Obesity
Excess body weight increasing risk of diabetes, arthritis, and reduced lifespan.
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Expert guides
Weight and Arthritis: The Single Best Thing You Can Do
A dog who's slowing down, struggling on the stairs or cutting their walk short usually gets the same explanation: it's "just their age" or "just the arthritis". Both might be true. But there's one thing you can do that helps more than any supplement, any joint chew, and very nearly anything else in your control....
Losing Weight Without Trying: When Slimming Is a Warning Sign
This whole space is about helping your pet lose weight. So here's the one piece that runs the other way, and it matters more than any of the rest.
Body Condition Score: How to Score Your Dog or Cat at Home
Feeling the ribs gives you a hunch about where your pet sits. To turn that hunch into the actual number your vet writes in the notes, you score it. That number is the body condition score, and you can do it at home with nothing but your hands and a moment of clear-eyed looking. Once...
Is My Dog Actually Overweight? How to Tell at Home
There's a ten-second check that tells you more about your dog's weight than the scale ever will, and you can do it right now, with your hands, on the dog in front of you. Maybe you've half-noticed they look a bit round, or someone at the vet's said "overweight" and it stung. Either way, you're...
Weight, the heart and breathing: lightening the load
Every extra pound your pet carries is dead weight, and the heart has to push blood all the way around it while the chest has to lift it with each breath. That cost doesn't sit somewhere off in the future as a number on a chart. It is work, right now, on this morning's walk.
Weight and diabetes: how slimming can drive remission
An overweight cat with diabetes can, by getting down to a healthy weight, push the diabetes into remission. That means no more daily injections. The needle goes back in the drawer, the twice-a-day routine stops, and the cat carries on living a normal life. It's a genuinely good piece of news, so it's worth leading...
Weighing your pet at home: scales, tricks and how often
A lot of owners dread the scales, so let's clear that up first. The number isn't a verdict on you, and it isn't a monthly telling-off. It's feedback. Used properly, it's the single most reassuring tool you've got, because it's proof you're feeding enough and permission to hold the line against the begging face.
Could a health problem be behind the weight gain?
This is the mirror of our piece on losing weight without trying. That one makes the case that a pet who slims by itself is showing a symptom, not a success. This piece runs the other way. When a pet is gaining and you're sure you haven't changed a thing, it helps to know what's...
"He's just a big cat": when round is a real problem
The internet loves a chonky cat. A big, soft, round cat reads as cuddly and content, and the comments fill up with hearts. In the consulting room that same roundness reads differently. It's one of the most common welfare issues we see in cats, and it quietly costs them comfort and movement every day.
Doing it with your vet: weight clinics and weigh-in check-ins
Someone at your practice has mentioned they run a "weight clinic" or a "nurse clinic", and you'd like to know what that actually means before you book. Does it cost anything? Do you have to go? And the question most people are too polite to ask out loud: is it just a way to sell...
How many calories? The feeding maths, made simple
The word "calories" can sound like it comes with algebra attached. It doesn't. There are really only two steps. First you work out how many calories your pet needs in a day. Then you turn that number into grams of the food you already have in the cupboard. That's the whole thing.
How much to lose and how fast: safe rates for dogs and cats
A weight-loss plan really comes down to two numbers: how much to lose, and how fast to do it. Here they are, up front, so you can stop worrying and start.
What should my pet actually weigh? Finding the ideal
So your pet is carrying a bit too much, whether you've worked that out yourself or your vet has told you. The very next question is the obvious one: OK, but what should she actually weigh? Most owners reach for a breed chart at this point, or Google "ideal weight for a Labrador", and get...
Never Crash-Diet a Cat: The Hepatic Lipidosis Rule
"Just feed less" is the standard advice for an overweight cat, and for a cat it comes with one rule attached that matters more than any portion size. Get the rule right and slimming your cat is safe, kind and genuinely worth doing. Get it wrong and you can make her seriously ill. So before...
The Treat Budget: Keeping Treats Without Blowing the Diet
Let's clear up the worry most owners arrive with: nobody is going to tell you to stop treating your pet. Treats are how you reward a good sit, how you say hello after work, and how you tell your dog or cat you love them. That ritual matters, and you get to keep it.
How Much Should I Actually Feed? Why the Bag Is Lying to You
Feeding by the scoop and the side of the bag is the normal way most people do it, and it doesn't make you a bad owner. The trouble is that you've been handed a guide that was never built to be precise.
