Give your dog An extra treat or tasty leftover food is tempting, and almost everyone has done it from time to time. Who can resist their puppy’s big eyes or the pure joy that comes to them when they eat leftover chicken?

While it’s not inherently bad to give your dog extra food, it can have harmful consequences. Although chubby dogs are often considered “cute,” they are anything but cute when it comes to their health. The data shows that approximately 59% of dogs are overweight or obese.

“Most owners don’t realize their dog is overweight. Changes occur slowly and weight gain is not immediately apparent. Michael Pierreassociate clinical professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told HuffPost via email.

If your dog is overweight, your veterinarian should tell you or you can use online charts to measure your dog yourself. All three veterinarians who spoke to HuffPost recommend the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) Body Condition Score chart, a numbered table (from one to nine) that allows you (or your veterinarian) to estimate the size of your dog based on its “ribs, height, top view and abdominal fold”, has Stone said.

“Five is perfect, and four is probably even better, because you’re nice and thin,” added Joe Wakshlagsection chief of nutrition at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University in New York. You can view this chart online or ask your veterinarian for your puppy’s score at their next appointment.

It’s not always enough to know that your pet is overweight, you have to believe the data and do something.

“One of the biggest problems we see is that dog owners bring their pets to their vet, and the vet says things like, ‘Oh, your dog is overweight,’ or ‘Oh, he might be losing weight.’ a little weight.” they’re obese,” and the pet owner looks at their dog and says, “No, they’re not. They are perfect. They look absolutely fine,” said Katie Krebsassistant professor of primary clinical care at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Ignoring your pet’s weight only harms their health and longevity. Here’s how their health is affected and what you can do to help them lose weight:

“Having excess fat in a dog basically equates to creating a low level of inflammatory disease pretty much all of the time,” Krebs said.

“The biggest risk of obesity, or perhaps the most concerning for pet owners, is that having an overweight or obese pet actually shortens its lifespan,” Krebs added.

A study in Labradors found that dogs fed an appropriate amount of calories and maintained a healthy weight lived about two years longer than overweight dogs.

“Carrying around that excess weight … can lead to arthritis and joint pain,” Krebs said.

Arthritis and moving more slowly are already common in older dogs, but having extra weight to carry can lead to the development of arthritis earlier in life as well as more pain and mobility issues. serious, she added.

Overweight pets are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, according to Wakshlag.

“Urinary tract problems, dermatological problems, kidney problems, some people talk about cancer, you name the chronic disease, it seems to be associated with obesity,” Wakshlag said.

Obesity in dogs is also associated with respiratory problems and metabolic disorders, Stone noted. “Thus, for dogs, as for humans, the data supports the classification of obesity as a disease.

The amount of food your puppy needs to eat daily depends on a variety of factors, including breed, age and activity level. Feeding them more than they need could be the reason they are gaining weight, and it’s not always easy to determine how much food they need.

“If you look on the side of a typical dog food bag, it says things like ‘between 2 and 5 cups for a 70 pound dog’ – that’s a huge difference, right? ? Where do you choose between these 2 and 5 cups? » said Wakshlag.

Pet food companies must provide guidelines for every dog, whether it’s a hound that runs every day or a couch dog, he said.

“That’s why it’s good to talk to the vet and say, ‘Hey, what should he really be eating based on what you’re looking at?'” Wakshlag said.

Your veterinarian should be able to tell you how much food your dog needs daily to maintain a healthy weight.

If your dog eats the recommended amount of food but continues to gain weight, you will need to reduce his food intake, Wakshlag said. Your veterinarian should be able to help you determine how much food to remove from his diet.

That might mean giving them three cups of food a day instead of four, or two cans instead of 2 1/2, Wakshlag noted.

“If they’re at the point where they’re becoming obese, or if we’ve tried to cut back on their diet and it’s just not working, then we have things like veterinary weight loss diets that can be very helpful in getting the weight off. these animals weight,” Krebs explained.

Krebs said many pet owners worry that their dog will go hungry if they’re on a diet, but Krebs said the nice thing about veterinary weight loss diets is that the food is formulated so As long as you feed the dog roughly the same amount of food, it’s just less caloric.

“So they won’t be nutrient deficient, they’ll still eat the same volume of food, but they won’t get as many calories because kibble generally has fewer calories,” Krebs said.

“A weight-loss diet can be really, really helpful, especially in very obese and overweight animals,” she noted.

Giving your dog a treat is a common way to show your pup your love, but veterinarians say it can be problematic when you show them this kind of love too often.

“A spoonful of peanut butter has a lot more calories and a lot more importance to a dog than it does to a human,” Krebs said. “And so even an extra treat or a few extra table scraps adds a lot of calories to a dog’s diet.”

This harms your pet in the long run, without showing it love, she added.

“We say treats can make up about 10% of a dog’s daily calorie intake, so it’s not that they can’t eat treats, it’s just when we get to an excessive amount of treats that we’re starting to think maybe we should cut back on a little bit,” Krebs said.

Fruits and vegetables are a great alternative to treats for puppies (just make sure the produce you give them is safe for dogs).

“I just tell people, get a little carrot, get a green bean. They are low in calories – add some fiber to your diet,” Wakshlag explained. “Those are the things we should really be looking for rather than looking for that cool thing that’s on the shelf that looks like a meat stick or something.”

If your dog doesn’t want to eat produce, there are also low-calorie treats available at pet stores and online, according to Krebs, who noted that mini milk bones are also quite low in calories.

Dogs need exercise to stay healthy, active and engaged. Just like the amount of food they need daily, their movement needs also depend on it. You can talk with your veterinarian to determine how much exercise your puppy needs, but be aware that this may not be what is most important for weight loss.

“You can’t just say ‘let’s increase exercise in a dog,’ that’s not really going to be enough to make him lose the amount of weight he probably needs,” Krebs explained.

“Although weight loss may seem simple — consuming fewer calories and burning more calories, which results in weight loss — it’s not always simple,” Stone said. “Have your dog examined by a veterinarian before starting a weight loss program.”

Since more than half of dogs are overweight, it’s likely that your veterinarian will tell you that your puppy needs to lose weight.

According to Wakshlag, malnutrition (and obesity falls under the category of malnutrition) is the most observed disease in clinical practice.

While it’s easy to ignore the fact that your dog needs to lose a few pounds, you need to take it seriously for their future health and happiness.