Helping Your Dog Lose Weight

There are a number of different factors that can cause a dog to become overweight. Overindulgence on the part of the owner plays a large part in pet obesity. We all want our pets to be happy, and sometimes an extra handful of kibble does the trick. Certain breeds of dogs are also more likely to eat quickly and/or become overweight. Additionally, basic poor eating habits and a lack of exercise will result in an overweight dog.

Why Worry About Dog Obesity?
Like humans, excessive weight in dogs can lead to health problems like diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. Studies show that 25% of overweight dogs suffer from severe joint problems which ultimately lead to decreased activity, further contributing to a long-list of other health problems. Obese dogs are found to have significantly shorter life expectancies than healthier dogs. It is therefore very important to take control of a pet’s weight problem before it becomes out of control.

How Can I Tell?
To understanding whether your dog is overweight, look at its ribs. You should be able to feel your dog’s ribs when they are standing, and, depending on the breed, see the ribs during exercise. If you are still unsure whether your dog is overweight, ask your veterinarian to provide you with a good weight range for your dog and an assessment of their overall health.

Over 40% of American dog owners have an overweight pet. That is a large number but happily there are some easy to follow, basic steps you can take to bring down Fido’s weight in a healthy and easy manner.

1. Visit The Vet
Before making any changes to your pet’s diet, schedule a veterinarian appointment so that an overall assessment of your dog’s health can be taken. Keep a simple record of your dog’s sleeping, eating, and playing habits before you go to help your vet assess what may be causing any weight gain.

2. Re-evaluate Your Dog’s Diet
Reducing the amount of food your dog eats may be the key to reducing their weight. Dog owners should measure how much food they feed their dog regularly and then set a goal for reducing that amount by a certain date. You should check with your veterinarian to determine how much food your dog needs daily and slowly reduce the amount of food over an appropriate amount of time. Dog bowls that restrict the open space in the dog bowl, such as the DogPause Bowl, are useful both for slowing down dogs who eat their food quickly and for clearly showing how much food is in the bowl.

Your vet may also recommend a weight reduction dog food. These dog foods are usually low in fat, but high in fiber, allowing your dog to feel full while taking in fewer calories. When shopping for low-calorie dog food, look for one containing at least 25% crude protein. This will ensure your dog’s muscle mass remains intact throughout weight loss.

3. Set Feeding Times
Dogs like consistency and predictability. They may have become accustomed to getting food whenever you come home. In this case, they have associated your attention with getting food. To help your dog lose weight, try setting out two feeding times, one in the morning and another in the evening. This will help them eat slower twice a day.

4. Don’t Reward With Food Alone
As you cut down on the amount you feed your dog, your dog may start to beg or become irritable. Distract your dog by taking him or her for a walk or playing fetch rather than giving into their begging. This will help teach them that food doesn’t equate with love. Plus, all overweight dogs can use some extra play time.

Wild Horses Rounded Up by BLM

The Bureau of Land Management's wild horse round-up has been going on for years, but the issue became a larger news story this year, as controversy erupted surrounding the proposal to remove horses from the Calico Complex in Nevada. Although a lawsuit stalled the round-up, the round-up began on December 28, 2009.

Elephant Abuse

In February of 2009, the trial finally began in a long-running elephant abuse lawsuit against the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Plaintiffs included animal protection groups and a former Ringling Bros. employee, who alleged that Ringling Bros. abuses their Asian elephants, in violation of the Endangered Species Act. On December 30, 2009, the federal district court for the District of Columbia issued their opinion, ruling for the circus because plaintiffs lacked standing.

Aussies urged to toss feral cats

SYDNEY - Australians have come up with a novel solution to the millions of feral cats roaming the Outback: eat them.

Wild cats -- the escaped descendants of domestic cats - kill millions of small native animals each year. Now the tables have turned and they find themselves on the menu.

A bush tucker competition held at the weekend in Alice Springs, in the Red Centre of the continent, featured something new: wild cat casserole.

"It's a white meat," said Kay Kessing, who came up with the recipe. "They vary a lot. The first cat I cooked didn't have a strong flavour. I put a lot of ingredients with it and made a beautiful stew.

"This cat that I've cooked is slightly larger. It has a slightly stronger flavour, but not as strong as rabbit."

A children's book author and illustrator, Kessing campaigns to save wildlife from the depredations of cats and other introduced animals, including camels, donkeys and wild horses.

Feral cats, which arrived with the British in 1788, now occupy most of the continent. Studies of their stomach contents show they eat almost anything that moves, including lizards, small mammals and spiders, as well as 180 species of Australian native birds.

