In this episode of ER VET, Dr. Justine Lee, DACVECC, DABT talks to Dr. Martha Cline, DACVIM (Nutrition) on how to help your dog lose weight! We know that almost 60% of dogs out there are overweight or obese, and it can result in a lot of secondary medical problems and affect your pet’s quality of life! Tune in to learn how to extend your dog’s life and get some diet tips for your pet to keep them as healthy as possible!
SHOW NOTES: Keeping Your Pet Happy and Healthy: Preventing Obesity In Your Pet with Dr. Martha Cline, DACVIM (Nutrition)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/er-vet-stories-from-the-animal-er-pet-life-radio-original-petliferadio-com--6667836/support.
SHOW NOTES: Keeping Your Pet Happy and Healthy: Preventing Obesity In Your Pet with Dr. Martha Cline, DACVIM (Nutrition)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/er-vet-stories-from-the-animal-er-pet-life-radio-original-petliferadio-com--6667836/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to er Veta pet Life Radio. I'm your host,
actor Justine Lee, and I'm a board certified Emergency Critical
care vetory specialist and toxicologist. Thanks for joining us today.
We're going to be talking about something that all you
dog owners, especially all of you dog owners of Lavador
Retrievers and Golden Retrievers, must tune in on, and that's
a growing problem of obesity. It's a really important topic,
(00:50):
so please don't tune away. This is a really important
one that could actually add and average a one point
four years onto your dog and maybe cats life and
I'm really excited to be speaking with board certified veterinary
nutritionists doctor Martha Kaine. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Take a bite out of your competition, advertise your business
with an ad in pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(01:31):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
and other streaming apps. For more information on how you
can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network,
visit Petlife Radio dot com slash advertised today.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Welcome back to ervet on pet Life Radio. Really excited
to be talking with doctor Martha Klein. Martha, thank you
so much for joining us today. Love what you do
and can't wait to do today's radio show.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for
having me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
All Right, just so our pet owning population knows a
little bit about you, do you mind just telling us
about where you trained, where you did your veterinary school,
where you did your residency program and nutrition and what
the difference is between a regular veterinarian and one whose
board certified in veterinary nutrition.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Well, thank you so much, Justine. So I went to
the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine and graduated
with my veterinary degree. After that, I went on and
did an internship and then I returned to the University
of Tennessee to do my small animal clinical nutrition residency
and at the end of that, I became a diplomat.
I'm a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Wonderful, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know, it's so so important because I know there's
always questions about what to feed your pet, how much
to feed, and so we're going to talk about some
of that. But it should be no surprise to pet
owners that, unfortunately, obesp is a major problem in our
four legged friends. And the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention
recently released the results of their latest study on obesity prevalence,
(03:31):
and it revealed that fifty nine percent, that's almost three
out of five dogs are overweight or obese. At the
same time, doctor Klin, you have some information that would
tell us many dog owners simply don't realize that their
pets are overweight. Do you mind just giving me some
information on this.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, So the Proplane Veterinary Diets Weight Survey, those results
actually found that one in five owners acknowledged that they
had an overweight dog, which isn't contrast to what we
can see with the Association of Pet OBCD Prevention. And
I actually think that really reflects a lot of what
I see in clinical practice because there's a lot of
(04:09):
pet owners, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well,
is that they come into the clinic and they have
a pet owner that we would recognize is having excess
body weight, but the pet owner maybe doesn't actually recognize
that that is the case. Interestingly, there was a study
that was published last year in twenty twenty two looking
at veterinarian owner perception about pet weight and pet owners
(04:32):
actually considered weight to be a really valuable health indicator.
But what was really interesting is that they put more
value on underweight versus overweight. And so it does present
a challenge for me as a veterinarian in the exam
room when I'm practicing and seeing my nutrition cases because
there is often a disconnect i think, between pet owners
(04:54):
and having that recognition. Now the normal if we're talking
about fifty nine percent of dogs, that's the majority of dogs,
so you know what is normal now for them, So
normal and ideal weight are not the same.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Thank you so much for that information. You know, I
know that even decades ago, we started something called a
body condition score or a BCS, and Purina was actually
instrumental in creating the Purian of Body Condition Score guide,
where we all learned on a system of one through nine.
How to quote grade a dog or cat and don't worry,
(05:32):
doesn't mean you failed, But it's just basically letting us
have a numeric visualization of scoring your pets. So nine
would be really really obese, one would be emaciated and
really thin, and you really want your pet to be
I'm going to say a four to five, four and
a half.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I always say to Labrador retriever owners if you
own a labidor and someone comes up to you and says, oh,
your lab is so skinny, that means your lab is perfect. Right,
is like a four body condition score? So do you
mind just giving us some clues besides physically feeling the ribs?
What can a dog owner do to tell if their
pet is overweight? How do we tell?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Yeah? So, one thing for pet owners to recognize about
the body condition scoring system is that this is a
validated scale that correlates with body fat percentage. So when
you're a veterinarian is doing a body condition score, and
maybe in the exam room of some of the hospitals
that you've been in, you've even seen these charts hanging
(06:33):
on the walls. But the Purina scales that were developed.
They correlate with body fat percentage, and the nine point
scale has been endorsed by the World's Monimal Veterinary Association
and the American Animal Hospital Association for universal adoption. So
this is a pretty universal scale that a lot of
veterinarians are going to adopt into practice. And so when
(06:55):
I am doing a body condition score system, sometimes people
will call it like a healthy hug. But I also
sometimes when I'm demonstrating to pet owners is I'll even
use like the palm of my hand, so I can't
feel the bones when I fill across the palm of
my hand, sky feeling across the ribs. You don't want
to do that. But if you flip your hand over
(07:17):
and you hold your hand flat and you feel along
the back of your hand, you can feel those bones.
And that's really how we want the ribs to feel.
So you're gonna feel along the ribs and you should
be able to feel them, not necessarily see them. Sometimes
in really lean dogs and ones that have short hair,
sometimes not all of the ribs, but maybe the ones
in the back, and then looking at them from the top,
(07:38):
you want to make sure that they have a waist
from the side that they have a tuck right after
those last ribs. You can also feel along their back
and feel for those hit bones. You don't want them
to protrude, but you want to be able to feel them.
