Welcome to the Posh Paws Newsletter!

What you can find in this edition:

• Favorite Dog Breed for Each Generation

• Releasing Your Cat’s “Inner Tiger” With Simple Changes to Your House

• What to Feed and How to Feed it For Weight Loss in Pets

• Wild Paws: Grey Wolf

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Popular Breeds for the Ages:

Can you guess which breed of dog is the favorite of Gen Z, Gen X, Millennials and Baby Boomers?

Would Your Cat Love to Live in a Zoo?

Weight Loss For Pets:

Does Your Kitty Bubs Have the Chubs?

The First Step:

Determine if your pet is ideal weight or overweight. If you need some help, read the newsletter article on determining body condition score and the groundbreaking Labrador longevity study. 

Your pet’s vet can also help with body condition scoring, tracking weight values, determining if your pet is overweight, and designing a weight loss plan.

The Second Step:

The next thing we look at is both sides of the energy equation : energy in versus energy out.

A pet becomes overweight when there is more energy in than out, but unfortunately it is nearly impossible for significant weight loss to occur with only increasing exercise (increasing energy spent).

For a pet to lose weight we must feed it less energy.

What Should We Feed?

Let me show you how to sidestep a common mistake that many pet owners make when tackling a weight problem.

Many will start this weight loss process by feeding the same food, just less of it. Many foods are quite calorie-dense, meaning that there are many calories in a small amount and a very drastic reduction in the portion size is necessary to get significant weight loss.

This can be problematic for a couple of reasons:

1. Your pet will rebel! Sometimes loudly, over and over again…sometimes at 3 am!

2. Your pet may not be getting adequate protein and nutrients in this small volume of food to maintain muscle mass and health during weight loss.

   Most owners never get to the point of restricting the food enough for weight loss anyway, and give up early on in the whole process.

The better choice is to start with a diet especially designed to give a pet the optimal nutrition it needs while losing weight.

Veterinary Weight Loss Diets

1. Low-Calorie in a Larger Volume 

• Lower fat, increased fiber/water

• Pets feel fuller, reducing begging

• You can give your pet a satisfying portion without overfeeding

2. Nutrient Fortified- When we feed fewer calories, we only want to drop the calories, not the vital nutrients

• High nutrient-to-calorie ratio: Provides essential proteins, vitamins, and minerals even when calories are reduced.

• Prevents muscle loss: Maintains muscle mass during weight loss, reducing the risk of weight regain.

But Kitty Bubs loves his cookies…

Treats can be 10% of the day's calories, but we need to look closely at the calorie content of the treat. Some, like cheese, are very calorie dense. 

One trick for cats on a diet is to tempt them to eat vegetables that are coated in Purina Fortiflora Probiotic. They seem to really like it! 

How do I even know the goal weight of my pet? 

One method is to look at what your pet weighed at 12-15 months of age, and start with that weight as a goal. 

Hill’s Pet Food has a great weight estimator chart that gives an estimate of ideal weight based on the percentage of body fat your pet has. This can be estimated from Body Condition Score (BCS).

Check out the Hill’s Ideal Body Weight Estimator for Cats.

How much do we feed? 

There is no one size fits all solution. And the starting amount is just that- a starting point. Adjustments are made depending on the response. 

Methods of determining initial amount of food:

1. Calculate current calories fed and feed 20% less

• Weigh the current amount of food that is being fed daily.

• Weight is much more accurate than a measuring cup, especially for making small adjustments.

• Calculate calories in the daily amount of food based on Kcal/ Kg 

• Decrease by 20%

2. Use standard energy requirement calculations based on the estimated ideal weight

• Resting energy requirement (RER): the commonly used formula RER= 30 × (body weight in kg) + 70 = RER in kcal/day

• should not be used for patients weighing less than 2 kg or more than 45 kg.

• For dogs, we generally start at 80% of RER for a diet (0.8 X RER)

• cats often require more aggressive restriction, like 60-70 % of RER.

TIPS:

We don’t want to decrease a pet’s weight too rapidly. Monitoring weight loss is critical. 

Weight the daily amount of food to be given, put it in a container and have the whole family feed only from that.

Change foods gradually, over a few days, as special weight loss diets have more fiber and a fast change could cause an upset stomach.

What else can we do? 

Increase exercise: with a bit of caution and moderation to start, as overweight pets are more prone to injury. Talk to your vet, if your pet has a history of injuries, to develop a safe exercise plan. 

Try 5 minutes of intense play, three times a day with cats and food puzzles for feeding to increase activity. 

When should we check? 

Ideally, reweigh your pet every 2-4 weeks with an accurate scale. 

It may be best to visit your vet clinic to do this, as they can help track your pet’s weight. Cat owner’s may need to think about getting a baby scale to do accurate weight measurements at home ($30-50 USD on Amazon). 

What if your pet isn’t losing weight? 

• Decrease the food by 10% 

• Keep checking weight every 2-4 weeks

How fast do we want to see weight loss? 

The goal is a steady 1-2% body weight loss per week. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint!

The best chance for success?

Don’t try to go it alone.

Engage your vet and clinic support staff. Schedule those weight check-ins regularly. Let them celebrate your pet's progress or help you navigate any challenges. Find a friend with an overweight pet and support each other through the journey.

Weight loss isn't easy—it can be frustrating and feel impossible at times. It will be a process of rechecking and readjusting, over and over again.

You might feel guilty about restricting your pet's food and get tired of dealing with their hunger. But the rewards are worth it: your pet will feel better, live more comfortably, and enjoy a longer life.

And you’ll get the satisfaction of knowing you did something hard for them.

Favorite Pets of the Generations. Did you guess right?

Wild Paws by Nicholas Chappell-Hiltz

Twelve year old Nicholas is an avid animal lover and future zoo owner.

The Grey Wolf

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is a very diverse animal that is spread out through parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Most gray wolves are dark gray on their backs with blotches of light gray on their shoulders and face, they also have light brown on their stomach and legs. While gray is the most common color, wolves can also be black, white, or reddish-brown. The rare melanistic pure black wolf is due to a genetic mutation.

Some people think that wolves are dangerous but there have only been three recorded wolf attacks that were fatal. This doesn't mean you can walk up to them and pet them but they won't break into your house.

In Austria gray wolves were thought to be extinct but after 134 years people found gray wolves again in Austria in 2020.

Gray wolves were hunted almost to extinction in Canada and the USA but after many herbivore species started to overrun crops and unbalance the ecosystem, the wolves were reintroduced to stop the herbivore horde. Wolves are part of a balanced ecosystem which becomes unbalanced without them.

Most wolf packs have 6 to 8 members but in Yellowstone park there was a pack with 37 members called the Druid Peak pack.

On Vancouver Island, Canada, there is a subspecies of wolf that fishes and swims called the “Vancouver Island Sea Wolf”.

There is no strict 'alpha wolf' in wild wolf packs, as they are usually led by a breeding pair that acts as the parents of the group.

The black wolves you may see are not wolf-dog hybrids but rather pure wolves with a genetic mutation known as melanism, which originated from ancient crossbreeding with domestic dogs.

Wolves are a close relative of man's best friend, the dog, but domestic dogs are not direct descendants of modern gray wolves. Instead, both dogs and modern wolves evolved from a now-extinct wolf-like ancestor. The process of domestication began 20,000 - 40,000 thousands of years ago, leading to the dogs we know today.

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