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Dog Obesity & You: 3 Behaviors You Can Adopt
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | Dog Food, Health & Safety | No Comments
Dog Obesity and You - 3 New Behaviors You Can Adopt Today
By Jt Clough
A health trend is becoming more of a focus as the number of Americans who are obese has increased by 2% in the last two years. Those Americans’ statistics also say that up to 70% also own a dog. And guess what? Yep, the dog is most likely a bit overweight as well. The good news about that is if you find yourself feeling like it’s time to take off a few extra pounds and you do own a dog, you have yourself the perfect training partner.
More Americans now believe they are overweight and with the current economic state have realized the importance of losing weight and getting back into shape. The simple need to stay healthy, cut costs, and be able to maintain current homes and work positions is abundant.
Health care costs have spilled over to vet care expenses as well. A trip to the vet is at least $100 these days and can easily go upwards into the thousands of dollars. An overweight dog is more likely to have health problems as well as the life expectancy decreases dramatically.
There is no magic bullet in losing weight and getting more fit other than cutting calories and increasing your exercise. Make sure the calories you eat are healthy, meaning not full of fat or a large percentage consisting of carbohydrates. One rule of thumb that makes it simple for people to gage how much to eat is only eat the amount of food that equals the size of your fist.
This is true of dogs as well. Free feeding is out. That means filling the dog bowl up with food and letting your cutest best friend eat whenever and however much food anytime during the day is not a good way to promote a healthy lifestyle for your dog.
Many dog food companies are recommending too much food right on the bag. There are many reasons for this (information for a future article), but for simplicity lets just say it goes along with many downfalls of our health care system. Providing recommendations for health isn’t the underlying agenda; providing recommendation to keep you at the doctor or vet have become the industry standard.
If you cannot feel your dog’s ribs, generally you have an overweight dog. Start cutting the amount of food you are feeding as well as increasing your dog’s exercise level. Remember the recommendation on the bag may not be what you really should be feeding. The amount of fat that is on your dog is the best way to gauge if you should be cutting food quantity and make sure to feed a quality food. You are what you eat is true for your dog as well.
Here are three things you can do today to adopt some great new behaviors and start on the road to weight loss and fitness for you and your dog:
- At meals eat only the amount of food that would equal the size of your fist
- Give your dog measured amounts of food twice a day; do not free feed
- Start walking with your dog at least 20 minutes a day* (plan to build this over time)
*If you have not been exercising please make sure to get a physical to know what kind of health you are starting with, be safe, and know where you want to go with your health care needs.
Get out and get your health and happiness back with your dog! You’ll both be wagging more and barking less.
Jt Clough joined the skill of running successful business & marketing with the art of training dog to inspire others to achieve a higher level of success and attain the life they’ve dreamed of attaining. Finisher of 9 Ironmans, Degree in Business, & a Holistic Health Practitioner you can find her private coaching, e books, private & online dog at http://SitK9Sit.com/
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