Owners of overweight dogs are being encouraged to sign-up their portly pets to Britain’s first online canine slimming club.
SlimmingDogs.co.uk is offering to help overweight dogs get healthy and shed pounds by ditching brown biscuits and poor-quality kibble.
Overweight humans have had slimming clubs for decades, but the new site is believed to be the first online fat fighting community solely for obese dogs.
For the first time pets can get the slimming dogs feeling with a programme of healthy eating and exercise designed to melt away the excess pounds.
The club has been created by healthy dog food brand Pure Pet Food to help educate owners about the problems that can be caused by a poor diet. They came up with the idea after helping hundreds of dog owners to switch to a healthier diet.
The move comes after researchers found the number of overweight dogs is currently at all all-time high in Britain. Research last year found the number of overweight dogs had risen by 50% in two years with one in eight dog owners reporting that their vets had warned them about their dog’s health.
The PDSA research suggested as many as 1.7 million dogs could currently be classed as dangerously overweight or obese in the UK alone.
Canine obesity is associated with osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and respiratory disease, kidney disease, cancer and more, and a poor diet is a major contributing factor.
The increased popularity of heavily processed dried dog foods, or kibble, over recent years is believed to be one of the factors behind the rise in dog obesity along with busy lifestyles resulting in less time for dog walks.
Now busy dog owners can sign up to join SlimmingDogs.co.uk for free to receive healthy eating and exercise advice tailor made for their pet. Like Charlie the Pug (pictured above) who was a little on the heavy side and suffered with itchy skin. His owners changed his diet with the help of Pure Pet Food and he is now well-proportioned pug.
A SlimmingDogs spokesman said: “We all love our dogs and it’s easy to fall into the trap of spoiling them with processed food and treats. But when you consider there could be almost two million overweight dogs in the UK it really is shocking and time something was done to tackle the problem.
“It’s not that dog owners don’t care it’s that they lack the information needed to ensure their dogs stay on a healthy diet. The food we feed our dogs has changed massively over the past generation with the rise in popularity of brown biscuits coming at the same time as the increase in the weight of dogs.
“We believe this is more than a coincidence and we are on a mission to help educate dog owners to the reality of pet nutrition. We hope that by joining SlimmingDogs.co.uk we can help many more owners and they dogs to return to a happy healthy lifestyle. By joining us pet owners will join a community of like-minded animal lovers eager to share information and advice.”
