Clinical Evaluation of Obese Dogs
World Small Animal Veterinary Association World Congress Proceedings, 2006
M. Jericó, A. Leonardi, V. Pereira, A. Tirapelli, M. Moreira, A. Provasi, C. Schaeffer
Universidade Anhembi-Morumbi, São Paulo, Brazil

Obesity, a multifactorial and polygenic common nutritional disorder in dogs, brings harmful effects to the health and longevity of the affected animals. A dog is considered obese when it presents a percentage of body fat > 20%. The presents study reports the main clinical alterations observed in 38 obese dogs with no endocrinopathies, from the data obtained through the identification, anamnesis, physical examination, and routine laboratory and imaging assessment. The most affected age range was between 7 and 10 yrs, and they were, mostly, female animals (79%), whose mean body fat content was 37.87%. The man complaint of animals' owners were tiredness (82.8%) followed by dyspnea (86.2%) and hyperexia (75.4%). It was observed that 89% of them consumed several treats. At the complementary examination, osteoarticular alterations were evidenced at the radiological assessment (100% with varied arthropathies) and 72% of them presented increased cardiac silhouette. At the ultrasonographic assessment, the main alteration observed was hepatomegaly, present in 36% of the animals. Blood pressure measurement showed that 50% of them were hypertensive. The main laboratory alterations were lipiduria (75.4%), as well as hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglycemia, and hyperproteinemia, present in 32.4% of the animals. We conclude that obesity affects especially female dogs aged 7 to 10 yrs, and is associated to morbid alterations such as arthropathies, eating disorders, dyskeratosis, cardiovascular and respiratory problems.

Speaker Information
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M. Jericó
Universidade Anhembi-Morumbi
São Paulo, Brazil


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