Pet Awareness Day is this week and Liquid Health Pets cares about your pets and wants to make you aware of the dangers of pet. Is not just a human problem, but a problem for pets too. A lot of dogs and cats in the U.S. are overweight and even obese. Unfortunately, pets do not have a lot of control over their weight and rely on humans to take care of them. Bringing awareness to this issue will hopefully encourage owners to help take better care of their pets.
How Many Pets are Obese?
According to pet owner surveys, over 59% of cats are overweight and over 55% of dogs are overweight. Out of those percentages, 33.8% of cats are obese and 18.9% of dogs are obese. This means that over half of the dogs and cats in the U.S. are unhealthy and overweight.
How Affects Pets
causes problems for pets. There is an increasing number of health threats lately due to. One major disease that can be caused by is hypoventilation syndrome. This disease causes serious breathing problems in cats. The weight on animals tends to build up around their rib cages, making it hard to breathe, sleep, or move around. You should be able to easily feel your pets’ ribs and see where their waist is at. If you cannot, your pet is most likely overweight.
How Often to Your Cat
How often should you your pet then? There is no one size fits all when it comes to your cat. Younger cats need more food and should be fed a few times throughout the day. After a year, however, it is important to limit how often your cat eats. Once or twice a day is the recommended amount for adult cats. How much food to give your cat depends mostly on their size. A chart with suggested sizes for your cat can be found here. However, cats are a little trickier when it comes to knowing just how much to them.
How Often to Your Dog
For dogs, it is recommended that you your dog twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Most people measure out the amount of food their dogs get each day in cups. It is important to remember that the amount of food depends on the size of the dog. The larger the dog breed, the more food they will need to maintain a healthy weight. While smaller dogs should eat 1 1/3 cups or less a day, larger dogs can eat up to 4 ½ cups a day. A chart for your dog the right amount of food can be found here.
Proper Exercise
Both dogs and cats need exercise daily. It keeps them healthy and happy. There is no exact amount of time that they need daily since every pet is different. Most cats should get between 20 minutes to an hour of play or other forms of exercise each day. Dogs, on the other hand, need a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise each day. Exercising and playing with your pet daily will help them stay in shape and shed any extra pounds.
The health of our pets is important. Most people want their pets to be happy and live their best lives. It is up to pet owners to stay aware of what their pet needs. Check out our article, 4 Benefits of Glucosamine Supplements for Dogs, learn how it can keep your dog healthy and moving.
