Sunday, January 07, 2007

Dog-gone Diet! - Grab a Leash!

This just in from The Institute for a Lack of Common Sense: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Pfizer Inc. approval Friday to market the world's first prescription obesitydrug specifically geared toward dogs.

The drug, called Slentrol, reduces a dog's appetite as well as fat absorption to produce a slimmed-down canine, according to federal drug officials. Veterinarians will determine whether a dog is overweight and in need of the new Obesity drug, FDA officials said.

Vets typically consider a dog to be overweight if its weight is 20 percent more than its ideal weight. Experts now say that about 5 percent of this nation's dogs are obese, while another 20 to 30 percent are considered overweight.

Has Fluffy been eating too many scoops of healthy dog food or is the dog getting table scraps, lounges around all day, and heck, maybe even drinks Coke!

OK, call me cynical but might it be what the dog's owners are feeding the dog or how little the dog is getting exercised that is the problem, rather than some pill deficiency that necessitates having to give it a drug?

Gosh, might that even be part of the overweight human solution too? Less/better nutritional value food and more exercise? Or do we wait until drug companies come up with the new "fat" pill sure to "cure" us?

Do us all a favor, and yourself--if your dog is fat, take it for a nice walk every day and you will both trim down--with or without a miracle pill!

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