The Gift of Animal Emotions:

As a scientist who's studied animal emotions for more than thirty years, I consider myself very fortunate. I love what I do. I love learning about animals, and I love sharing what my colleagues and I discover with others. Whenever I observe or work with animals, I get to contribute to "science" and develop social relationships at the same time. To me, there's no conflict between those activities.

While stories about animal emotions abound, there are many lines of scientific support (what I call "science sense") about the nature of animal emotions that are rapidly accumulating from behavioral and neurobiological studies (from the emerging field called social neuroscience using fMRIs and PET scans). Common sense and intuition also feed into and support science sense and the obvious conclusion is that at least mammals experience rich and deep emotional lives, feeling passions ranging from pure and contagious joy shared so widely among others during play that it is almost epidemic, to deep grief and pain. There also are recent data that show that birds and fish also are sentient and experience pain and suffering. Emotions have evolved as adaptations in numerous species and they serve as a social glue to bond animals with one another. Emotions also catalyze and regulate a wide variety of social encounters among friends and competitors and permit animals to protect themselves adaptively and flexibly using various behavior patterns in a wide variety of venues.

In scientific research there are always surprises. Just when we think we've seen it all, new scientific data appear that force us to rethink what we know and to revise our stereotypes.

• For example, spindle cells, which were long thought to exist only in humans and other great apes, have recently been discovered in humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales, and sperm whales in the same area of their brains as spindle cells in human brains. This brain region is linked with social organization, empathy, and intuition about the feelings of others, as well as rapid gut reactions. Spindle cells are important in processing emotions. It's likely that if we seek the presence of spindle cells in other animals we will find them.
  
• Neuroscientific research has also shown, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that elephants have a huge hippocampus, a brain structure in the limbic system that's important in processing emotions. We now know that elephants suffer from psychological flashbacks and likely experience the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, all mammals (including humans) share neuroanatomical structures (for example, the amygdala and hippocampus) and neurochemical pathways in the limbic system that are important for feelings.
  
• Along these lines, who would have thought that laboratory mice actually are empathic rodents? But now we know they are. Research has shown that mice react more strongly to painful stimuli after they observed other mice in pain, and it turns out that they are fun loving as well. Interestingly, mice, use in the millions in education and research, are not considered to be an "animal" under the federal animal welfare act in the United States and aren't protected from harmful research. A quote from the US federal register, volume 69, number 108, Friday June 4, 2004 states: "We are amending the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations to reflect an amendment to the Act's definition of the term animal. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 amended the definition of animal to specifically exclude birds, rats of the genus Rattus, and mice of the genus Mus, bred for use in research."

WHY ANIMAL EMOTIONS MATTER

We know more about animal passions then we often admit, and we can no longer ignore the pain and suffering of other beings. Many people are faced with difficult, challenging, and frustrating questions about the use of animals in their classrooms and research laboratories and today we must accept that there are compelling reasons stemming from scientific research to limit and perhaps stop using animals in lieu of the numerous highly effective non-animal alternatives that are readily available.

I often begin my lectures with the question: "Is there anyone in this audience who thinks that dogs don't have feelings - that they don't experience joy and sadness?" I've never had an enthusiastic response to this question, even in scientific gatherings, although on occasion a hand or two goes up slowly, usually halfway, as the person glances around to see if anyone is watching. But if I ask, "How many of you believe that dogs have feelings?" then almost every hand waves wildly and people smile and nod in vigorous agreement. Using behavior as our guide, by analogy we map the feelings of other beings onto our own emotional templates and we do it very reliably. Recognizing that animals have emotions is important because animals' feelings matter. Animals are sentient beings who experience the ups and downs of daily life, and we must respect this when we interact with them.

While we obviously have much more to learn, what we already know should be enough to inspire changes in the way we treat other animals. We must not simply continue with the status quo because that is what we've always done and it's convenient to do so. What we know has changed, and so should our relationships with animals. Quite often what we accept as "good welfare" isn't "good enough."

Our relationship with other animals is a complex, ambiguous, challenging, and frustrating affair, and we must continually reassess how we should interact with our nonhuman kin. Humans have enormous power to affect the world any way we choose. Daily, we silence sentience in innumerable animals in a wide variety of venues. There's no doubt whatsoever that, when it comes to what we can and cannot do to other animals, it's their emotions that should inform our discussions and our actions on their behalf.

Emotions are the gifts of our ancestors. We have them and so do other animals. We must never forget this.

Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Some of this essay is excerpted from Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animal A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy and Why They Matter (2007, New World Library)