Grove Vets in Ballymena are helping your pet lose weight this summer with a summer sale on Royal Canin Diet pet food. Grove vets recognise the importance of keeping your pet fit and healthy and offer a pet weight-watcher clinic which we have written about here at Ballymena Today.
Head to Grove Vets in the Grove Road in Ballymena no to get 25% off all stickers bags of Royal Canin diet while stocks last.
Grove Vets Ballymena helping your pet lose weight
Website Petmd.com shares the following tips to help you assess if your pet could be overweight:
The best way to determine whether a pet is obese is by using a system such as the body condition score, says Dr. Jim Dobies, a veterinarian with South Point Pet Hospital in Charlotte, N.C., and a member of the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association.
Body condition scores can be easily found online, where there are pictures of what your pet looks like and what his ideal body looks like. Most websites give scores of one to five or one to 10, and your pet’s physique should resemble a picture of an animal in the middle numbers.
But you can also assess your pet without them, Dr. Dobies says.
The best way is to stand above pets and look down on them. “You should be able to feel their ribs but not see them. If you can see them, they are too skinny,” Dr. Dobies explains. “If you can’t see their ribs, and place your hands on the side of their chest and still can’t, they’re overweight.”
Both dogs and cats should also have a nice taper at their waist (between the abdomen and where the hips go into the socket), he says. “If there is very little or none at all, they are too heavy and they’ll be oval shaped. They’ll be egg shaped rather than hourglass.”
And a very obese pet, he says, “will have a pendulous abdomen, hip fat, and neck fat, all of which are very noticeable.” But pets don’t usually reach this point of obesity until they’re aged at least seven, he adds.
There’s another way to tell if your pet is overweight, and that’s by using the new, science based Healthy Weight Protocol, which was created by Hill’s Pet Nutrition in conjunction with veterinary nutritionists at the University of Tennessee.
This tool is “brilliant,” says Hughes, who likes it because it’s objective.
How does the protocol work? A vet takes measurements — four for a dog and six for a cat — then inputs them into a computer. The computer then determines the animal’s body fat index. By comparing this with a chart, the vet can tell you exactly how much weight your pet needs to lose if it is overweight.
“It’s much more specific and scientific than me saying a pet looks like he should lose two to five pounds,” Hughes says. “With this, we can determine exactly how many pounds pets should lose and how many calories they need per day.”
If you’re going it alone with your pet’s weight loss — and Dr. Dobies does recommend that pets have a physical with their vet every six months — you can weigh your pet on a scale, if they are small enough, he says, and monitor the weight over time. (Source)
If you have taken a look at your pet and are still unsure about their weight and fitness then feel free to book an appointment with the Weight watchers clinic at Grove Vets. The expert veterinarian nurses will be able to help you plan out a diet and a exercise regime to get you pet back in shape. Call Grove Vets on 028 2565 6023.
