There are various methods of finding  out whether your pet is overweight or not, including the obvious route of simply weighing your pet, but the most accurate and reliable technique is what’s known as condition scoring. This process has the advantage of offering a qualitative assessment of the pet’s body, independent from their breed, size and actual weight. The problem with relying on a purely quantitative method such as weighing is that it requires interpretation based on an ideal weight – and who really can say with any degree of accuracy what the ideal weight is for their dog? As a vet I give estimates for people about the ideal weight of their peton a daily basis, but they are all very rough and based on my personal views and experience rather than anything more scientific – another vet might agree that the pet is overweight but give a very different value for their ideal target weight, making assessing the degree of obesity based on weight alone very prone to error.

Condition scoring involves assessing the pet’s body based on a variety of criteria including fat coverage, shape and prominence of underlying skeletal features, to give a score based on a scale, usually 1-5 (although some condition scoring scales are more detailed and include up to 10 different scores). My personal favourite approach is a simple scale from 1-5 based on assessing the following key features – fat coverage over the ribs, presence or absence of a waist behind the ribs if viewed from above, prominence or not of the hip bones and size of the abdomen. If you consider your pet’s body based on these criteria, you should be able to decide which of the following classifications best describes the condition of your pet:

1. Emaciated

It is easy to see your pet’s ribs, lumbar vertebrae, pelvic bones and all body prominences from a distance. There is no obvious body fat and clear evidence of muscle wastage.

2. Thin

Whilst you cannot easily see the ribs and the pelvic bones are not obviously prominent from a distance, your pet’s ribs are easily felt with no palpable fat. The tops of lumbar vertebrae are visible and there is an obvious abdominal tuck behind the ribs, as well as a clear waist when viewed from above.

3. Normal

A normal pet should have a distinct but not excessive covering of fat over the chest, through which the ribs are easily palpable. The abdomen tucked up when viewed from side, and there is a visible but not extensive waist when viewed from above. The pelvis and other bony prominences are well covered and not clearly visible.

4. Overweight

A pet that is overweight will generally be carrying up to 20% extra weight compared to a normal pet, and this is generally laid down around the chest and abdomen, making it hard to feel the ribs, and giving the abdomen a full appearance, with little or no abdominal tuck. There is also very little or no waist visible from above, and there may also be obvious fatty deposits in the lumbar region and around the base of the tail.

5. Obese

Pets carrying more than 20% extra weight are classified as obese and these pets will have large fat deposits over their chest, neck, spine and tail base. They have no waist or abdominal tuck behind the ribs, and their abdomens often appear distended. As well as appearing clearly overweight, their movement will also be affected by their weight, giving them a shortened stride and splayed leg appearance as their legs are forced outwards by fatty deposits.

There are two main contributing factors to obesity in pets, and they are both directly related to their owners – too much food and not enough exercise. Pet owners always bring up other mitigating factors such as neutering or ‘genetics’, but at the end of the day these are only ever going to be minor effects that can cannot cause the problem by themselves – excessive consumption combined with inadequate exercise are by far and away the most important factors and this should never be forgotten. It’s all too easy for owners to put the blame elsewhere – ‘it’s because he was neutered’ or ‘we hardly feed her anything, it must be the way she is’ – but at the end of the day obesity in pets is always the fault of the owner and never the pet. That might sound a bit harsh but if this problem is going to be tackled effectively, it is imperative that owners realise that is their responsibility to keep their pets in shape – and that if their pets are overweight, the blame lies with themselves rather than their pets. We, the owners, are in total control of the amount of food our dog eats and the amount of energy he expends in exercise, so a problem such as obesity which is driven almost exclusively by these two factors, is clearly a problem that can be prevented and controlled by the owner.

Of course this is somewhat of an oversimplification of matters and if it was that straightforward there wouldn’t be an obesity problem, and there clearly is one. Pet owners are people and people don’t always work in a logical manner, with an infinite number of psychological influences affecting decision making. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, this can lead to a form of body dysmorphia projected onto their pets, making the owner see their pet as underweight when in fact they are grossly overweight, but in most cases it is more subtle influences such as anthropomorphism where the owner identifies too closely with the pet’s feelings, particularly hunger, or misplaced affection confusing feeding with love or attention. These ‘owner factors’ are one of the main reasons why we see so many overweight pets; the other main reason is lack of awareness and this can be a key contributing factor in many cases.