Sometimes we can't always feel them. I'll fill along the
tail base and try to feel if there's a little
dimple above the tail. There shouldn't be one. But those
(08:03):
are some of the ways that we're going to assess
for the body condition scoring system. So again, if you're
in the exam room and you see those charts on
the bulls, there'll be some descriptors written beside that. But
that's not a made up scale. It is actually something
that is validated to correlate with a pet's body fat percentage,
and it's used in a lot of scientific research.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Wonderful, thank you for that information. You know. I will
sadly say that when I work with new veterinary graduates
or veterinary students, they often are so used to seeing
overweight and obese animals. When I'm looking through the medical records,
they'll say, oh, this this dog or cat is a
five out of nine or six out of nine. I'm like, no,
it's actually a seven to eight out of nine. It's
(08:44):
really really overweight, it's really obese. We're just so used
to it. And you know, I'm going to ask you
a little bit about a long term, fourteen year purina
study that was done a little bit later. But again,
really really important that you are feeling the sides of
your pet, your dog or cat every single day. Right,
It's not just a matter of feeding the bowl, it's
(09:04):
feeding the pet. I know that when I run with
my dog more in the spring and summer, that I
need to feed my dog more because I can literally
feel his ribs through his coat because he gets a
lot more exercise. And it's a total normal Minnesota thing
where like pets and humans gain at least five pounds
during the winter because we have six months of winter,
So I actually feed less in the winter for both
(09:27):
of my dogs. So again, it's not a matter of
just scooping out the same amount every day. It's a
matter of actually, you know, petting your pet and feeling
and seeing if they have that tuck in their waist,
whether or not they have that fat pad over their
tail area. So important. One of my favorite words of
advice that I always give to dog owners, especially if
they have a purebread, is to go to the AKC website.
(09:48):
And the main reason why is because if you go
to the website, you will see what the classic Golden
retriever or the classic Doberman pincher or whatever breed you
may have. They will actually list what the classic weight is.
And a lot of people, like the average Labrador retriever
that I see come in, they're usually eighty eight to
ninety pounds in the er, and if you look on
(10:11):
the website, it's actually seventy five pounds. Right, So that's
a really good general guideline of what your ideal breeds
weight should be. So great resource to be able to
look at that. So again, really important information when it
comes to your own health, your pet's health, because we
want them to live longer. All right, now, I know
that I previously mentioned it, but do you mind just
(10:32):
giving me a short summary of what that Purina fourteen
year study looked at in dogs.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Yeah, so sometimes we'll call it the Purina Lifespan Study,
but this was a really pivotal paper that was published
just for veterinary nutrition in general. It is a study
that looked at forty eight labrador retrievers that were split
into two different groups and they were followed over their
entire life. So this study was about fourteen years long.
(10:58):
And what they did the two different groups, so one
group was the control group of dogs and then the
other group they were fed twenty five percent less than
their matched pair over the course of their entire lifetime,
and so they were called the feed restricted group. And
when Purina looked at the body condition's score, so the
(11:21):
mean body condition score between the ages of six to
twelve years of age, the dogs that were in the
feed restricted groups that the twenty five percent less they
were about four point six, so that would be ideal,
so four out of nine would be considered ideal. And
then the dogs that were in the control group were
about six point seven, so between six and seven, so
(11:42):
that would be what we would classify as overweight. So
one of the things that I always really emphasize is
that this is not an obesity study. This is a
overweight dog study. So now the results that they found,
I think are really important because as a ordinary nutritionist
in the exam room, when I'm talking to owners and
(12:03):
I have clients and they're like, what is the one
thing that I can do to help my dog live
as long as possible and have the best quality of life.
And one of the things that I'll tell them is
the best thing you can do, and we actually have
prospective evidence to show is by keeping them lean. And
again it's not just in the overweight category or compared
(12:24):
to OBEs. This is looking at dogs in the overweight
category compared to lean dogs. So the dogs that were
in the feed restricted group their median life span, so
the time when half of the dogs had passed on
and halfy we were still alive was thirteen years compared
to eleven point two years in the control fed group,
(12:45):
So it's almost two years of extra life that these
labradors got. Some of the other really important findings is
that the dogs when we looked at osteoarthritis, so these
were labradors, so osteoarthritis is going to be one of
the most common things we're going to to see in
these dogs, but the prevalence in the severity of osterearthritis
was significantly decreased. So the time that these dogs needed
(13:07):
treatment was thirteen point three years versus ten point three years,
so almost a delay of three years of needing treatment
for that and then just chronic diseases in general. So
if we just group every single chronic disease in a category,
it was twelve years versus nine point nine years, so
almost two additional years. So it's not only the lifespan benefit,
(13:29):
but it's also treatment for chronic disease, treatment for ostereoarthritis,
and a lot of those things correlate with quality of
life in these animals. And so that's one of the
things I really talk to owners about because they'll come
to me and they'll be like, what is there a
supplement I can give? Is there like a very specific
diet that I can feed? What is the like one
best diet for all animals? And we newsflash, there's lots
(13:52):
of really good diets out there, and not one animal
and needs the same thing as the other animal. But
the one thing that I would say translates as the
board is trying to keep your dog lean.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Thank you so much, doctor Klein. You know you just
answered my next question about like overweight and obese body
conditions putting up pet's physical health at risk. And again
we know based off that study that that excess weight
can really have a negative effect not only in the
health in terms of astroarthritis and quality of life. But
it could potentially have a negative effect on the relationship
(14:25):
between dogs and their owners. What can you tell us
about that.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Yeah, so when we look back at the Problem Veterinary
Diet survey, ninety two percent of the owners that had
dogs with excess body weight they were sad that their
dogs can't participate in their different activities. And so a
lot of these owners did report, you know, their pets
having less energy, they would tire more easily after various activities,
(14:51):
they have trouble climbing the stairs, which is a common
complaint that I've heard in clinical practice, or they're just
less engaged and less playful, and so that's something too
that a lot of these interactions really play into the
human animal bond and that a lot of pet owners
and I've heard this many times. I've done a lot
(15:12):
of successful weight management programs with pet owners, and it
does take a lot of work. It's not as simple
as just I'm going to give you recommendations on day
one and see you later. I hope it goes well.
So there's a lot of maintenance that goes along with
working with your veterinarian and working with the veterinary team
with helping your pet achieve a more idle weight. But
I think one of the things that I've gotten back
(15:34):
more than anything from feedback is just how much more
engaged the pet is. I pet owners will often talk
about their dogs acting like a puppies again and being
able to just engage more with the family and participate
more with the family.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So so important again, really important that pet owners recognize
when their pets are overweight, just because we know the
impact again not only because of the health impacts, but
because of that effect on the human animal bond. Now,
if owners know that being overweight makes their dogs more
sedentary and less playful or arguably less happy, what do
(16:07):
you think the bearer is like, why don't they take action?
