Are you getting enough treats? – Tuesday 28th January 2020

Are you getting enough treats?

Now here’s a question, are you getting enough treats? We have been sent some interesting research by the head vet at Tails.com which says that dogs are given treats at almost half of their human mealtimes. Now, the shocking thing there is that means there are half of mealtimes when we aren’t getting treats. I think we should complain about leaving us out on some occasions.

Helpful Advice

On the other paw, a study by the University of Liverpool suggests that 59% of us are overweight. Now you might not see that as too much of a problem, but their study suggests that our being too heavy leads us to live 2.5 years less than we would do otherwise. Now think about it. Given we only generally live maybe 12 or 13 years, losing out on more than 2 years just because you couldn’t keep your paws out of the treat cupboard is not good news. Which means that getting your humans to use some of the helpful advice from the vet at Tails.com is worth doing.

Quick Suggestions

Here are five of their tips for how to stay nice and slim and still feel like you’ve had a treat.

1. Get your human to buy some healthier snacks for you. Carrot sticks are my favourite – what are yours?
2. Don’t complain if your human uses some of your mealtime allowance of kibble for your between meal treats. I know it means there’s less in the bowl at teatime, but it is better for you.
3. Accept a cuddle, an extra walk or a game instead of a treat – it’s a good way to train your human and if you get them going for extra walks they will live longer too.
4. Ask your human to buy smaller treats – then you can have just as many but will take on fewer calories.
5. Portion size is important at mealtimes too. Make sure your human measures out the right amount of food for you. Don’t let them be tempted to think it doesn’t look much. Remind them you are smaller than they are – unless you’re an Irish Wolfhound in which case this may not apply.

It helps if you read the packets of your treats too. You’d be surprised how much fat some of them contain. You might want to start shaming your human to eat more healthily too so they can carry on sharing what’s on their plate. They like doing that too, but if you make sure they are eating healthy food that is safe for you too then everyone wins.

Love Wilma