All the more reason not to bring leftovers from a Whitecaps game home to your pet -- new data indicate more than half of U.S. cats and dogs are overweight. About one-fifth, meanwhile, are obese, or 30 percent above normal weight.
Most of the blame for this, according to the Wall Street Journal's report on the epidemic, rests with owners who feed their pets too much and exercise them too little. Obesity in pets leads to dangerous (and costly) problems such as diabetes, kidney failure, arthritis and cancer.
One expert tells the Journal, "Obesity in pets is almost the equivalent of smoking in human medicine." The data come from a study by the Association of Pet Obesity Prevention and Mars Inc.'s Banfield Pet Hospital, who note that pets of normal weight live significantly longer.
Part of the problem is that most pet owners don't think of their cats and dogs as overweight. To illustrate the reality, the APOP has a translator on its website that shows equivalency of pet weight to human weight. A couple of examples: A 90-pound female Labrador retriever is equivalent, health-wise, to a 5-foot, 4-inch tall woman who weighs 186 pounds or a 5-foot-9 man who weighs 217 pounds. A 14-pound house cat is equivalent to a 237-pound man.
Something to think about the next time Fluffy or Fido gets fed. The Journal cites efforts by veterinarians to make body-mass calculation part of a normal check-up, a wider variety of weight-control offerings from pet food manufacturers and various weight-loss products (doggy treadmills, anyone?) that capitalize on the epidemic.
But as preventable problems go, the easiest solution is pretty obvious -- your pet might whimper and meow at supper time, but it can't fill its own dish.