Category: Diet

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Will Neutering/Spaying Make My Pet Get Fat?

A common question asked by many pet owners concerns the resulting weight gain that is often seen after a pet is neutered or spayed. Can it be avoided? How can you deal with this situation? Does a fear of having a fat cat or dog justify not neutering your pet?

There is one basic cause of weight gain in anybody – me, you, our pets, everybody – excess caloric intake.

Veterinarians have a basic fear of offending clients and thereby have a tendency to avoid the topic or beat around the bush when discussing weight gain. If you think your pet is too fat, chances are that s/he is. Most pets are. It’s not because s/he has been neutered. It’s because s/he eats too much – plain and simple.

When a pet is spayed or castrated, its metabolism changes. Like a neutered farm animal s/he becomes more efficient with his or her metabolic processes, so that a diet that was adequate in calories prior to surgery suddenly becomes excessive. The result is an increase in body weight – i.e. fat dog or cat.

The solution to the problem is to anticipate this probable weight gain and adjust the diet accordingly. I warn my clients prior to surgery to cut down on the amount of food after surgery and to consider moving to a lower calorie diet. Both changes together will go a long way toward minimizing any weight gain after the neutering procedure.

This is one more justification for neutering your pet at a relatively young age – well prior to maturity. While the pet is growing and maturing its nutritional needs are constantly changing and its food intake is adjusting to compensate for these changes. If you have your pet neutered during this growth phase, changes in its caloric needs due to the surgery will be absorbed and incorporated into its ongoing metabolic changes and will make the adjustments in diet easier to deal with. Be proactive.

The changes in requirements are a little more difficult to deal with in the adult pet, but the method is the same. Here you don’t have the pet’s growth changes helping you with your efforts so it will take a little more time and effort. Reduce the amount of food fed, reduce the caloric content of the food, feed a diet that is less palatable, and gradually increase the exercise activity. You’ll get there. Remember, there is only one cause for excessive weight gain. It’s not your pet’s fault. You are in control of the situation. Deal with it. Health and longevity are your main concern. There is no magic bullet. It can be a long slow process but if you are willing to do what it takes, you and your pet can get there.

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The Hamburger (or Chicken) and Rice Diet

The Hamburger (or Chicken) and Rice Diet

I’m sure you’ve all heard it before at one time or another – if not from your vet, then from a friend, relative, or a neighbor. If your dog is having some gastrointestinal upset – vomiting, diarrhea, or both – we frequently recommend a “bland” diet. This particular diet is intended to be something that is easily digestible in an effort to help rest the GI tract and allow things to slowly and gently return to normal. Often we will offer a prescription diet but this is one of the occasions where a home remedy can be just as effective. Probably the most commonly suggested home diet is the hamburger and rice diet, or the chicken and rice diet, depending upon your or your veterinarian’s preference. Usually your doctor will also give an injection or two and send home some prescription medications as the main component of the treatment. The diet is to help the ease the transition from illness back to sound GI health.

You need to realize that, just like the medications given to treat the condition, this special diet is only a temporary thing. Sometimes we as veterinarians are a little less than detailed in our explanations regarding home treatment and our intentions may get lost in the hustle and bustle and barks and waggles of patient discharge time. The boiled hamburger and rice diet or the boiled skinless, boneless, chopped chicken and rice diet is intended to last for just a few days. I usually try to have my patients back on their normal commercial diet within 1-2 days of their visit or within 3 days if they have been hospitalized. In addition, it is important that the hamburger be boiled and drained of any and all grease – the idea is bland. The meat is only there to help give the rice a little substance and flavor. Don’t fry it, don’t lace it with taco seasoning, Tabasco,  Lawry’s, seasoned salt, or any salt and pepper – nothing. Meat should be nothing more than about 1/4 of the total mix. The rice should be plain white rice. It’s bland and easily digestible. Wild rice, brown rice, long grain and all of those other good-for-you kinds of ricy things are not as bland and therefore not as good as plain old white rice. The rice can be quick rice, or good old fashioned slow-cooked rice. Cook everything up, mix it together, and throw it in the fridge. It will keep for two or three days, and by then you’re done with it anyhow.

Don’t be like the little old lady who came in for a routine visit a while back. As part of any visit I always try to touch upon what diet  is being fed. Now I’m not a pusher of any particular diet. If your dog does well on its diet, then I’m a strict adherent of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought. But I always ask just in case something weird is going on, like the “all-Oreo” diet, or the “potato chips and hot dog diet”, or some other oddball thing. But I digress…

Anyway, in the process of examining her dog I asked about diet and she mentioned that she was feeding the dog the hamburger and rice diet that her old vet recommended. I, of course, being the inquisitive guy that I am, asked if the dog had been having some GI issues recently. She said that, no, he hadn’t had any problems like that ever since he had been on the diet. So I discreetly inquired just how long had she been feeding this special diet and she told me that back when ‘Brownie’ was a pup he had some diarrhea and old Doctor Ned said that this diet would probably help. Well, the diarrhea cleared up and the dog liked it so well that she just kept right on feeding it and he never had another problem.

