Weight Management

Weight Management

Dog

Beyond nutrition: Partnering with pet owners

The pet owner is critical to the success of a weight management program. After all, the pet owner is ultimately the one who determines how much food and exercise their pet will get.

Numerous studies have found that owner behaviors affect pet obesity, including:

  • Feeding and exercise practices.1-6
  • Beliefs and motivation for providing treats.7
  • Using food as part of the pet-owner bond.8

Better understanding pet owner motivations and behaviors that contribute to pet obesity is essential to successful weight management programs.8-10

Key thing to remember

  • Developing interventions that address owner-related behavior and beliefs about pet obesity are critical to improving outcomes for pet weight management.

Explore areas of managing a healthy weight

MANAGING A HEALTHY WEIGHT

MANAGING A HEALTHY WEIGHT
muscle tissue

DEFINING HEALTHY BODY CONDITION
weight-related-conditions

WEIGHT-RELATED CONDITIONS

Find out more

  1. Bland, I. M., Guthrie-Jones, A., Taylor, R. D., & Hill, J. (2009). Dog obesity: Owner attitudes and behaviour. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 92(4), 333–340.
  2. Courcier, E. A., Thomson, R. M., Mellor, D. J., & Yam, P. S. (2010). An epidemiological study of environmental factors associated with canine obesity. The Journal of Small Animal Practice, 51(7), 362–367.
  3. Endenburg, N., Soontararak, S., Charoensuk, C., & van Lith, H. A. (2018). Quality of life and owner attitude to dog overweight and obesity in Thailand and the Netherlands. BMC Veterinary Research, 14(1), 221.
  4. Kienzle, E., Bergler, R., & Mandernach, A. (1998). A comparison of the feeding behavior and the human-animal relationship in owners of normal and obese dogs. The Journal of Nutrition, 128(12 Suppl), 2779S–2782S.
  5. Kienzle, E., & Bergler, R. (2006). Human-animal relationship of owners of normal and overweight cats. Journal of Nutrition, 136, 1947S–1950S.​
  6. Webb, T. L. (2015, March 26–28). Why pet owners overfeed: A self-regulation perspective. Proceedings Companion Animal Nutrition Summit: The Future of Weight Management. Barcelona, Spain, 87–92.
  7. White, G. A., Ward, L., Pink, C., Craigon, J., & Millar, K. M. (2016). “Who’s been a good dog?” - Owner perceptions and motivations for treat giving. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 132, 14–19.
  8. Churchill, J., & Ward, E. (2016). Communicating with pet owners about obesity: Roles of the veterinary health care team. Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice, 46, 899–911.
  9. French, J. (2015, March 26–28). Developing population and personal behavioral interventions to address the public health challenge of pet obesity. Proceedings Companion Animal Nutrition Summit: The Future of Weight Management. Barcelona, Spain, 101–106.
  10. Webb, T. L., du Plessis, H., Christian, H., Raffan, E., Rohlf, V., & White, G. A. (2020). Understanding obesity among companion dogs: New measures of owner’s beliefs and behaviour and associations with body condition scores. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 180, 105029.