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Yeah, and there's something we'll call readiness to change, and
we'll we talk about it a lot of times with
nutrition recommendations. And this really goes into play with weight
management and owners one recognizing that their pet has excess
body weight and not only recognizing it, but then also
being ready to make those changes. And when clients are
(16:32):
ready to make those changed, our pet owners are ready
to make those changes. It's really important for the veterinary
team to be prepared and engaged with those pet owners
and to provide specific recommendations for them that not just
include the main diet, but also treats and exercise recommendations.
One of the biggest things that I have found that
a lot of owners really feel guilty about not giving
(16:54):
their pet food or as much food. And what's interesting
about the Blend Veterinary diet surveys, they actually found seventy
five percent of those owners that had overweight dog. Even
though a lot of those owners recognize, they recognize that
it's a problem, but they actually feel really guilty about
when their pets seem hungry. And so from a clinical perspective,
(17:15):
one thing that I'll talk to pet owners about is
how to manage begging behaviors because this can be really
stressful for the owner and they perceive it as also
being really stressful for the pet. But we have to
keep in mind that begging behaviors are a behavior. And
so if you have a pet that comes to you
and looks really adorable and is begging for food, and
(17:36):
I have a lot of really cute patients and I'm
sort of a lot of people listening now they have
a lot of really cute dogs, but if you give
them a food item, you've positively reinforced that behavior. That's
actually been a light bulb moment for a lot of
my pet owners is that these animals aren't coming to
them because they're starving. This is actually a learned behavior
that's been positively reinforced in their animal, and so we
(17:59):
will offer talk about different solutions to be able to
manage that in the home. You know, I don't want
to take away all treats from dogs. I want to
try to manage that within a certain treat allowance. So
it may involve the same amount of treats, but maybe
smaller treats. So there's a lot of different strategies and
ways to be able to handle that. But I think
(18:20):
it's really important for owners to recognize that begging behaviors
do not mean the pet is starving. They need to
recognize that it is actually a learned behavior that has
been positively reinforced in a lot of these animals.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You know, I'm going to be very empathetic to dogging
cat owners out there because I remember getting in a
fight with our internist at the clinic I used to
work at because my cat has severe food allergies. And
he bluntly said, the Internet said pets don't need treats.
I was like, I know, they don't need treats, but
I want to up something, so I totally get it.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah, I give my cats treats. And you know, it's
funny my cats are they beg I'm very fortunate that
I have a dog that is not a beggar. But
part of that is because we have not reinforced that
in there. But I did not teach these cats how
to beg for food. They are just natural beggars.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You know, it's especially hard. I know we've been talking
more about dogs. By the way, I think you guys
should do the fourteen year study or the longevity study
in cats, because if we want to know the information
in cats, it is a lot harder in cats oftentimes,
because oftentimes cats will wake you up at five am
because they want to be fed. And I will personally say,
for me, I want to make sure my cat isn't overweight.
(19:35):
So my cat's about a five out a nine body
conditions score. And in full disclosure, I know this is controversial,
especially among internests and among nutritionists, but I actually do
feed my cat and one of my dogs with a
feeder robot, and I do it where they get an
eighth of a cup or my cat gets an eighth
of a cup starting as early as four am, so
(19:58):
I don't hear the feeder robot going off and my
cat doesn't beg So that for me has been really
instrumental in appeasing my cat while letting everybody rest.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
That is a strategy that I have had to use
as well for some of my clients with cats, because people,
it is important as a veterinarian that when I'm making
nutrition recommendations again, it's not just saying here, feed this diet.
Is that we're addressing not only the diet, but we
need to address the feeding management in the household too.
(20:30):
And so when I'm doing these nutrition assessments on these patients,
is I'm assessing your pet, I'm assessing what they're currently eating,
but I'm also going to ask questions about the environment.
And so that actually brings up a really good.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Point last thing that I wanted to talk about on
a side tangent when it comes to cats. I know
there's several different types of smart litter box monitoring systems
out there that can monitor your cat's weight when they
use a litter box. And both of my cats both
had chronic medical problems going on. One had chronic kidney disease,
(21:04):
one had cancer. And so I was one of those
crazy cat ladies, which I will fully disclose. I am
that way as a veterinarian. But I had it on
my Google calendar where I would weigh both my cats
once a month and track it because I wanted to
make sure that they weren't losing weight, they weren't gaining
too much weight. And again that's so much simpler now
because technology has gotten better versus like weigh your cat
(21:26):
with me and then weighing myself at the scale and
doing hard math. But now the technology is out there
where you could monitor your cat through these smart litterbox
monitoring systems. So again, don't forget about cats when it
comes to being overweight too.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
We're going to.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Continue with this really important topic and right back with
acakrime right after these messages. Molly, here's your dinner. Sayce,
that's not your food.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Don't let that happen. Do your precious cat. Elevate your
cat's eating experience with the cat tree tray. The cat
tree tray keeps your cat's food off the floor and
conveniently located on the cat tree. It's the perfect way
to eat. It's a beautiful wrought iron tray that easily
attaches to your cat tree and keeps dogs and other
(22:15):
gritters out of your cat's dish. A must from Multi
Pet Households. There's a six inch tray for large bowls
and a four inch tray for smaller balls. Erge just
your cat tree trade today, Go right now to cattreetray
dot com. That's cattreetray dot com. C A T t
R E E t r a y dot com.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Let's talk past, let's dun pet headline.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
Radio atlight radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Welcome back to er Vent on pet Liafe Radio. We've
been speaking with doctor Martha Klein, who's a board certified
veterinarian nutritionist, on the importance of keeping our pets dogs
are cats as healthy as possible and knowing that almost
sixty percent of dogs out there right now are diagnosed
with obesity, we really want to make our pets as
healthy and as happy as possible. Now, Doctor Klein, there's
(23:25):
no getting around the fact that getting a dog to
lose weight requires making changes, and that can feel really
overwhelming for a dog owner. As a veterinarian who studied
both the consequences and the solutions for pet obesity, what
kind of advice can you offer pet owners out there?
Speaker 5 (23:42):
So a lot of pet owners, the ones that make
it into my exam room, a lot of them have
tried a lot of things on their own. So they've
tried to cut back their current diet, They've tried to
get their pet to exercise more, they tried to cut
back treats. And so I know a lot of owners,
especially once they start to seek veterinarian advice, they've actually
tried a lot of things and maybe it hasn't gone
(24:04):
so well for them. So the first thing I would
say to a pet owner is one talk to your
veterinarian and ask for their help. There are a lot
of great resources and tools that veterinarians have to be
able to put together really successful weight management programs for animals.
The main key here is the commitment to follow up.
