Do Dogs Really Need Diet Pills?

As America blimps, so blimp American dogs — about 30 percent are now overweight. But the dogs have something we don't have:

Tails.

Well, yes, but now they have something else, too: a magic bullet. Pfizer may not have cured cancer yet, or AIDS, but it has come up with Slentrol, the first FDA-approved diet drug for dogs. It just started advertising to the public last week, begging (if you will) the question:

Woof woof woof woof?

Translation: Dogs need diet pills? Why? Are they sitting around like bored housewives, popping bonbons and fantasizing about the mailman?

Pretty much, yes. As pet owners get busier and busier, they don't have as much time to take out their pets. So the dogs laze around, turning into pooch potatoes.

This makes owners feel guilty, so they pop the pet a treat. Then another. And another. Pretty soon, once-perky Princess looks like something out of a John Waters movie.

At that point, the owner feels so bad, he just may do what the Slentrol ads recommend: ask his vet about the pound-melting miracle (that doesn't work on humans).

Pfizer studies show that the drug helps dogs lose about 3 percent of their weight in one month, which is great if, as the ad gently suggests, "diet and exercise" haven't helped. But whom are we kidding here? How can diet and exercise not help?

"Dogs are not snacking," the director of medicine at the ASPCA in New York, Dr. Louise Murray, said. "Dogs are not going to the refrigerator and pulling out the Häagen-Dazs. They are being given the snacks."

We are as blind to our Alpo enabling as we are to our own bad habits. "I say to these people who've been trying to get their dog or cat to lose weight: 'Mrs. Smith, if Fifi were on a desert island with no food, do you think she would lose weight?' And they say, 'No.' They think the fat has nothing to do with how much the pet is eating," said Karen Halligan, a vet and judge on Animal Planet's "Groomer Has It."

To be fair, part of the problem is also that pet food has become so nutritious and delicious that now even a little goes a long way poundwise.

Fun snacks + fattening food + no exercise = flab.

"What I tell every single owner is that the key to rehab and longevity is the right kind of exercise," said Dr. Jessica Waldman, the founder of a wellness and weight loss clinic for dogs. "The wrong kind of exercise is uncontrolled play."

Fetching and frolicking — that kind of uncontrolled play? Isn't that exactly what most dogs need more of? "Oh, no. No, no," said Waldman, a vet. She has her canine clients running obstacle courses and jogging on an underwater treadmill. And then there's pooch Pilates.

It probably will not surprise you to learn that Waldman's practice — CARE — is in Southern California.

Still, as goes California, so goes America when it comes to health — and probably doggy health, too. Already, two of the area's top personal trainers have brought their overweight dogs to Waldman.

Like most of the vets I spoke with, she isn't keen on giving dogs the new weight loss drug. She believes in workouts and nutrition instead. For instance, she had those personal trainers start cooking homemade dog food that called for 20 different ingredients. Is that really necessary?

Arf! (Translation: Darn tootin'!) We are stuffing our pets with treats, hiring trainers, cooking gourmet meals and forgetting the basics: Frisbee! Time in the park! More hugs, less drugs — and maybe fewer treats, too.

Or as they might sum it up in your house: Ruff ruff. (Translation: Out! Now!)

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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