It’s pretty difficult to argue with that, but the fact is that a meat and rice diet is a very bad diet. It is completely unbalanced and is likely to lead to nutritional problems when fed long term. In order to balance it out, it would require a number of modifications and then, just like any “complete and balanced” diet it would no longer be simple. So the moral of the story is multiple:

  • Dont’ feed a hamburger (or chicken) and rice diet long term unless your veterinarian clearly specifies that you are to feed it long term
  • When your veterinarian gives you directions be absolutely certain that they are complete and that you understand them completely before you go home and do the wrong thing.

Don’t wait years between veterinary visits only to find out years after the fact that you violated #1 or #2 above.

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Let’s Talk Turkey

Let’s talk turkey

It’s the holidays – party time, gift giving, time for celebrations and dinners and friends and family. It’s easy to want to involve the pets in the festivities. Throw down some turkey, offer up some stuffing and some potatoes and gravy – not a lot, just enough to let them feel a part of things. Not a good idea. Your dog can end up with a case of holiday-itis. It comes in a number of variations but the symptoms often start out similarly – depression, lack of appetite, vomiting with or without diarrhea, or sometimes constipation. There are a number of illnesses that we encounter all too frequently during the holidays. “Dietary indiscretion” as we sometimes euphemistically describe it, can just lead to plain old vomiting and diarrhea, which can sometimes become protracted and dangerous due to the possible dehydration and/or electrolyte loss. Just a sudden departure from the common everyday feeding routine can throw some pets into a tizzy. Pancreatitis can be difficult to diagnose but is sometimes triggered by exposure to one of those greasy holiday meals, like roasted turkey with potatoes and gravy and all the fixings. It is often characterized by a patient that just doesn’t act or feel well. Frequently there is vomiting and sometimes diarrhea, and a visit to the vet or even a hospital stay may be the order of the day. Even if your pet is accustomed to eating table scraps and gets this sort of food as a matter of routine, he may still have a problem, although he is much less likely to react adversely. However, if your pet leads the kind of life recommended by most veterinarians and gets her nutritional needs strictly from a commercial kibbled diet, then your effort to treat her to a special day may result in some potentially serious problems. Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) is a condition that often comes on for no apparent reason at all, but can be triggered by a case of “dietary indiscretion.” HGE is characterized by vomiting and/or diarrhea, usually with blood in it, and usually strikes the smaller dog breeds, although I have seen it in Labradors and Golden Retrievers and other large breeds. In HGE the vomiting and diarrhea is accompanied by a fluid shift within the body, with fluid moving out of the vascular compartment and into the GI tract and the circulating blood can become concentrated, sometimes to the point where it literally becomes thick, potentially putting a strain on the heart and cardiovascular system to keep functioning. Treatment involves hospitalization and the rapid administration of a large volume of IV fluids in an attempt to dilute the blood back down to its normal consistency.

 

One other issue that is seen more often at holiday time is constipation, with or without a potential intestinal blockage. Sometimes it involves old Roscoe breaking into the garbage after everyone has gone to bed and having his own holiday with the bones he has found in the garbage can. Other times an overzealous owner offers too many bones as a holiday “treat.” Either way, an excessive amount of bone can result in a potentially serious blockage, usually down in the lower intestinal tract. Many people think that the danger associated with eating bones involves the sharp shards of bone fragments potentially piercing the esophagus or the intestine. Although that is certainly a possibility, a far greater risk is that of developing a fecolith, a large rock made of bone that forms in the colon. As the chewed up bone passes through the stomach and the intestine, the protein portion of the bone is digested away, leaving just the rock-hard mineral portion, made of mainly calcium and phosphorous. As this material passes on into the lower intestine it is compacted and then dehydrated by the large bowel. It is the job of the colon as ingesta passes through, to reabsorb excess fluid so that formed feces are produced rather than diarrhea. When digested bone passes through and the water is reabsorbed, what is left takes on the characteristics of a chunk of stone. The nature of the bone causes the rock to have tiny pointed spicules protruding from the surface all around and the result is a mass that often irritates and gets stuck in the colon and cannot be passed. This sometimes necessitates general anesthesia and digital rectal exploration, repeated enemas, and sometimes even surgery to remove the offending chunks of bone. This can happen with any kind of bone but is most likely with poultry type bones. Don’t put your dog through this kind of torture. Just don’t offer up the bones, and don’t allow access to the garbage.

 

The other type of holiday blockage is sometimes simply the result of too much fun. Dog owner decides to buy Fifi or Max a dozen rawhide treats for the holidays and offers too many at one time. Some dogs will wolf down as many as they can possibly swallow, and an obstruction may result. Usually, when given in any kind of moderation, rawhide is readily digestible. Just remember that overdoing it can overwhelm even the most efficient digestive tract. Moderation is the key!

 

So make your holiday season a joy. Enjoy your turkey, or your ham, or whatever it is you traditionally choose, but be reasonable with what you offer to your pets. Both cats and dogs can become victims of too much of a good thing, and sometimes it takes very little to be too much. If a problem arises involving more than one or two brief episodes of vomiting or diarrhea, get him/her in to your veterinarian and nip it in the bud. It may not just be cheaper and easier to catch it early, it could save your pet’s life.