(24:24):
And so that's when we go back when I was
talking about that readiness to change, and so if you're
ready to make some changes in your pets, lifestyle and
make some changes in the home, because again it's not
about changing the diet. You also have to look at
how you manage the environment as well. But asking for
your veterinarian for help is really going to be the
(24:45):
first place that I would recommend starting. And we have
a lot of really helpful tools to help us in
terms of weight management for our dogs specifically, and cats too.
We don't want to forget about cats. But the main thing,
one of the things that I'll primarily talk to pet
owners about are looking at therapeutic weight management diets, and
what I'm really want to emphasize to pet owners is
(25:08):
that there is a really big difference between a diet
that is being sold over the counter versus a diet
that is being sold for a veterinarian. So veterinarians are
going to use a variety of therapeutic diets often to
help manage a disease process. And so when we look
at therapeutic weight management diets, some of the really important
(25:29):
characters because of these diets. So one of the most
important things I'll talk to pet owners about is that
we need a diet that has a high nutrient to
calorie ratio and what that means is that I can
feed less calories, but I'm not cutting back nutrients. And
so if you are going to feed an animal less calories,
you don't want them to be protein restricted. You don't
(25:52):
want them to be restricted in certain vitamins and minerals.
A lot of over the counter diets are not formulated
to have that type of calorie restriction, and so when
you start cutting those diets back, you can actually protein
restrict your pet. You can vitamin and mineral restrict that pet,
and that just really makes weight loss inefficient. Especially when
(26:14):
we look at protein, we really want to make sure
that we're preserving and animals lean body mass, and so
lean body mass is anything that's not fat mass and
is not bone, and that's going to be the most
metabolically active tissue. So that's going to be where most
of our energy requirements are going to come from. So
if we can preserve that, that's going to help preserve
(26:34):
that pets metabolism. That's really important. So that high nutrient
to calorie ratio, and then we would also say that
high protein to calorie ratio. The other thing that we're
going to look at is providing satiety or that flat
feeling of fullness. So we don't want our pets to
feel hungry. We want them to feel satisfied. We want
(26:56):
them to like the food that they're eating. The nutrients
that provide the most satiety are typically going to be
protein in fiber, and so a lot of the therapeutic
weight management diets they may be supplemented with additional fiber,
varying degrees of fiber, varying types of fiber. Typically all
of them are going to be a high protein, and
(27:16):
so those are going to be things that are going
to again help that animal feel full. And also, again,
why we're restricting calories, We're not restricting nutrients. And so
I'll have owners and be like, why can't I just
use my diet over the counter. The another reason I
don't want them to do that is because typically the
calorie density is a lot higher, and so that means
(27:36):
the animal is not going to be eating a large
volume of food, which can affect satiety. A lot of
therapeutic weight loss diets are going to be less calorie dense,
typically because they have added fiber to them. Sometimes boll
lower the fat content because that is going to be
more calorie dentse than protein and carbohydrate, and so again
those things from a dog standpoint are really going to
(27:58):
help on the side of things. Often we'll employ low
carbohydrate diets cats actually looking at high moisture diets that
can provide the tidy as well. So there's different strategies
for different animals, and if there's one strategy that maybe
isn't working well for an animal, sometimes maybe I would
consider something different. We also want to make sure again
(28:20):
that we're looking at follow up and so when I
have patients that come to see me is I will
try to book that recheck appointment before they ever walk
out the door. So I'm making sure there's some type
of accountability, so there's some type of an appointment on
the book. And so there are certain veterinary practices that'll
have this kind of program already set up, and so
(28:41):
as a pet owner, I would encourage you to make
that appointment before you leave that follow up appointment. Justine,
you mentioned smart litter box monitoring, So I know getting
cats to the veterinarian is really hard, and so we
have smart litter box monitors like the Petivity Monitor. Now
where the cats go in the litter box will actually
track their weight for them, and so it's it's something
(29:03):
that they don't have to get lugged to the vet
every month, which is really difficult for some pet owners.
And so there are a lot of really nice strategies
on how to do this. The selecting the right diet
is really important. I also give treat guidelines, so we
don't want treats, the calories from treats and choose and
food for medication. Administration rewards any of those things to
(29:25):
make up more than ten percent of the pet's total
calorie intake, so that's really important as well. And then
from an exercise standpoint, a lot of owners they appreciate
and they want exercise recommendations as well for their pets.
For dogs, it's going to be variable because you have
to look at the ability of the dog. If this
is one severely affected with osteoarthritis or a dog that
(29:47):
has back problems, we kind of have to tailor these recommendations.
But sometimes starting is just as simple as thirty minutes
three times a week, or increasing whatever activity we're doing
by twenty min and it's a day, and so those
are some simple things that we can do. I do
not expect anybody to start taking their dog out for
a five k run, So nobody's training for a race
(30:09):
is starting out running the full race on day one.
But I do want to emphasize that the diet is
going to be the thing that is going to give
the most results, and so we want to make sure
that we are prioritizing that diet.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Wonderful, Thank you so much. You know, it's so important
that you brought that up. My mom's cat was actually
on purina OM, which stands for overweight management, and sometimes
we just need that help with that prescription diet. It
was also really important because that cat was middle aged,
and we know in both human and veterinary medicine, as
(30:45):
people age and as pets age, they get what they
call sarcopini or muscle wasting, which is one of the
reasons why why I'm in my fifties and like working
out all the time because I don't want to lose
that muscle. So again, really really important that you consult
with your veterinarian or a veterinary newt time preshionist if
you're trying to help your pet lose weight, because we
want to make sure that we're doing it appropriately. They're
(31:06):
on the right diet. We give you as many hints
as possible to make you to basically set you up
for success, right because we have the evidence. We know
almost sixty percent of our pets are obese, and we
know what is linked to a shortened lifespan and to
medical problems and osteoarthritis and decreased quality of life. And
while I'm guilty of loving my pets too much by
(31:27):
feeding them extra treats, again, there's so many things we
can do to make them live longer, Doctor Klein, fantastic information.
Any last tips that you want to leave with us?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Yeah, So I just want to thank the pet owners
who've listened to this. And I think a really fun
thing to do is, you know, go home and look
at your pet and you can do your own body
condition score on your pets. So there's some really nice
resources online on the LASAVA, the World's Model Veterinary Association website,
on the period of Institute website looking at body condition scoring,
(31:59):
and then again just ask your veterinarian for help. There's veterinarians. Again,
they are trained, they have the skills and they have
the tools to be able to make these recommendations for
weight management for your pets.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thank you so much, you know it truly is a
simple thing that we can do at home to make
our pets live a happier and healthier life. Doctor Clin,
thank you so much, love what you do and really
appreciate such fantastic information.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
That brings us to the end of today's show. Find
me a doctor Justinelee dot com on Facebook or Instagram
at doctor Justine Lee, or email me your questions at
doctor Justine at petlife radio dot com. With that, we're
out of time and we love to bank our guests,
Doctor Martha Klein and Mark Winter, our producer, for.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Making this show possible.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
See you at the next episode.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlifradio
dot com.
