DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE FEEDING YOUR PET?
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pets
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TREATS AND CALORIES
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f you’ve seen my other articles in previous VivaTysons issues, you know we’ve been talking about your pets’ diet and how to feed your animals the best nutrition possible. This article gives you information on how to keep your pet at a healthy weight. Like people, dogs and cats are healthiest at their ideal weight. Considering the huge variation in dog sizes and the modest variation in cats, determining when your pet is the perfect weight is not always easy. Fluffy dogs and cats may look huge, but get them wet, and they can look like thin marathon runners. Some dogs, such as pugs and bulldogs, can have a round shape but still be a reasonable weight for the breed. At Oakton-Vienna Veterinary Hospital, we use a nine-point system for grading our patients’ weight. Besides weighing all animals that enter our doors and maintaining accurate computer records, the doctors subjectively grade each patient and track that information in the pet’s record, too. The grading scale is simple. One is emaciated; five is ideal; and nine is
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severely obese. Other hospitals use various scales, but the goal is the same: to know when a pet is an “ideal” weight, regardless of what the scale says. Here’s an easy way to learn the grading scale.
FLUFFY DOGS AND CATS MAY LOOK HUGE, BUT GET THEM WET, AND THEY CAN LOOK LIKE THIN MARATHON RUNNERS. 1. Make a fist, and with your other hand, run your fingers over your knuckles. If a pet’s ribs protrude as much as your knuckles do, the animal is emaciated; that is, it is a one out of nine. 2. Open your hand and turn it over so your palm is up and your fingers are straight but relaxed. Rub your other hand’s fingers over your knuckles on the inside, the palm, of your hand. Notice how you can’t feel any details
to the bone structure underneath? This is like a fat layer over the ribs and is similar to a seven, or obese. 3. Turn your hand over and keep your fingers flat. When you run your fingers over your knuckles in this position, you can feel the knuckles, but there is also some tissue overlying them. This is five out of nine. If your pet’s ribs feels the same way, the pet’s weight is considered ideal. A dog or cat that is an ideal weight will have a thin layer of fat over the ribs, will have a “waist” behind the ribs and in front of the hips and will have a “tucked up” belly when viewed from the side, meaning the abdomen slopes upward to the back legs from the ribcage. Overweight pets have round bellies and no waist, and you can’t feel their ribs through the fat under the skin. In 2002, Purina published a study that monitored 48 Labrador retrievers from several litters over 14 years. They were split into two groups as puppies, and each puppy had a paired littermate in the opposite group. One group was allowed to eat as much as he or she wanted in two 15-minute
VivaTysons | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2011 vivatysons.com