Is your pet overweight? The rib test, and why the bag over-feeds
More than half of dogs and cats are overweight, and most of their owners think they look fine. A thirty-second check with your hands, why the feeding guide on the bag is too generous, and how to take weight off without a diet food.
In every survey vets run, more than half the dogs and cats they see are overweight. In the same surveys, most of the owners of those animals describe them as "about right". Both are true at once, and the gap between them is the whole problem: we no longer know what a normal-weight animal looks like, because we mostly see the other kind.
It matters more than it sounds. In the best-known study on this, Labradors kept lean lived nearly two years longer than their overfed littermates, and got arthritis years later. Weight is the one health lever an owner controls completely.
The thirty-second check
Forget the number on the scale for a moment. Vets score body condition by feel, and you can do the same.
Ribs. Run your flat hand along your pet's side, the way you would stroke it. You should feel the ribs easily under a thin layer — about like the back of your hand. If you have to press to find them, there is too much on top. If they stand out under your palm like the knuckles of a fist, too little.
Waist, from above. Look down at your standing pet. Behind the ribs the body should go in — a waist — before the hips. A straight line from ribs to hips, or a bulge, is overweight.
Tummy, from the side. The belly should rise from the chest towards the back legs. A belly that hangs level or sags is carrying fat, in cats especially (the loose "primordial pouch" is normal; a full one that swings is not).
If two of the three say "too much", it is. Cats are harder to judge under long fur, so trust your hands over your eyes.
Why the bag over-feeds
The feeding guide printed on the bag is calculated for an active, unneutered adult. Most pets are neutered, which lowers energy needs by a fifth or more, and live in flats and gardens rather than working fields. Feed the bag's "medium dog, 20 kg" line to a neutered 20 kg dog who has one walk a day, and you are over-feeding by a quarter before a single treat.
Two more things the bag does not know:
- Treats count. They should be no more than a tenth of the day's calories, and one dental chew can be a fifth of a small dog's daily need on its own. Cheese, toast crusts, the end of the sausage: these are the calories nobody writes down.
- Cups are not measures. "One cup" varies by a third depending on how it is filled. A kitchen scale, once, and then a marked container, removes the guesswork.
Taking weight off, safely
The rules are different for dogs and cats, and the cat rule is a safety one.
Dogs. Aim to lose one to two percent of body weight a week — for a 20 kg dog, 200–400 g. Cut the daily food by ten to fifteen percent, weigh it, count treats inside the total, and add ten minutes to the walk. Weigh the dog every two weeks on the same scale. If nothing has moved in a month, cut another ten percent. Most dogs reach a good weight in three to six months this way, on their usual food.
Cats. Never crash-diet a cat. A cat that stops eating, or loses weight too fast, can develop a liver condition (hepatic lipidosis) that is dangerous in days. Reduce by no more than five to ten percent at a time, aim for half a percent to one percent a week, and if the cat refuses the new amount for more than a day, go back up and ring the vet. Wet food helps: it is mostly water, so the cat feels fuller for fewer calories. Move the bowl and split the day's food into several small meals; a cat that has to walk to eat is a cat doing more.
Both. Talk to the vet before starting if the animal is old, has a condition, or is very overweight. Some cases need a prescription diet, and a few — an underactive thyroid in dogs, for one — are medical rather than dietary.
What a good weight looks like once you have it
Ribs easy to feel, a waist from above, a tuck from the side, and an animal that gets up more readily, plays for longer and pants less. Owners are often surprised how much livelier a dog becomes after losing two kilos it did not need to carry.
Then the job is keeping it. Weigh monthly and write it down, because half a kilo a month is invisible day to day and obvious on a chart. That is why the weight chart is in mypet care: not to nag, but so that the drift is visible before it becomes the next problem.
