Challenges of Physical Rehabilitation with an Obese Pet

Mary Ellen Goldberg, BS, LVT, CVT, SRA, CCRA, certified veterinary pain practitioner with VetMedTeam, LLC., explains the challenges of physical rehabilitation with an obese pet.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“First, I would like to say that in an obese pet, when you’re assessing is the client is going to be active and be participating in the program, finding something that is easy is imperative. I will give you an example of you have an obese lab that comes into the practice, [the client is] a mother with 3 small children all under 5 [years of age], they also have a farm and her husband is working and gone all the time. Is this woman going to have time to do rehabilitation exercises 30 minutes a day, 2 to 3 times a day that you give for the home exercise program? Most likely not. And so, having something that is going to help the animal lose weight as far as a medicated food, that’s important.

Some of the diets that are available, Hill’s makes j/d Mobility Diet and that’s excellent. Basically, you can have Hill’s, Purina, or Royal Canin, and they all make excellent products. I would probably choose to go with a diet with food that is one of those, because then I don’t have to be watching the calories. I remember years ago there was a diet called Fit & Trim, and believe it or not it really was not that much of a reduced calorie diet, and that’s what you need to be looking at with these obese pets. You want reduced calories and then getting them into physical rehabilitation, you want to increase exercise.”