I came up with the title of this commentary after an unsuccessful attempt to describe the concept of companion animals and their owners engaging in mutually rewarding exercise together. This was to differentiate such a relationship from those skewed in one direction or another. You know, the owner who takes the dog for the obligatory excursions whose expression suggests this ranks right up there with watching glaciers move on the list of exciting things to do. Or the dog who’s so stressed that the walks are about as relaxing as a twice daily circuit through a war zone.
But as soon as I wrote the word “unit,” I started to laugh because it reminded me of someone I worked with who previously worked for a manufacturing company where products were referred to as units. They spoke in terms of “We shipped 10,400 units today.” and “Line 3 produced 1,000 units today, a record for them.” When she started working in the animal hospital where I worked, she brought the jargon with her. As a result, when I’d ask her what my morning appointment schedule looked like, she would answer “Seven human-canine and 6 human-feline ones.”
That aside, the specific human-companion animal units this commentary focuses on are those who aren’t quite as physically fit as they could or should be. My inspiration source was a wonderful book entitled Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound by veterinarian Phil Zeltzman and RN PhD Rebecca A. Johnson (Purdue University Press), both of whom posses such lofty credentials in their respective fields that I could devote a whole commentary to them. Suffice it to say that the authors are deeply concerned about the national epidemic of obesity in humans and companion animals and want to do their part to help resolve it. But don’t let the thought of all those credentials put you off. The book is very reader-friendly. The text isn’t the least bit pedantic and there are lots of helpful charts and lists throughout.
Although the original Walk a Hound Lose a Pound program paired humans in need of exercise with shelter dogs having similar needs, the book is geared to anyone who wants to get or keep physically fit with his or her own dog. What I especially liked about it is that it embraces the One Health Initiative, a movement of more enlightened folks in the human and veterinary health professions who recognize the many links between human and animal health. Because of this, the book consistently addresses the human and canine issues involved in getting a successful weight reduction and exercise program up and running.
For example, lists of the benefit of walking for humans and dogs appear side-by-side. Well, one above the other, but you get the idea. Perhaps surprising to some, the medical problems associated with obesity in dogs are quite similar to those experienced by us humans and the book explores them as well. Just as I feel any extra weight in my knees, so do some dogs.
Engaging in such a human-canine program also allows us to tap into the power of the bond. Paying attention to what and how much we feed our animals compared to their needs makes it easier to do so for ourselves. Even though those extra pounds may make it harder to muster the energy to get off the couch, knowing that a comparable amount of extra weight is setting up the beloved family pet for problems may be enough to get us going. And while some of us may be willing to procrastinate about engaging in some sort of fitness program for ourselves, the awareness of our animals’ shorter lifespans may help us to rethink that approach, too.
The book is so full of excellent information, it’s hard to know what to mention. Want to know the proper surfaces to walk on for novice humans and dogs until they get the hang of things? It’s in this book. Worried about potential dangers or clueless about those you might encounter on a walk with your dog? Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound gives the lowdown on a range of concerns—sunburn, heatstroke, hypothermia, poison ivy and oak, snake bite, pretty much any problematic conditions human and canine might encounter on a walk. Because I’m a firm believer that prevention is always the way to go, I found the inclusion of this material most gratifying.
The book also discusses what kinds of things we and our dogs need for a successful walk and human and canine stretching exercises to help avoid injury. Here again, I liked the equal emphasis on human and the canine needs. Engaging in health-restoring or maintaining exercise means more than making sure we’re properly attired and have our water bottles and other paraphernalia, then just snapping a leash on Rover. This is always the case, but if Rover is carrying a few extra pounds, being aware of his needs as well as our own becomes even more important.
For those who don’t like to walk, Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound devotes an entire chapter to all sorts of human and dog-friendly alternatives. In addition to providing a lot of practical information up-front, like all the other chapters this one provides websites and references for those who would like to explore the topic in more detail.
