How to help your pet lose weight 2

Treats

• These will often make up a surprising amount of an animals daily calorie intake, and cutting back on treats can really help your pet to lose weight.
• Often, we use treats as a way of simply saying 'hello' to our pets, or because we feel guilty for leaving them.
• It is important to realise that in your pets mind, love and attention from you are just as important as tasty snacks, and they will not stop loving you if you stop giving them treats.
• Make sure when you do give a treat, your pet has earned it, this will encourage good behaviour and should stop your pet begging.
• In a dogs mind particularly, you giving it food is a very important thing as they consider food to be a very valuable resource. It is not the amount you are giving them, but the fact they are receiving anything at all. Therefore a good weight loss tip is to simple halve whatever you were going to feed them, then they get a treat, but only half the calories!
• Try changing unhealthy treats like biscuits and chews, for more healthy ones such as carrots.

Table scraps

• These should never be fed to any pet, overweight or not.
• Our food is very rich, and much higher in calories than you would expect.
• Feeding table scraps also leads to begging behaviour, which is very bad manners and can be extremely distracting if you are trying to eat!
• If you cannot resist your pets pleading eyes at the table, then remove them from the room while you are eating.
• Many cats and dogs get a special 'Sunday lunch' along with their owners. Cutting this out will make a huge difference to their calorie intake, and occasionally feeding very rich food will often cause diarhoea.
• If you must feed table scraps, feed your pet after you have finished, from their bowl and cut back on their normal daily food.

Exercise

• Cutting back on your pets food intake is not usually enough to make them lose a significant amount of weight, increasing their exercise is important too.
• Dogs should have at least one hours exercise every day, and this should involve running around off the lead, not just a sedate walk on the lead.
• If you have trouble walking long distances, encourage your pet to play fetch with a ball or other games, where they do all the running! Alternatively, hire a dog walker.
• Encouraging cats to increase their exercise levels can be difficult but not impossible, some good tips include;
• Play with them - many cats will chase a mouse on a stick or fish on a string. Try to encourage them to play for at least 10 minutes a day.
• Make them go outside, many cats will lie all day on the sofa, and only venture outside to go to the toilet. When the weather is warm, send them outside as often as possible to explore. Even if they run straight back in, thats more exercise than they would have done otherwise!
• Put the food bowls upstairs - then they will have to climb the stairs to eat, again making them move around more.