to judge an animals physical condition, which is a shame because its a useful indication of their health and fitness. I've seen people shout at pet greyhound owners because their dogs are ''too thin'' when in fact they were nearly in racing condition, muscular and with lovely glossy coats.
And some people just can't resist feeding.

I've worried for years that my cocker is underweight but he eats at least 1/3 more than the recommended amount! My sprocker on the other hand eats less than the recommended amount and needs to lose 2kg.

They both have the same amount of exercise.

But I do watch her really carefully, as it's bloody cruel to let a dog be obese. It wrecks their joints, and I hate seeing it

has skewed people’s perception of heathy dog weight to the point where lean dogs are seen as underweight.

So true. Both of my dogs are very lean. One in particular a family member (with an obese dog) has commented more than once that mine is skinny. I raised it with the vet when I took him in for a minor injury a few weeks ago. She said his weight is perfect and he's got a lovely athletic muscle structure and that he looks thin for the exact reason that so many dogs are fat.

She said there are fewer health issues associated with being slightly underweight than overweight (not starved obviously, just better to be thinner than fatter).

My dog is perfect weight for size/breed etc but he looks a lot skinnier than a lot if other dogs of the same breed, I’m always worried people are going to think I don’t feed him enough. Lots of overweight dogs around, as you say OP, but as others have stated there could be reasons for this. I do think a lot are simply overfed though.

My old boy was enormous and I got so much grief for it - however, he had Cushings and a big pot belly is one of the classic symptoms - so it’s not always just an overweight dog. Our vet missed the diagnosis for a year as he was so focussed on me having a fat dog and ignored me when I described other classic symptoms which should have rung massive alarm bells with him.

I now get grief from randoms who tell me my current dog is too skinny - she’s not, she’s bang on her perfect weight but I think we’ve become a bit skewed as to what a healthy weight is.

A friend came around and said my cat was very skinny.
I was a bit worried about it so next time he went for his jabs I asked the vet about it.
The vet laughed and said the cat was fine, but in the same way that people’s perception of what is a normal weight has become distorted the same applies to animals.

Since my chihuahua was neutered he puts on weight more easily so I have yo make sure no tidbits etc.i hate to see an overweight chihuahua or any dog for that matter.

I agree - I'm a dog groomer so see a lot of dogs and the amount of overweight dogs that come in is ridiculous! Some of them are genuine reasons such as health problems etc but for the majority the owners say themselves it's down to too many treats and most likely not enough walks (although most people don't admit that one)

As above, it's so common for dogs to be overweight now when a dog is a healthy shape people assume they're too skinny!

People don’t really know what a healthy weight dog looks like. We get accused of starving our dogs and that they are too skinny. The one year old is too skinny, we know that, but that’s because he currently shooting up and up and up again. I think he thinks he’s a horse and needs to be that height! He’ll fill out a bit when he stops growing upwards. Vet isn’t concerned about his slight skinniness and agrees he needs to stop going upwards and just fill out a bit. He’s at that point where he could stop going up at any point and go out very quickly if we don’t watch it and over feed to try and get him to fill out. He’s already on more than the recommended feeding guide. The other one is fluffy. So at the minute she looks a bit overweight (but actually what most people see as normal). People who know what a healthy dog looks like do make comments when she’s fluffy that she looks a bit overweight until they feel through the fluff

The thing is, our dogs probably have less exercise than some overweight dogs. My dad’s dog is overweight and probably spends far more hours on walks than ours do every week, probably double to be honest, but it’s also food. I also don’t think people realise that they can over exercise their dogs too and over exercising when they are overweight can be really damaging to their joints.

Did you ask after the health of the dog OP?

My dog has an inoperable tumour, it will kill her sooner rather than later. She's getting quite stocky because we spoil her rotten and why they hell wouldn't we? Whatever makes her happy.

I very much keep my dog at the lower end of his weight because he has arthritis and I know the leaner he is, the better he'll do in the long term.

However, I used to have two cats, one of them was huge and the other normal - same cats, same food, same 'exercise' (obvs it's different with cats) and lots of steps taken to stop fat cat stealing skinny cats food. It's not always in the owner's control.

Someone once told me my greyhound was too thin. I happily gave them a 30 minute lesson on what happens when a hound puts on too much weight. Never bothered me again

My aunt got a lovely little puppy many years ago. He looked like possibly a German Shepherd/Labrador cross and she adored him. Unfortunately adoring him meant spoiling him and spoiling him, in her eyes, meant over feeding him. I was about 11 or 12 when he got really fat and I remember saying to my mum that my aunt shouldn't be allowed to own a dog if she was going to let him get fat. She had a double cupboard full of food (mainly stews and casseroles for humans!) and treats for him. It honestly made me feel terrible every time I saw him waddling around. So, so sad and, yes, abusive ... even though my aunt thought the opposite.

My golden retriever got quite fat at one point. It sounds bad, but we didn’t really realise as he is a very large example of the breed anyway and the fatness sort of added itself onto his normal growth (so he kept filling out after reaching his full size). He still had a defined waist and it wasn’t that obvious to us as we saw him everyday, etc. It was pointed out to us when he went to board at his trainer’s and then confirmed by the vet once we were back from holiday. We were mortified.

We were giving him the amount of food suggested on the dog food bag plus some treats (by no means excessive though). Apparently dog food brands overstate how much to give in order to sell more food! He now has one cup in the morning and one cup in the evening, plus the odd tit bit - he is now a healthy weight.

I see loads of fat retrievers - incredibly greedy dogs. I don’t think ddog would ever stop eating.

I think my point is that some people genuinely don’t realise. If the owners know and do nothing then yes, that is bad.

Just to add to the above - the two cups of food he has really doesn’t seem like much at all - I can see why people think their dog needs more, especially if they have a greedy breed. He does maintain his weight on this food though - 32kg and 2 long walks a day.

YANBU. Over 70% of UK pets are obese. It's a disease state and major cause of cancers, diabetes and heart disease in pets. Owners then complain about the cost of treating diseases that are entirely preventable.
Ultimately though obese animals have a pretty shit quality of life.

well according to many posters who expressed themselves on the dogs threads, dogs should be on a leash at all time and don't need to run free...

Breeding and the show scene has a lot to answer for here. Both in terms of genetically selecting dogs for heavy growth patterns (thus making weight gain more likely in dogs) and for awarding prizes to the heaviest dogs. When dogs like this are winning, is it any wonder owners think this is the right shape for their dog?

Apparently dog food brands overstate how much to give in order to sell more food!

According to feeding instructions on my dog food I should be feeding about 50 -75% more than I actually do. My dog could do with losing 0.5kg (obviously he's not a big dog) to reach perfect weight, who knows what size he would be if I fed him the recommended amount.

I think it's wrong for manufacturers to overstate a dog's nutritional requirements and I wish they would include calorific information on the packet. There are lots of calculators online to help workout how many calories your dog needs but it's difficult to use that information when the food packet doesn't tell you how many calories are in it. My dogs extra half kilo was gained after I changed his food, I had to email the company for information so I could adjust how much I was feeding him to the correct amount.