Howdy!
The Southwood Valley Animal Hospital team would like to help you in determining your pets healthy weight!
Keeping your pet at their healthy weight can help prevent health problems such as diabetes, arthritis, back injuries, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, breathing problems and even some forms of cancer.
Pets that are overweight are also at higher risk for anesthetic complications and have overall reduced life expectancies. Thus, keeping your pets trim can help give them a better chance at a longer, better and pain-free life.
Most veterinarians use a body condition score (or a BCS) to determine if a pet is overweight. This scale can either be on a 1 to 5 or a 1 to 9. Southwood Valley Animal Hospital uses the 1 to 9 BCS scoring system similar to the one shown below that was made by Purina.
One common confusion that I commonly see with clients is that they feel like if we can palpate their pets ribs that they are "too skinny." But actually we should be able to palpate their ribs with minimal effort if they are truly at their ideal weight. Pets at their ideal weight should have palpable ribs with minimal effort, when looking at the pet from above you should see an obvious waist behind the ribs, and there should be a tuck up into the abdominal area as you approach the rear legs.
This is a link to a cool 3D tool you can use to see these ideal body condition scores for dogs and cats.
If you are looking at your pet at home, or you have been told by your veterinarian that your pet has a higher body condition score (such as a 6, 7, 8 or 9) then we should start working on weight loss for your pet to increase their overall health.
Oftentimes the first step to achieving an ideal weight begins with diet modification. The challenge with this is that there is not one solution to every pet and a specific plan should be made for your pet's needs. For some, simply reducing the number of treats they get per day or removing human food from their diet can make drastic changes.
For others, changing the amount of calories they consume per day can help achieve their goals. And lastly, some may also require prescription weight loss diets to help get them to their ideal weight and maintain them. For all of these cases increasing their exercise can help them significantly with their weight loss journey. You must take into consideration your pets current exercise regimen when deciding how to increase your pet's activity. For example, if your pet already goes on 2 walks a day at a mile each, maybe increasing them to a mile and a half twice a day is a reasonable increase.
But if your pet's normal activity level is going out to the bathroom a few times a day, then trying to get them to walk for a mile may be too much as a starting point. Making baby steps is key to making sure that the exercise we are asking our pets to do is safe for them. As they lose the weight, you will see that their capability to do more exercise will increase.
We at Southwood Valley Animal Hospital hope that this brief dive into healthy weights for your pets has been helpful! We truly believe that keeping pets at their ideal weight can increase not only their quantity of life, but their quality of life as well.
Food does not always equal love. And although it often makes us feel good giving them treats and other forms of food/snacks, it can be detrimental to their health. While a "chunky" pet often looks cute, they could be hiding pain from us as well.
If you have any questions, or if we can help you in any way of determining how to best start your pet's weight loss journey, please feel free to reach out! Or we can schedule a consultation to talk in more detail about your pet!
If we can help you in anyway please feel free to call us at (979) 693-9898 or you can also schedule an appointment on our website https://southwoodvalleyvet.com/.
Thanks and Gig 'em!
Justin Casares, DVM '15 and Lauren Casares, DVM '14
https://southwoodvalleyvet.com/
(979) 693-9898
The Southwood Valley Animal Hospital team would like to help you in determining your pets healthy weight!
Keeping your pet at their healthy weight can help prevent health problems such as diabetes, arthritis, back injuries, high blood pressure, cardiac disease, breathing problems and even some forms of cancer.
Pets that are overweight are also at higher risk for anesthetic complications and have overall reduced life expectancies. Thus, keeping your pets trim can help give them a better chance at a longer, better and pain-free life.
Most veterinarians use a body condition score (or a BCS) to determine if a pet is overweight. This scale can either be on a 1 to 5 or a 1 to 9. Southwood Valley Animal Hospital uses the 1 to 9 BCS scoring system similar to the one shown below that was made by Purina.
One common confusion that I commonly see with clients is that they feel like if we can palpate their pets ribs that they are "too skinny." But actually we should be able to palpate their ribs with minimal effort if they are truly at their ideal weight. Pets at their ideal weight should have palpable ribs with minimal effort, when looking at the pet from above you should see an obvious waist behind the ribs, and there should be a tuck up into the abdominal area as you approach the rear legs.
This is a link to a cool 3D tool you can use to see these ideal body condition scores for dogs and cats.
If you are looking at your pet at home, or you have been told by your veterinarian that your pet has a higher body condition score (such as a 6, 7, 8 or 9) then we should start working on weight loss for your pet to increase their overall health.
Oftentimes the first step to achieving an ideal weight begins with diet modification. The challenge with this is that there is not one solution to every pet and a specific plan should be made for your pet's needs. For some, simply reducing the number of treats they get per day or removing human food from their diet can make drastic changes.
For others, changing the amount of calories they consume per day can help achieve their goals. And lastly, some may also require prescription weight loss diets to help get them to their ideal weight and maintain them. For all of these cases increasing their exercise can help them significantly with their weight loss journey. You must take into consideration your pets current exercise regimen when deciding how to increase your pet's activity. For example, if your pet already goes on 2 walks a day at a mile each, maybe increasing them to a mile and a half twice a day is a reasonable increase.
But if your pet's normal activity level is going out to the bathroom a few times a day, then trying to get them to walk for a mile may be too much as a starting point. Making baby steps is key to making sure that the exercise we are asking our pets to do is safe for them. As they lose the weight, you will see that their capability to do more exercise will increase.
We at Southwood Valley Animal Hospital hope that this brief dive into healthy weights for your pets has been helpful! We truly believe that keeping pets at their ideal weight can increase not only their quantity of life, but their quality of life as well.
Food does not always equal love. And although it often makes us feel good giving them treats and other forms of food/snacks, it can be detrimental to their health. While a "chunky" pet often looks cute, they could be hiding pain from us as well.
If you have any questions, or if we can help you in any way of determining how to best start your pet's weight loss journey, please feel free to reach out! Or we can schedule a consultation to talk in more detail about your pet!
If we can help you in anyway please feel free to call us at (979) 693-9898 or you can also schedule an appointment on our website https://southwoodvalleyvet.com/.
Thanks and Gig 'em!
Justin Casares, DVM '15 and Lauren Casares, DVM '14
https://southwoodvalleyvet.com/
(979) 693-9898
