Dog & People Obesity. 3 New Behaviors You Can Train With Today

A health trend is becoming more of a focus as the number of Americans who are obese has increased by 2% in the last two years. This is a good thing as action is required to changed those statistics.

There are more Americans who now have come to believe they are overweight and now with the current economic state have realized the importance of losing weight and getting back into shape. The simple need to stay healthy, cut costs, and be able to maintain current homes and work positions is abundant.

Those Americans statistics also say that up to 70% also own a dog. And guess what? Yep, the dog is most likely a bit overweight as well. The good news about that is if you find yourself feeling like it’s time to take off a few extra pounds and you do own a dog, you have yourself the perfect training partner.

There is no magic bullet in losing weight and getting more fit other than cutting calories and increasing your exercise. Make sure the calories you eat are healthy, meaning not full of fat or a large percentage consisting of carbohydrates. One rule of thumb that makes it simple for people to gage is to not eat more food than the size of your fist at any one sitting.

This is true of dogs as well. Free feeding is out. That means filling the dog bowl up with food and letting your cutest best friend eat whenever and however much food anytime during the day is not a good way to promote a healthy lifestyle for your dog.

Many dog food companies are recommending too much food right on the bag. There are many reasons for this, (information for a future article), but for simplicity lets just say it goes along with many downfalls of our health care system. Providing recommendations for health isn’t the underlying agenda; providing recommendation to keep you at the doctor or vet have become the industry standard. If you’d like to look at some good food options for your dog check out Life’s Abundance for ingredients and recommendations. Again, great information for another story….

Here are few things you can do today to develop some great new behaviors to start on the road to weight loss and fitness for you and your dog:

•At meals eat the only the amount of food that would equal the size of your fist
•Give your dog measured amounts of food twice a day; do not free feed.
•Start walking with your dog at least 20 minutes a day* (we plan to build this over time… keep following our blog!)

*If you have not been exercising please make sure to get a physical to know what kind of health you are starting with, be safe, and know where you want to go with your health care needs.

Get out and get your health and happiness back with your dog!

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And as always, for private dog training and coaching contact us at K9 Coach.