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to er Veta pet Life Radio. I'm your host,
actor Justine Lee, and I'm a board certified Emergency Critical
care vetory specialist and toxicologist. Thanks for joining us today.
We're going to be talking about something that all you
dog owners, especially all of you dog owners of Lavador
Retrievers and Golden Retrievers, must tune in on, and that's
a growing problem of obesity. It's a really important topic,
(00:50):
so please don't tune away. This is a really important
one that could actually add and average a one point
four years onto your dog and maybe cats life and
I'm really excited to be speaking with board certified veterinary
nutritionists doctor Martha Kaine. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Take a bite out of your competition, advertise your business
with an ad in pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(01:31):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
and other streaming apps. For more information on how you
can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network,
visit Petlife Radio dot com slash advertised today.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Welcome back to ervet on pet Life Radio. Really excited
to be talking with doctor Martha Klein. Martha, thank you
so much for joining us today. Love what you do
and can't wait to do today's radio show.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for
having me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
All Right, just so our pet owning population knows a
little bit about you, do you mind just telling us
about where you trained, where you did your veterinary school,
where you did your residency program and nutrition and what
the difference is between a regular veterinarian and one whose
board certified in veterinary nutrition.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Well, thank you so much, Justine. So I went to
the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine and graduated
with my veterinary degree. After that, I went on and
did an internship and then I returned to the University
of Tennessee to do my small animal clinical nutrition residency
and at the end of that, I became a diplomat.
I'm a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Wonderful, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know, it's so so important because I know there's
always questions about what to feed your pet, how much
to feed, and so we're going to talk about some
of that. But it should be no surprise to pet
owners that, unfortunately, obesp is a major problem in our
four legged friends. And the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention
recently released the results of their latest study on obesity prevalence,
(03:31):
and it revealed that fifty nine percent, that's almost three
out of five dogs are overweight or obese. At the
same time, doctor Klin, you have some information that would
tell us many dog owners simply don't realize that their
pets are overweight. Do you mind just giving me some
information on this.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, So the Proplane Veterinary Diets Weight Survey, those results
actually found that one in five owners acknowledged that they
had an overweight dog, which isn't contrast to what we
can see with the Association of Pet OBCD Prevention. And
I actually think that really reflects a lot of what
I see in clinical practice because there's a lot of
(04:09):
pet owners, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well,
is that they come into the clinic and they have
a pet owner that we would recognize is having excess
body weight, but the pet owner maybe doesn't actually recognize
that that is the case. Interestingly, there was a study
that was published last year in twenty twenty two looking
at veterinarian owner perception about pet weight and pet owners
(04:32):
actually considered weight to be a really valuable health indicator.
But what was really interesting is that they put more
value on underweight versus overweight. And so it does present
a challenge for me as a veterinarian in the exam
room when I'm practicing and seeing my nutrition cases because
there is often a disconnect i think, between pet owners
(04:54):
and having that recognition. Now the normal if we're talking
about fifty nine percent of dogs, that's the majority of dogs,
so you know what is normal now for them, So
normal and ideal weight are not the same.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Thank you so much for that information. You know, I
know that even decades ago, we started something called a
body condition score or a BCS, and Purina was actually
instrumental in creating the Purian of Body Condition Score guide,
where we all learned on a system of one through nine.
How to quote grade a dog or cat and don't worry,
(05:32):
doesn't mean you failed, But it's just basically letting us
have a numeric visualization of scoring your pets. So nine
would be really really obese, one would be emaciated and
really thin, and you really want your pet to be
I'm going to say a four to five, four and
a half.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And I always say to Labrador retriever owners if you
own a labidor and someone comes up to you and says, oh,
your lab is so skinny, that means your lab is perfect. Right,
is like a four body condition score? So do you
mind just giving us some clues besides physically feeling the ribs?
What can a dog owner do to tell if their
pet is overweight? How do we tell?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Yeah? So, one thing for pet owners to recognize about
the body condition scoring system is that this is a
validated scale that correlates with body fat percentage. So when
you're a veterinarian is doing a body condition score, and
maybe in the exam room of some of the hospitals
that you've been in, you've even seen these charts hanging
(06:33):
on the walls. But the Purina scales that were developed.
They correlate with body fat percentage, and the nine point
scale has been endorsed by the World's Monimal Veterinary Association
and the American Animal Hospital Association for universal adoption. So
this is a pretty universal scale that a lot of
veterinarians are going to adopt into practice. And so when
(06:55):
I am doing a body condition score system, sometimes people
will call it like a healthy hug. But I also
sometimes when I'm demonstrating to pet owners is I'll even
use like the palm of my hand, so I can't
feel the bones when I fill across the palm of
my hand, sky feeling across the ribs. You don't want
to do that. But if you flip your hand over
(07:17):
and you hold your hand flat and you feel along
the back of your hand, you can feel those bones.
And that's really how we want the ribs to feel.
So you're gonna feel along the ribs and you should
be able to feel them, not necessarily see them. Sometimes
in really lean dogs and ones that have short hair,
sometimes not all of the ribs, but maybe the ones
in the back, and then looking at them from the top,
(07:38):
you want to make sure that they have a waist
from the side that they have a tuck right after
those last ribs. You can also feel along their back
and feel for those hit bones. You don't want them
to protrude, but you want to be able to feel them.
