
Dealing with Pet Diabetes – the Exercise Connection
UPDATED: Nov 14, 2013
A few days ago, I wrote about Cali’s health challenges as a result of feline diabetes and kidney disease. I touched on the importance of feline enrichment to keep cats both mentally and physically in shape. Our good friend, Dr. Rod Van Horn, also shared some great insights about making sure pets are living healthy lives. Here are some additional tips to help make that happen.
Among other issues, diabetes brings on a weakness in the back legs, which means that not only does an obese cat have difficulty walking because of the excess pounds, but the problem is exacerbated by the fact that their legs are weak and thus they struggle even more to move.
- The simplest way to get a cat to exercise is to carry her to the furthest point in the house from the food bowl. You are guaranteed she will get there! And, if you do that several times a day, you can in fact call it an exercise routine!
- The other easy way to introduce exercise is with fun and games – chasing a laser beam or playing with a wand toy are great forms of exercise. If you do short bouts several times a day, you are helping to burn calories and get muscles moving.
- These days there are a variety of wonderful treadmills for dogs. These are great when the weather is bad preventing regularly outdoor exercise. They are also excellent for elderly dog owners who, themselves, have difficulty walking great distances.
Lately, pet treadmills are also being used to help slim down obese dogs, like Rocky, a really overweight Dachshund who has slimmed down drastically since he has been using the Dogpacer treadmill. Rocky’s former owner was feeding him hamburgers and the poor dog simply couldn’t move. He has slimmed down drastically. He is now in the care of a pet shelter who, in addition to helping him regain his health, is also looking for his forever family.
Of course, cats won’t use a treadmill. But there is a specially designed exercise wheels for felines, which I first saw at a cat show. It looks a bit like a Ferris wheel and I guess if you can purr-suade a feline to give it a try, it would be a great way of also increasing daily exercise.
Recently, I was speaking to a veterinarian and we were discussing some of the medical issues that our pets face today like diabetes and obesity. Many of these diseases we have foisted on our furkids through lack of exercise and general enrichment and a bad diet. It’s time to break the habit and give them back their health!
Tags: cat, dog, healthcare, petcare
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Thanks for sharing your tips on our furkids to move more. It only makes since when we consider that us humans are attempting to become healthier, so why not want the same for our pets? The tips you mentioned are not complicated at all and involve a very short amount of time. So doing them will be easy in our fast-paced and busy lives. Thanks!
I agree to not sign someone up for a gift that they aren’t ready for, then they take animal to shelter. Also animals need to stay away from tincil bc they eat it and have complications. I think kids should learn to donate time and maybe money to support animal shelters, it’s a great gift to animals in needs and gift to our next generation to give back
The power of engaging our pets in activity and play goes along way. Teaching our kids and ourselves not to feed table scraps and how moderation goes a long way. Taking care of our pets as a family member and reg vet check ups. Keeps our pets happy and keeps them around to live happily as part of our family, and home
Mine does the leg thing too! And he’s a kicker. Drives me nuts! I get up first in the AM, and borefe I am even out of bed, the cats are sitting there waiting for me to move so they can take my spot. What a great video. How freakin funny!!
Very helpful article. Pets are just like human. Nutrition and exercise are bot important in our daily lives to stay healthy. We sometimes take supplement to help prevent or minimize sickness, so as to our pets. OPC is well known to lower blood sugar level. OPC for dogs & cats also help our pets’ diabetes as well.
I love this article. It is very helpful regarding pet’s diabetes. OPC is great health supplement for lowing blood sugar for human. Also for pet as well. You can know more on http://www.dogshealthtips.net Hope your pet stay healthy and happy.