It had been a year since Henry’s last haircut, and Michelle Holbrook did not realize that her 7-pound, goofy toy poodle was now almost 9 pounds. His cute, shaggy look not only obscured his weight, it also made it harder for the Holbrooks to resist his begging.
“He’s a little rascal,” said Holbrook, a medical researcher in Chicago. “He’ll hear me when I open the cheese drawer in the fridge, and he comes running.”
Henry, 7, is one of many food-motivated pets who have surprised their owners with their weight gain in the past two years. While veterinarians and pet owners mostly attribute the added pounds to an increasing urge to give into bad habits during the coronavirus pandemic, pet obesity has long been an issue in the United States.
Banfield Pet Hospital, which runs more than 1,000 veterinary clinics in the country, found that nearly 40% of cats and almost 35% of dogs were diagnosed as overweight in 2020, up from less than 20% a decade ago. Banfield also saw a slight rise – about 2% – of dogs being diagnosed as overweight from March 2020 to December of that year, at the beginning of the pandemic.
“We’re all having pandemic pounds come into play,” said Dr. Jennifer Bolser, chief clinic veterinarian for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, in Colorado. For pets, as with humans, bad habits include overeating, too much snacking and not enough physical activity. People find it harder to not overindulge pets while stuck at home with them.