Sometimes we can't always feel them. I'll fill along the
tail base and try to feel if there's a little
dimple above the tail. There shouldn't be one. But those
(08:03):
are some of the ways that we're going to assess
for the body condition scoring system. So again, if you're
in the exam room and you see those charts on
the bulls, there'll be some descriptors written beside that. But
that's not a made up scale. It is actually something
that is validated to correlate with a pet's body fat percentage,
and it's used in a lot of scientific research.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Wonderful, thank you for that information. You know. I will
sadly say that when I work with new veterinary graduates
or veterinary students, they often are so used to seeing
overweight and obese animals. When I'm looking through the medical records,
they'll say, oh, this this dog or cat is a
five out of nine or six out of nine. I'm like, no,
it's actually a seven to eight out of nine. It's
(08:44):
really really overweight, it's really obese. We're just so used
to it. And you know, I'm going to ask you
a little bit about a long term, fourteen year purina
study that was done a little bit later. But again,
really really important that you are feeling the sides of
your pet, your dog or cat every single day. Right,
It's not just a matter of feeding the bowl, it's
(09:04):
feeding the pet. I know that when I run with
my dog more in the spring and summer, that I
need to feed my dog more because I can literally
feel his ribs through his coat because he gets a
lot more exercise. And it's a total normal Minnesota thing
where like pets and humans gain at least five pounds
during the winter because we have six months of winter,
So I actually feed less in the winter for both
(09:27):
of my dogs. So again, it's not a matter of
just scooping out the same amount every day. It's a
matter of actually, you know, petting your pet and feeling
and seeing if they have that tuck in their waist,
whether or not they have that fat pad over their
tail area. So important. One of my favorite words of
advice that I always give to dog owners, especially if
they have a purebread, is to go to the AKC website.
(09:48):
And the main reason why is because if you go
to the website, you will see what the classic Golden
retriever or the classic Doberman pincher or whatever breed you
may have. They will actually list what the classic weight is.
And a lot of people, like the average Labrador retriever
that I see come in, they're usually eighty eight to
ninety pounds in the er, and if you look on
(10:11):
the website, it's actually seventy five pounds. Right, So that's
a really good general guideline of what your ideal breeds
weight should be. So great resource to be able to
look at that. So again, really important information when it
comes to your own health, your pet's health, because we
want them to live longer. All right, now, I know
that I previously mentioned it, but do you mind just
(10:32):
giving me a short summary of what that Purina fourteen
year study looked at in dogs.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Yeah, so sometimes we'll call it the Purina Lifespan Study,
but this was a really pivotal paper that was published
just for veterinary nutrition in general. It is a study
that looked at forty eight labrador retrievers that were split
into two different groups and they were followed over their
entire life. So this study was about fourteen years long.
(10:58):
And what they did the two different groups, so one
group was the control group of dogs and then the
other group they were fed twenty five percent less than
their matched pair over the course of their entire lifetime,
and so they were called the feed restricted group. And
when Purina looked at the body condition's score, so the
(11:21):
mean body condition score between the ages of six to
twelve years of age, the dogs that were in the
feed restricted groups that the twenty five percent less they
were about four point six, so that would be ideal,
so four out of nine would be considered ideal. And
then the dogs that were in the control group were
about six point seven, so between six and seven, so
(11:42):
that would be what we would classify as overweight. So
one of the things that I always really emphasize is
that this is not an obesity study. This is a
overweight dog study. So now the results that they found,
I think are really important because as a ordinary nutritionist
in the exam room, when I'm talking to owners and
(12:03):
I have clients and they're like, what is the one
thing that I can do to help my dog live
as long as possible and have the best quality of life.
And one of the things that I'll tell them is
the best thing you can do, and we actually have
prospective evidence to show is by keeping them lean. And
again it's not just in the overweight category or compared
(12:24):
to OBEs. This is looking at dogs in the overweight
category compared to lean dogs. So the dogs that were
in the feed restricted group their median life span, so
the time when half of the dogs had passed on
and halfy we were still alive was thirteen years compared
to eleven point two years in the control fed group,
(12:45):
So it's almost two years of extra life that these
labradors got. Some of the other really important findings is
that the dogs when we looked at osteoarthritis, so these
were labradors, so osteoarthritis is going to be one of
the most common things we're going to to see in
these dogs, but the prevalence in the severity of osterearthritis
was significantly decreased. So the time that these dogs needed
(13:07):
treatment was thirteen point three years versus ten point three years,
so almost a delay of three years of needing treatment
for that and then just chronic diseases in general. So
if we just group every single chronic disease in a category,
it was twelve years versus nine point nine years, so
almost two additional years. So it's not only the lifespan benefit,
(13:29):
but it's also treatment for chronic disease, treatment for ostereoarthritis,
and a lot of those things correlate with quality of
life in these animals. And so that's one of the
things I really talk to owners about because they'll come
to me and they'll be like, what is there a
supplement I can give? Is there like a very specific
diet that I can feed? What is the like one
best diet for all animals? And we newsflash, there's lots
(13:52):
of really good diets out there, and not one animal
and needs the same thing as the other animal. But
the one thing that I would say translates as the
board is trying to keep your dog lean.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Thank you so much, doctor Klein. You know you just
answered my next question about like overweight and obese body
conditions putting up pet's physical health at risk. And again
we know based off that study that that excess weight
can really have a negative effect not only in the
health in terms of astroarthritis and quality of life. But
it could potentially have a negative effect on the relationship
(14:25):
between dogs and their owners. What can you tell us
about that.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Yeah, so when we look back at the Problem Veterinary
Diet survey, ninety two percent of the owners that had
dogs with excess body weight they were sad that their
dogs can't participate in their different activities. And so a
lot of these owners did report, you know, their pets
having less energy, they would tire more easily after various activities,
(14:51):
they have trouble climbing the stairs, which is a common
complaint that I've heard in clinical practice, or they're just
less engaged and less playful, and so that's something too
that a lot of these interactions really play into the
human animal bond and that a lot of pet owners
and I've heard this many times. I've done a lot
(15:12):
of successful weight management programs with pet owners, and it
does take a lot of work. It's not as simple
as just I'm going to give you recommendations on day
one and see you later. I hope it goes well.
So there's a lot of maintenance that goes along with
working with your veterinarian and working with the veterinary team
with helping your pet achieve a more idle weight. But
I think one of the things that I've gotten back
(15:34):
more than anything from feedback is just how much more
engaged the pet is. I pet owners will often talk
about their dogs acting like a puppies again and being
able to just engage more with the family and participate
more with the family.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So so important again, really important that pet owners recognize
when their pets are overweight, just because we know the
impact again not only because of the health impacts, but
because of that effect on the human animal bond. Now,
if owners know that being overweight makes their dogs more
sedentary and less playful or arguably less happy, what do
(16:07):
you think the bearer is like, why don't they take action?
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Yeah, and there's something we'll call readiness to change, and
we'll we talk about it a lot of times with
nutrition recommendations. And this really goes into play with weight
management and owners one recognizing that their pet has excess
body weight and not only recognizing it, but then also
being ready to make those changes. And when clients are
(16:32):
ready to make those changed, our pet owners are ready
to make those changes. It's really important for the veterinary
team to be prepared and engaged with those pet owners
and to provide specific recommendations for them that not just
include the main diet, but also treats and exercise recommendations.
