According to a recent survey by the Association of Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP), an estimated 60% of cats in the U.S. are overweight or obese, which can pose serious and even life-threatening health risks for cats, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and liver disease. Yet many cat owners don’t know their pets are overweight.
In an article analyzing the APOP survey (which included dog owners), Veterinary Practice News noted that 72% of pet owners taking part in the survey “knew that obesity could lead to their cat or dog’s early death, but 42 percent of the respondents didn’t know what a healthy weight looked like.” Even more unsettling for Veterinary Practice News, “93 percent of dog owners and 88 percent of cat owners whose animals were assessed as obese considered them to be of normal weight.”
As part of the article, Dr. Ernie Ward (founder of the APOP) cited pet obesity as having “the greatest collective negative impact on pet health,” and called the veterinary community to action, saying, “We must start working together to fight obesity through knowledge and action.”
We couldn’t agree more, which is why (in recognition of National Pet Obesity Awareness Day) we prepared a complimentary Feline Health Kit with tools for practices to educate cat owners about the importance of feline weight management.
Available for a limited time, our kit includes:
- An educational handout for clients—Obesity in Cats: Synopsis of a ClientEd Handout—that you can print or email
- A printable poster for your clinic
- Three social media images that you can post on Facebook to further remind cat owners about the importance of feline weight management
