Canine obesity on the rise

Obesity has become so common in canines that even show dogs are overweight. One in four dogs that placed in the top five in their class in Britain’s Crufts national dog show is overweight, a study in the journal Veterinary Record reports. That is better than the overall percentage of overweight dogs in the country — about half of the pet dogs in Britain are too heavy.

But it surprised the study’s authors, since show dogs are supposed to represent the ideal specimens of their breed. The finding may explain why so many pet owners don’t trust veterinarians who tell them their dog needs to go on a diet, as earlier research found.

Images of show dogs are widely disseminated on the Internet and through other media, and may influence pet owners’ perceptions of a dog’s optimal weight, the authors of the new study said.

The authors analysed 1,120 photographs of dogs representing 28 breeds that had placed at Crufts between 2001 and 2013. Overall, 26 per cent of the dogs were deemed overweight.

But there were big differences among breeds. Pugs, basset hounds and labrador retrievers were most likely to be overweight, whereas very few border terriers, boxers, dobermans, Hungarian vizslas, standard poodles and Rhodesian ridgebacks carried excess pounds.

“Preventing obesity is key,” because very overweight dogs develop illnesses like diabetes and don’t live as long, said Alexander German, one of the study’s authors and a veterinarian at the University of Liverpool.