In the chapter entitled “Get help from the pros,” the authors acknowledge that for us and our pets to shed excess pounds and keep them off isn’t as simple as eating less and exercising more. It may require major lifestyle changes that can be daunting. As expected, members of the human and veterinary medical professionals rank high among the pros. Reading about other forms of support was a bittersweet experience for me. On the one hand, I was amazed at the range of behavioral/emotional support options for people trying to lose weight. On the other, the book confirmed my experience in that little comparable support is available for owners struggling to get weight off their animals.
And this brings me to my one disappointment in the book which, I admit, didn’t surprise me. In spite of the fact that all other facets of the canine overweight/obesity epidemic were discussed in detail, once again nothing was said about the possible connection between it and the use of food treats in training. Sadly, this seems to be yet another of those companion animal-related sacred-cow issues that no one wants broach lest he or she earn the wrath of whoever finds such a possible relationship so threatening.
We speak of the value of the One Health Initiative, we in the general public and animal-care community speak of our companion animals as members of our families and often as one of our kids. And yet when it comes to the relationship between food rewards and obesity we conveniently ignore all the data regarding this link and the recommendation to sever it in children. Why is this? Do we really believe that using food to reward animals for making a proper response to a command wouldn’t cause them to make emotional associations with food that could come back to haunt them later? True, if we deny animals the capacity to experience emotions or make such connections, then we can deny that this could be a problem. But the studies on animal cognition and emotion make that difficult for me to accept.
And true, I could be completely wrong about this. But when I read this book—which I heartily recommend you read, too—and revisited the appalling statistics on canine obesity and all the diseases related to it (the likes of which occur in other species of companion animals who are overweight), I can’t help wondering why studies of the food reward-obesity link don’t head the list of must-do research. Until we determine a) if such a link exists and b) if it does, what compels us humans to impose it on our animals, and c) incorporate strategies that address this into our programs, even the best animal weight-reduction program could fail.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
I came up with the title of this commentary after an unsuccessful attempt to describe the concept of companion animals and their owners engaging in mutually rewarding exercise together. This was to differentiate such a relationship from those skewed in one direction or another. You know, the owner who takes the dog for the obligatory excursions whose expression suggests this ranks right up there with watching glaciers move on the list of exciting things to do. Or the dog who’s so stressed that the walks are about as relaxing as a twice daily circuit through a war zone.
But as soon as I wrote the word “unit,” I started to laugh because it reminded me of someone I worked with who previously worked for a manufacturing company where products were referred to as units. They spoke in terms of “We shipped 10,400 units today.” and “Line 3 produced 1,000 units today, a record for them.” When she started working in the animal hospital where I worked, she brought the jargon with her. As a result, when I’d ask her what my morning appointment schedule looked like, she would answer “Seven human-canine and 6 human-feline ones.”
That aside, the specific human-companion animal units this commentary focuses on are those who aren’t quite as physically fit as they could or should be. My inspiration source was a wonderful book entitled Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound by veterinarian Phil Zeltzman and RN PhD Rebecca A. Johnson (Purdue University Press), both of whom posses such lofty credentials in their respective fields that I could devote a whole commentary to them. Suffice it to say that the authors are deeply concerned about the national epidemic of obesity in humans and companion animals and want to do their part to help resolve it. But don’t let the thought of all those credentials put you off. The book is very reader-friendly. The text isn’t the least bit pedantic and there are lots of helpful charts and lists throughout.
Although the original Walk a Hound Lose a Pound program paired humans in need of exercise with shelter dogs having similar needs, the book is geared to anyone who wants to get or keep physically fit with his or her own dog. What I especially liked about it is that it embraces the One Health Initiative, a movement of more enlightened folks in the human and veterinary health professions who recognize the many links between human and animal health. Because of this, the book consistently addresses the human and canine issues involved in getting a successful weight reduction and exercise program up and running.