One of the biggest things that I have found that
a lot of owners really feel guilty about not giving
(16:54):
their pet food or as much food. And what's interesting
about the Blend Veterinary diet surveys, they actually found seventy
five percent of those owners that had overweight dog. Even
though a lot of those owners recognize, they recognize that
it's a problem, but they actually feel really guilty about
when their pets seem hungry. And so from a clinical perspective,
(17:15):
one thing that I'll talk to pet owners about is
how to manage begging behaviors because this can be really
stressful for the owner and they perceive it as also
being really stressful for the pet. But we have to
keep in mind that begging behaviors are a behavior. And
so if you have a pet that comes to you
and looks really adorable and is begging for food, and
(17:36):
I have a lot of really cute patients and I'm
sort of a lot of people listening now they have
a lot of really cute dogs, but if you give
them a food item, you've positively reinforced that behavior. That's
actually been a light bulb moment for a lot of
my pet owners is that these animals aren't coming to
them because they're starving. This is actually a learned behavior
that's been positively reinforced in their animal, and so we
(17:59):
will offer talk about different solutions to be able to
manage that in the home. You know, I don't want
to take away all treats from dogs. I want to
try to manage that within a certain treat allowance. So
it may involve the same amount of treats, but maybe
smaller treats. So there's a lot of different strategies and
ways to be able to handle that. But I think
(18:20):
it's really important for owners to recognize that begging behaviors
do not mean the pet is starving. They need to
recognize that it is actually a learned behavior that has
been positively reinforced in a lot of these animals.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You know, I'm going to be very empathetic to dogging
cat owners out there because I remember getting in a
fight with our internist at the clinic I used to
work at because my cat has severe food allergies. And
he bluntly said, the Internet said pets don't need treats.
I was like, I know, they don't need treats, but
I want to up something, so I totally get it.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah, I give my cats treats. And you know, it's
funny my cats are they beg I'm very fortunate that
I have a dog that is not a beggar. But
part of that is because we have not reinforced that
in there. But I did not teach these cats how
to beg for food. They are just natural beggars.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You know, it's especially hard. I know we've been talking
more about dogs. By the way, I think you guys
should do the fourteen year study or the longevity study
in cats, because if we want to know the information
in cats, it is a lot harder in cats oftentimes,
because oftentimes cats will wake you up at five am
because they want to be fed. And I will personally say,
for me, I want to make sure my cat isn't overweight.
(19:35):
So my cat's about a five out a nine body
conditions score. And in full disclosure, I know this is controversial,
especially among internests and among nutritionists, but I actually do
feed my cat and one of my dogs with a
feeder robot, and I do it where they get an
eighth of a cup or my cat gets an eighth
of a cup starting as early as four am, so
(19:58):
I don't hear the feeder robot going off and my
cat doesn't beg So that for me has been really
instrumental in appeasing my cat while letting everybody rest.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
That is a strategy that I have had to use
as well for some of my clients with cats, because people,
it is important as a veterinarian that when I'm making
nutrition recommendations again, it's not just saying here, feed this diet.
Is that we're addressing not only the diet, but we
need to address the feeding management in the household too.
(20:30):
And so when I'm doing these nutrition assessments on these patients,
is I'm assessing your pet, I'm assessing what they're currently eating,
but I'm also going to ask questions about the environment.
And so that actually brings up a really good.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Point last thing that I wanted to talk about on
a side tangent when it comes to cats. I know
there's several different types of smart litter box monitoring systems
out there that can monitor your cat's weight when they
use a litter box. And both of my cats both
had chronic medical problems going on. One had chronic kidney disease,
(21:04):
one had cancer. And so I was one of those
crazy cat ladies, which I will fully disclose. I am
that way as a veterinarian. But I had it on
my Google calendar where I would weigh both my cats
once a month and track it because I wanted to
make sure that they weren't losing weight, they weren't gaining
too much weight. And again that's so much simpler now
because technology has gotten better versus like weigh your cat
(21:26):
with me and then weighing myself at the scale and
doing hard math. But now the technology is out there
where you could monitor your cat through these smart litterbox
monitoring systems. So again, don't forget about cats when it
comes to being overweight too.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
We're going to.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Continue with this really important topic and right back with
acakrime right after these messages. Molly, here's your dinner. Sayce,
that's not your food.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Don't let that happen. Do your precious cat. Elevate your
cat's eating experience with the cat tree tray. The cat
tree tray keeps your cat's food off the floor and
conveniently located on the cat tree. It's the perfect way
to eat. It's a beautiful wrought iron tray that easily
attaches to your cat tree and keeps dogs and other
(22:15):
gritters out of your cat's dish. A must from Multi
Pet Households. There's a six inch tray for large bowls
and a four inch tray for smaller balls. Erge just
your cat tree trade today, Go right now to cattreetray
dot com. That's cattreetray dot com. C A T t
R E E t r a y dot com.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Let's talk past, let's dun pet headline.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
Radio atlight radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Welcome back to er Vent on pet Liafe Radio. We've
been speaking with doctor Martha Klein, who's a board certified
veterinarian nutritionist, on the importance of keeping our pets dogs
are cats as healthy as possible and knowing that almost
sixty percent of dogs out there right now are diagnosed
with obesity, we really want to make our pets as
healthy and as happy as possible. Now, Doctor Klein, there's
(23:25):
no getting around the fact that getting a dog to
lose weight requires making changes, and that can feel really
overwhelming for a dog owner. As a veterinarian who studied
both the consequences and the solutions for pet obesity, what
kind of advice can you offer pet owners out there?
Speaker 5 (23:42):
So a lot of pet owners, the ones that make
it into my exam room, a lot of them have
tried a lot of things on their own. So they've
tried to cut back their current diet, They've tried to
get their pet to exercise more, they tried to cut
back treats. And so I know a lot of owners,
especially once they start to seek veterinarian advice, they've actually
tried a lot of things and maybe it hasn't gone
(24:04):
so well for them. So the first thing I would
say to a pet owner is one talk to your
veterinarian and ask for their help. There are a lot
of great resources and tools that veterinarians have to be
able to put together really successful weight management programs for animals.
The main key here is the commitment to follow up.
(24:24):
And so that's when we go back when I was
talking about that readiness to change, and so if you're
ready to make some changes in your pets, lifestyle and
make some changes in the home, because again it's not
about changing the diet. You also have to look at
how you manage the environment as well. But asking for
your veterinarian for help is really going to be the
(24:45):
first place that I would recommend starting. And we have
a lot of really helpful tools to help us in
terms of weight management for our dogs specifically, and cats too.
