Should we be fat shaming our pets?
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Earlier this hour, Michael Harding was with me, the columnist with the Irish Times and the author. He's gone on tour around the country, but he mentioned...

kind of emerging back into the world after Christmas and that his cat had put on a huge amount of weight because it had overindulged over the Christmas period no more than himself. So I told him to make sure he stayed listening to the show because Pete Wedderburn, Pete the vet, was going to be with me to talk about weight issues with our pets. So this is a real concern, Pete, isn't it? When we talk about the obesity epidemic, it applies to animals. Yeah, it certainly does. And one of the big issues is that

People have got used to podgy pets. And so if there's a, especially a dog, if a dog is a normal weight and it's been walked through the park, I know people have been approached by other people say, you're starving your dog. Why are you being so mean? And their dog is simply lean and fit. But because people are so used to well padded dogs plodding around the park, they think when they see a normal weight dog that it's too thin. So our understanding or our impression of

how much dogs should carry in weight has changed and got a bit heavier. And people are very forgiving of themselves when their dogs do get too fat. They kind of think, well, it's only because I'm kind to him. There's a lot of mixing up of kindness and love with...

overindulging. And is it mostly dogs we see this in? Increasingly in cats and indeed in rabbits as well. See, the problem we have in our society is excessive nutrition. There's so much food around and all animals like people have an instinct to eat more if they can because it's insurance against a

a questionable future. They may not be able to get food tomorrow, at least in an evolutionary way. That's how they've developed. And so if they get the chance to eat more, they usually will. And so, yeah, it's very common. Especially, there are some things that make it more common. When animals are spayed or neutered, then they are about 50% more likely to put on weight. And owners don't realise this. So they just carry on feeding the dog the normal amounts, or their cat.

And next thing, they haven't noticed the weight going on gradually and so it's too late. But if you know that at the start, you can feed a bit less. It's not inevitable that pets are spayed when you do put on weight, only if owners feed them too much. And that's the crucial thing here. And how long after the

spaying or the neutering would they notice that if they kept the feeding regime going as it was before like how quick does that happen see it would happen over many months over three six nine twelve months so over quite a long period of time and that's so for me the

the key way to monitor a pet is to have them weighed regularly. All vet clinics these days have got walk-on scales. So whenever you go up to your local vet or if you're just passing you your local vet, take your dog in, put them on the scales and get the vet to put it on the clinical record. And these days, vets' computerised records...

mean that you can, if that's done, you can very easily generate a graph that shows what your dog's weight has been over the last couple of years. And if you do that regularly, even like every three months or something, you can very quickly see a trend then. And the idea is to spot when your pet's beginning to put on the pounds, and that way you can just...

their diet a little bit. I do this to my own dog all the time, actually. Fincy, my black Labrador cross, Fincy, and some dogs breeds, by the way, are more likely to put on weight and Labradors are one of them.

But Finzi is prone to putting on weight. And I can see if I give her a bit too much food for a month, I'll see she's just getting a bit of extra fat around her waist. She's losing the... Dogs should have a narrower waist compared to the chest. If you look at them from above, there should be sort of a V shape. And I can see she's getting a bit straight at the edges over her hips.

So all I do is give her half a handful less food every day and you can just see her getting thin again. And so certain breeds, as you say, are more susceptible to it than others. At certain ages as well, is it likely to kick in? Yes, I mean, people often worry an awful lot about this. So they come in with puppies that they're not giving enough food to because they're so worried the puppy's going to get fat.

Well, growing dogs don't get fat. Not usually at all. So growing animals need as much food as they can get often to get to the right body weight so that they grow properly. But once they get to over the age of around 10 months or so, then they're vulnerable. And spotting it early is the answer. And the complications, are they the same as the human complications? It's kind of weight and wear and tear on the joints, heart issues. I think one of the more recent discoveries about animals

is that it's actually a state of chronic inflammation. So if you measure chemicals in the bloodstream, animals that are obese have got inflammatory markers there. And so they actually begin to feel miserable. And as well as that, they're prone to heart disease, arthritis and diabetes.

But the main thing for me is the impact on their quality of life. And I don't just mean because they're more prone to these diseases, but they just are dragging around more weight after them. I remember a lovely Cavalier King Charles at the age of six had put on about 50% too much weight. The dog really was retuned. Yeah. And

the owners were really, really good about this. They came to me and said, look, we know she's put on weight, but she's also got very old and very slow. And I said, not also, she's got slow because, not because she's got older, but because she's carrying too much weight. So they put her on a really strict diet, a special diet with high in fiber, high in protein, very low in calories. And over the following six months, the dog went down to his ideal weight and he was a different animal. He became enthusiastic, joyful, wanting to play, wanting to exercise, and he was

And it was, she said, the owner said to me, it was like he was deeply depressed before. And so, you know, it is that effect of just feeling rotten. And when you said kind of catching it early is really helpful and you mentioned your own dog and you noticed looking from above the hips getting a bit wider, a bit wider on the belly. Are they the signs you're looking for? What else do people look for? I'd also be pushing

putting your hand on the dog's back, and you should be able to feel the spine. You should be able to feel the bones. You shouldn't be able to see the bones from a distance. That would be too thin. But when you put your hand down the back, you should be able to feel the outline of the bones. When you put your hand on the side of their chest, you should be able to feel the ribs. Not sticking out, but just they should be present there. And if they're covered by what feels like a layer of blubber, well, then they're too fat. And if you're not sure about their weight...

Just ask, go into your local vet clinic and say to the people at reception, the nurses or whoever, it's my dog, Fat. And they'll tell you, they'll be honest with you. It's very hard to be honest yourself. You just don't know. Most people just don't have enough experience of this. We've a load of questions here, but a few of them kind of are overlapping because they're to do with cats. And they made the point that they're really strict. But, you know, cats being the type of animals they are, they're getting fed in about 10 different neighbours' houses as well. I mean, how do you deal with that?

Beyond just calling around to the neighbours. I've seen some people put tags around their cat's neck saying, do not feed me, literally, because cats are very smart. There's a lovely children's book called Six Dinner Sid about a cat that six different households thought they owned him because he just got food everywhere.

With cats, it is difficult if they're out and about because they're so good at finding food. But in general anyway, a lot of people feed their cats too much food because they put dried food down and just leave a full bowl there all the time. So the cats can just graze whenever they feel like

crazy and you know cats comfort eat just like humans comfort eat and especially lazy cats that have got used to just lying around the house they do get fat very easily and again there are very serious health side effects so it's a challenging area there are some innovative ways of losing weight that are used to pet sometimes I heard recently about some vets in America actually put

By endoscope, they put a balloon into a dog's stomach and inflated the balloon. And they left this balloon thing there for six months. And indeed, the dog successfully lost weight. But I'm not recommending that. It's a very extreme answer. All right. Well, there's less extreme options. And if you're looking at your own waistline at the beginning of January, maybe take a little peek at the animals in your life, their waistline as well. Pete, thanks a million for joining us. Thank you very much. Pete Wedderburn, Pete the Vet.

The Hard Shoulder with Kieran Cudahy. With the MG Hybrid and Electric range. Weekdays from 4 on Newstalk.