Where’s Michelle Obama when you really need her?
Excess feline and canine weight can lead to serious health problems, including arthritis, diabetes, kidney problems, cancer, and shortened lifespan. But you wouldn’t know that from looking on the Internet, where nothing’s cuter than a pet with a muffin top.
“In our culture,’’ said veterinarian Ernie Ward, “a fat pet is a loved pet.’’
Ward, the founder of the pet-obesity prevention group, blames the “super sizing’’ of American pets on several factors: the growth of sugary pet treats; the normalization of obesity in the human population; and the trend of rewarding pets with food for everything they do.
“You’ve got 10-year-old dogs who get a treat for taking a potty break,’’ Ward said.
But good luck to the vet who tells an owner that his furry friend is fat. Some pet parents counter with excuses - “He’s big boned,’’ they’ll say, or “She’s really fluffy.’’ Others simply switch vets.
“We never went back,’’ said Dorothy Schlicting, 85, of Belmont, as she shopped for cat food recently. Incensed that her vet used the “o’’ word to describe her beloved cats, Kitty Cat and Nicholas, Schlicting took her business elsewhere.
“I didn’t like the idea of him telling me I had fat cats,’’ she said. Never mind that at 26 and 25 pounds, respectively, her felines weigh about twice what they should. The vet’s assessment hurt. “They are well-loved,’’ Schlicting said.
As for the food she feeds them, it’s decidedly not diet. “I tried,’’ she said, grinning like an indulgent grandparent, “but they didn’t like it.’’
That, it turns out, could be a good thing. A study published in 2010 by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University found that owners who give their pets diet food may inadvertently feed their animals too many calories.
Diet pet foods, the Tufts researchers concluded, vary widely in calorie density, meaning that a cup of one diet food may have many more calories than a cup of another diet food.
