A Clinical Report of the Diet Therapy on an Obese Dog

Abstract

It has been recommended that diets for the management of canine obesity should be prescribed on the basis of providing 60% of the calculated maintenance requirement at the ideal body weight. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate effects of a commercial weight-reduction diet on an overweight beagle. During this experiment the optimal calorie intake and changes in body weight of the obese dog were determined. Additionally, hematological and serum biochemical analysis were performed.
The body weight before the experiment was 19.44 kg. When the weight-reduction regimen started, the authors estimated that the optimum body weight of the beagle was 15 kg. The diets were changed from the usual dog food to the prescribed one. The metabolizable energy intake was restricted from 700 to 506 kcal/day, and again to 440 kcal/day: that is, the calorie intake decreased to approximately 70% and 60% of the initial calorie intake, respectively. During this experiment, this dog lost 4.5 kg in weight over 3 months, reaching the target weight. While being fed the restrictive weight-reduction diet, the dog's body weight remained between 14.5 and 15.0 kg. When ad lib feeding using normal dog food was recontenued, the dog quickly regained the same energy intake level as the pre-experiment one, resulting in an increase in body weight
The blood and serum chemistry profile revealed no abnormalities before the test. The thyroidal function was normal. From these results, the patient was diagnosed as simple obesity. During the diet treatment, laboratory findings showed few changes. However, when the dog returned to its former obese condition, the red blood cell count. hemoglobin concentration and packed cell volume decreased. Total cholesterol and β-lipoprotein markedly increased and HDL-cholesterol declined. The activity of lactate dehydrogenase only showed an increase.
These results demonstrated that there was a particular case that the recommended feeding calolie “the maintanance requirement×60%” in the diet therapy would not have a sufficienteffectonoverweightdogs-In such an instance, the calorie intake before the weight reduction might be the important indication in regimens. It was revealed that the relapse of obesity after the body weight reduction was drastic, and that the body weight rapidly increased and lipid metabolic system was remarkably affected. These abnormalities, after we discontinued the calolie.restriction, might be explained as the rebound phenomena after diet theranv.