For example, lists of the benefit of walking for humans and dogs appear side-by-side. Well, one above the other, but you get the idea. Perhaps surprising to some, the medical problems associated with obesity in dogs are quite similar to those experienced by us humans and the book explores them as well. Just as I feel any extra weight in my knees, so do some dogs.
Engaging in such a human-canine program also allows us to tap into the power of the bond. Paying attention to what and how much we feed our animals compared to their needs makes it easier to do so for ourselves. Even though those extra pounds may make it harder to muster the energy to get off the couch, knowing that a comparable amount of extra weight is setting up the beloved family pet for problems may be enough to get us going. And while some of us may be willing to procrastinate about engaging in some sort of fitness program for ourselves, the awareness of our animals’ shorter lifespans may help us to rethink that approach, too.
The book is so full of excellent information, it’s hard to know what to mention. Want to know the proper surfaces to walk on for novice humans and dogs until they get the hang of things? It’s in this book. Worried about potential dangers or clueless about those you might encounter on a walk with your dog? Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound gives the lowdown on a range of concerns—sunburn, heatstroke, hypothermia, poison ivy and oak, snake bite, pretty much any problematic conditions human and canine might encounter on a walk. Because I’m a firm believer that prevention is always the way to go, I found the inclusion of this material most gratifying.
The book also discusses what kinds of things we and our dogs need for a successful walk and human and canine stretching exercises to help avoid injury. Here again, I liked the equal emphasis on human and the canine needs. Engaging in health-restoring or maintaining exercise means more than making sure we’re properly attired and have our water bottles and other paraphernalia, then just snapping a leash on Rover. This is always the case, but if Rover is carrying a few extra pounds, being aware of his needs as well as our own becomes even more important.
For those who don’t like to walk, Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound devotes an entire chapter to all sorts of human and dog-friendly alternatives. In addition to providing a lot of practical information up-front, like all the other chapters this one provides websites and references for those who would like to explore the topic in more detail.
In the chapter entitled “Get help from the pros,” the authors acknowledge that for us and our pets to shed excess pounds and keep them off isn’t as simple as eating less and exercising more. It may require major lifestyle changes that can be daunting. As expected, members of the human and veterinary medical professionals rank high among the pros. Reading about other forms of support was a bittersweet experience for me. On the one hand, I was amazed at the range of behavioral/emotional support options for people trying to lose weight. On the other, the book confirmed my experience in that little comparable support is available for owners struggling to get weight off their animals.
And this brings me to my one disappointment in the book which, I admit, didn’t surprise me. In spite of the fact that all other facets of the canine overweight/obesity epidemic were discussed in detail, once again nothing was said about the possible connection between it and the use of food treats in training. Sadly, this seems to be yet another of those companion animal-related sacred-cow issues that no one wants broach lest he or she earn the wrath of whoever finds such a possible relationship so threatening.
We speak of the value of the One Health Initiative, we in the general public and animal-care community speak of our companion animals as members of our families and often as one of our kids. And yet when it comes to the relationship between food rewards and obesity we conveniently ignore all the data regarding this link and the recommendation to sever it in children. Why is this? Do we really believe that using food to reward animals for making a proper response to a command wouldn’t cause them to make emotional associations with food that could come back to haunt them later? True, if we deny animals the capacity to experience emotions or make such connections, then we can deny that this could be a problem. But the studies on animal cognition and emotion make that difficult for me to accept.
And true, I could be completely wrong about this. But when I read this book—which I heartily recommend you read, too—and revisited the appalling statistics on canine obesity and all the diseases related to it (the likes of which occur in other species of companion animals who are overweight), I can’t help wondering why studies of the food reward-obesity link don’t head the list of must-do research. Until we determine a) if such a link exists and b) if it does, what compels us humans to impose it on our animals, and c) incorporate strategies that address this into our programs, even the best animal weight-reduction program could fail.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.