Posted Feb 20, 2010
A study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition investigated the relationship between body weight in pet owners and body weight in their pets.
Its finding: Overweight owners tend to have overweight dogs, as other studies have reported before. But no such relationship was seen between owners and pet cats.
Going out on a limb, the Dutch authors conclude that this difference may be that dog owners either walk their dogs – or don’t. The same relationship does not hold for cats, which tend not to be walked. Among other study limitations, the authors do note in their report that the sample sizes were small: 36 cat-owner pairs and 47 dog-owner pairs.
Some, of course, have found ways to break down this relationship between exercise-the-dog and exercise-the-owner. At a Los Angeles- area dog park not long back, we spotted a car, window open, with a leash trailing out of it. Attached to the end was a dog, huffing and puffing to keep up with the moving vehicle.
To read more studies about the consequences of obesity in dogs and cats, go to American Veterinary Medical Association TV at www.avmatv.org/media.cfm?c383&m3000&s66&.
And for an AVMA collection of studies on obesity and dogs, go here: www.avma.org/ avmacollections/obesity-dogs/default.asp.
– Los Angeles Times
Date: Feb 18, 2010