Getting the whole family (and the dog-sitter) on board
Picture a household where the food is measured, the treats are counted, everything is done by the book, and the scale still won't move. Before you blame yourself or your pet's metabolism, look at how many people are feeding her. The commonest reason a careful diet quietly stalls is much simpler than willpower or biology....
Feeding a dieter in a multi-pet home
A diet can be calculated to the gram and still fail in a busy household, and the reason is almost always the same. The portions are weighed, the treats are budgeted, everything the plan asked for is done, and the scale still won't move, because the moment your back is turned the dieter has cleared...
"He acts starving": handling begging and food obsession
You measured the food. That was the right thing to do. And now there's a pet at your feet who bolts the smaller portion in seconds and spends the rest of the evening staring at you like you've forgotten he exists. The look is real, and it's genuinely persuasive. But it is not proof he's...
Cut back the food you have, or switch to a diet food?
So your pet needs to lose weight, and now you've hit the fork everyone hits. Do you just give less of the food you already buy, or do you go and buy a special weight-loss diet? The bags don't help. "Weight management" is splashed across half the shelf, the marketing implies you must switch, and...
Measure, don't scoop: getting portions right in grams
So you've got the number. Maybe the vet gave it to you, maybe you read it off the bag, maybe you ran it through our Feeding Calculator. Either way, you know roughly how many grams (or calories) your pet should be getting each day. Now you have to actually deliver it, every day, with a...
Weight and the cruciate: protecting the knees
A dog with a freshly torn cruciate is usually a dog whose owner has one picture in their head: back on the walk they love, back into the car without a heave, back up the stairs without a thought. Keep that picture. It's closer than it feels right now.
Slow feeding and foraging: making food work harder
A smaller bowl goes down in ten seconds, and then come the staring, the pawing and the sad little sit by the cupboard. It's easy to feel like you've short-changed your pet. You haven't, and the fix isn't more food. It's making the food they already get harder to get.
Slimming when exercise is limited: arthritis, heart or age
There's a particular kind of stuck a lot of owners land in. Your pet needs to lose weight, but they can't really exercise, and every bit of advice you read says "walk them more, play with them more". That's the one thing your dog or cat can't do. Maybe the arthritis means a lap of...
Getting an indoor cat moving: play that burns calories
"Your cat needs more exercise" is easy advice to give and almost impossible to act on. Cats don't go for walks. They won't run laps on cue. Nobody is putting a cat on a treadmill. So it lands as one of the more defeating things an owner gets told, because it sounds simple and feels...
Exercising an overweight dog safely: start slow
Think of the bit of the day your dog has quietly been getting less of. The walk you turn round early because they flag halfway. The way they used to bounce at the lead, or scrabble into the boot without a second thought, or take the stairs two at a time. That is the prize...
The Scale Won't Budge: How to Bust a Weight-Loss Plateau
The food has been measured, the treats reined in, and for a few good weeks the numbers came down nicely. Then the scale stopped. Three weigh-ins, near enough the same number, and the doubt creeps in: maybe it isn't working, maybe your pet just can't lose weight, maybe you've done something wrong.
Is it working? Reading the trend, not the daily number
A morning weigh-in is one of the most misleading readings in the whole weight-loss plan. The figure goes up and your heart sinks; it sits stuck for ten days and you start to think the plan has failed. Before you change a thing, it helps to know what that number can and can't tell you,...
Keeping it off: preventing the rebound
The ribs are back, the waist has come in, and the number on the scale finally says what you've been working towards. That's a real win after a lot of hard work, and it's worth a moment to enjoy it.
They've hit target: switching safely to maintenance
Your pet has hit their target weight. Take a moment with that, because it is genuinely hard, and most pet diets never get here. You worked out how much to feed, you weighed it, you held the treat budget, you kept the household on side, and the scales finally agree with you. That is a...
Recalculating as they shrink: why the ration has to change
A weight-loss ration has a shelf life, and almost nobody mentions it. You worked the number out once, maybe through our Feeding Calculator, maybe from a figure the vet wrote down, and since then you've measured that exact amount into the bowl every day. You've done it all correctly. So when the loss slows, or...
Tracking that works: weigh-ins, photos and what to expect
Tracking has a reputation it doesn't deserve. Owners often picture homework, or the dread of a school report they already know is bad. It's neither of those, and it isn't surveillance or a telling-off. It's the thing that proves the plan is working, and it's the thing that gives you permission to hold the line...
Breeds prone to Obesity
Obesity is seen more often in some breeds than others. If you have one of these, its breed guide covers what to watch for and where to get help.
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