• Animal Rescue Live
• News
• 17 July 2007

Ask the Experts: Diet

We pose some further questions to Battersea's resident vet.

The main topic on the agenda on the opening show was animal obesity and diet. With so many of you contacting the show, by email or by phone, we decided to pose some of your questions to Louisa Rance, resident vet at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

First up, Nia from South Wales asked:
My cat Fluffy weighs one stone, I've put him on a diet but how do I get him to exercise? He is 9 years old.

Basically, with overweight cats you do need to implement an exercise regime for them. First of all you need to make sure an appropriate diet regime has been implemented, which your vet can direct you on. You need to bear in mind that there are various diets and various calorie restrictions, so make sure your cat is on the one that's appropriate and that there are no extra treats.

You also have to determine whether the cat can be allowed outdoors. If it's an indoor cat then it is a bit more difficult to get the cat to exercise so you have to be a bit more proactive. The easiest way to do this with cats is by facilitating playtime, getting whatever your cat likes; feather dusters, fluffy toys - anything that can stimulate the cat to play. You have to put a lot of time into it yourself, but setting up sessions like that will actually have quite a good effect upon helping to achieve weight loss.

Tracie from Sheffield asks:
Can you give a dog a bone and should they be cooked or not? I understand that you can't give dogs chicken bones, but I'm confused over whether he can have other animal bones.

The number one take-home message is absolutely no chicken bones or any fragile brittle bones like that because we see a lot of obstructions in the intestinal tract and perforations because they're quite sharp and the dog can chew them up. As far as I am aware there isn't really any benefit to giving either cooked or uncooked meet. There are quite a lot of people out there who advocate giving their dog a raw diet, but the veterinary profession doesn't see that as particularly beneficial, and in some cases as it may not be a balanced diet the dog may get deficient in some essential nutrients.

Kathleen from The Wirral has a Border Terrier who is 4 years old who won't eat any dog food, only human food. She feeds him chicken, vegetables and rice. How can she get him onto dog food?

It's not ideal for a dog to eat just human food. A dog does thrive best on a complete dog food that has all the nutrients that a dog requires rather than what a human requires. Eating human food may put them at greater risk of obesity because of the higher fat content. I'm guessing she's exhausted all the food types on her supermarket shelves. Basically it would be worth her consulting her vet who would be able to advise her on palatable diets, and trying to get the dog from human food to dog food, by mixing them gradually.

Finally, Patricia from Maidstone, Kent asks:
Should my dog be fed vegetables?

It's going back to the fact there's various ranges of complete diets for dogs which are perfectly nutritionally balanced. They've got enough fibre to facilitate digestion and so we don't have to worry about a fibre dose for our dogs. Some vegetables can be beneficial when you're trying to get weight off your pets. You can use them for treats and to reward them. Vegetables don't do them any harm but they aren't a prerequisite for a complete and healthy diet.