We don't want to forget about cats. But the main thing,
one of the things that I'll primarily talk to pet
owners about are looking at therapeutic weight management diets, and
what I'm really want to emphasize to pet owners is
(25:08):
that there is a really big difference between a diet
that is being sold over the counter versus a diet
that is being sold for a veterinarian. So veterinarians are
going to use a variety of therapeutic diets often to
help manage a disease process. And so when we look
at therapeutic weight management diets, some of the really important
(25:29):
characters because of these diets. So one of the most
important things I'll talk to pet owners about is that
we need a diet that has a high nutrient to
calorie ratio and what that means is that I can
feed less calories, but I'm not cutting back nutrients. And
so if you are going to feed an animal less calories,
you don't want them to be protein restricted. You don't
(25:52):
want them to be restricted in certain vitamins and minerals.
A lot of over the counter diets are not formulated
to have that type of calorie restriction, and so when
you start cutting those diets back, you can actually protein
restrict your pet. You can vitamin and mineral restrict that pet,
and that just really makes weight loss inefficient. Especially when
(26:14):
we look at protein, we really want to make sure
that we're preserving and animals lean body mass, and so
lean body mass is anything that's not fat mass and
is not bone, and that's going to be the most
metabolically active tissue. So that's going to be where most
of our energy requirements are going to come from. So
if we can preserve that, that's going to help preserve
(26:34):
that pets metabolism. That's really important. So that high nutrient
to calorie ratio, and then we would also say that
high protein to calorie ratio. The other thing that we're
going to look at is providing satiety or that flat
feeling of fullness. So we don't want our pets to
feel hungry. We want them to feel satisfied. We want
(26:56):
them to like the food that they're eating. The nutrients
that provide the most satiety are typically going to be
protein in fiber, and so a lot of the therapeutic
weight management diets they may be supplemented with additional fiber,
varying degrees of fiber, varying types of fiber. Typically all
of them are going to be a high protein, and
(27:16):
so those are going to be things that are going
to again help that animal feel full. And also, again,
why we're restricting calories, We're not restricting nutrients. And so
I'll have owners and be like, why can't I just
use my diet over the counter. The another reason I
don't want them to do that is because typically the
calorie density is a lot higher, and so that means
(27:36):
the animal is not going to be eating a large
volume of food, which can affect satiety. A lot of
therapeutic weight loss diets are going to be less calorie dense,
typically because they have added fiber to them. Sometimes boll
lower the fat content because that is going to be
more calorie dentse than protein and carbohydrate, and so again
those things from a dog standpoint are really going to
(27:58):
help on the side of things. Often we'll employ low
carbohydrate diets cats actually looking at high moisture diets that
can provide the tidy as well. So there's different strategies
for different animals, and if there's one strategy that maybe
isn't working well for an animal, sometimes maybe I would
consider something different. We also want to make sure again
(28:20):
that we're looking at follow up and so when I
have patients that come to see me is I will
try to book that recheck appointment before they ever walk
out the door. So I'm making sure there's some type
of accountability, so there's some type of an appointment on
the book. And so there are certain veterinary practices that'll
have this kind of program already set up, and so
(28:41):
as a pet owner, I would encourage you to make
that appointment before you leave that follow up appointment. Justine,
you mentioned smart litter box monitoring, So I know getting
cats to the veterinarian is really hard, and so we
have smart litter box monitors like the Petivity Monitor. Now
where the cats go in the litter box will actually
track their weight for them, and so it's it's something
(29:03):
that they don't have to get lugged to the vet
every month, which is really difficult for some pet owners.
And so there are a lot of really nice strategies
on how to do this. The selecting the right diet
is really important. I also give treat guidelines, so we
don't want treats, the calories from treats and choose and
food for medication. Administration rewards any of those things to
(29:25):
make up more than ten percent of the pet's total
calorie intake, so that's really important as well. And then
from an exercise standpoint, a lot of owners they appreciate
and they want exercise recommendations as well for their pets.
For dogs, it's going to be variable because you have
to look at the ability of the dog. If this
is one severely affected with osteoarthritis or a dog that
(29:47):
has back problems, we kind of have to tailor these recommendations.
But sometimes starting is just as simple as thirty minutes
three times a week, or increasing whatever activity we're doing
by twenty min and it's a day, and so those
are some simple things that we can do. I do
not expect anybody to start taking their dog out for
a five k run, So nobody's training for a race
(30:09):
is starting out running the full race on day one.
But I do want to emphasize that the diet is
going to be the thing that is going to give
the most results, and so we want to make sure
that we are prioritizing that diet.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Wonderful, Thank you so much. You know, it's so important
that you brought that up. My mom's cat was actually
on purina OM, which stands for overweight management, and sometimes
we just need that help with that prescription diet. It
was also really important because that cat was middle aged,
and we know in both human and veterinary medicine, as
(30:45):
people age and as pets age, they get what they
call sarcopini or muscle wasting, which is one of the
reasons why why I'm in my fifties and like working
out all the time because I don't want to lose
that muscle. So again, really really important that you consult
with your veterinarian or a veterinary newt time preshionist if
you're trying to help your pet lose weight, because we
want to make sure that we're doing it appropriately. They're
(31:06):
on the right diet. We give you as many hints
as possible to make you to basically set you up
for success, right because we have the evidence. We know
almost sixty percent of our pets are obese, and we
know what is linked to a shortened lifespan and to
medical problems and osteoarthritis and decreased quality of life. And
while I'm guilty of loving my pets too much by
(31:27):
feeding them extra treats, again, there's so many things we
can do to make them live longer, Doctor Klein, fantastic information.
Any last tips that you want to leave with us?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Yeah, So I just want to thank the pet owners
who've listened to this. And I think a really fun
thing to do is, you know, go home and look
at your pet and you can do your own body
condition score on your pets. So there's some really nice
resources online on the LASAVA, the World's Model Veterinary Association website,
on the period of Institute website looking at body condition scoring,
(31:59):
and then again just ask your veterinarian for help. There's veterinarians. Again,
they are trained, they have the skills and they have
the tools to be able to make these recommendations for
weight management for your pets.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Thank you so much, you know it truly is a
simple thing that we can do at home to make
our pets live a happier and healthier life. Doctor Clin,
thank you so much, love what you do and really
appreciate such fantastic information.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
That brings us to the end of today's show. Find
me a doctor Justinelee dot com on Facebook or Instagram
at doctor Justine Lee, or email me your questions at
doctor Justine at petlife radio dot com. With that, we're
out of time and we love to bank our guests,
Doctor Martha Klein and Mark Winter, our producer, for.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Making this show possible.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
See you at the next episode.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlifradio
dot com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!