While weight loss may be successful with many diets, there are numerous ways to accomplish weight loss. Many times, success can be appreciated by simply reducing treats, reducing food volume, and adding exercise. Commercial diets can cause owners to fail and be frustrated with their weight loss program. Commercial food labels can be misleading. Foods labeled as senior” or “weight management” have seen more failures because they have only a small decrease in calories over that brand’s maintenance diet.

Weight loss is work! The best results have been achieved for my patients with Metabolic Diet by Hills. In dogs, 92% of those on a weight loss program have shown good weight loss over several months. In cats, that percentage reduces to about 80%. As we discussed in “Weight loss in cats”, they are extremely difficult to engage in a regular program of exercise.