Previous epidemiological studies of feline obesity have been restricted to small geographical areas of Great Britain. This study represents the first published description of the prevalence and risk factors for obesity from a nationally distributed population of cats. Data were gathered from 3227 cats through 47 primary companion animal veterinary practises. The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity was 11.5 per cent (95% confidence interval 10.4 per cent to 12.6 per cent) in cats attending the charity's clinics. Cats in Scotland appeared to have a greater age and neutered-adjusted prevalence compared with cats in England. Neutered status, being male and middle age (around 7 years), were all significant risk factors for feline overweight/obesity, although they did not fully explain an individual cat's risk of overweight/obesity. Breed was not found to be a statistically significant risk factor. Partial attributable fractions were calculated from each of the significant risk factors. Neutered status appeared to contribute the most to the prevalence of obesity, followed by prime/mature lifestage (3-10 years of age). Any interpretations of these findings should take into account the multitude of biases inherent in this study. Nevertheless, weight management following neutering appears to be very important to reduce the overall prevalence of overweight/obesity in this population of cats.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate long-term changes in physical activity and sedentary behaviour during weight loss in dogs.METHODS: Sixteen overweight and obese dogs undergoing a 6-month calorie-controlled weight-loss programme wore Actigraph GT3X accelerometers (Actigraph, FL) for three consecutive days each month for the duration of the programme. Total volume of physical activity and time spent in sedentary behaviour, light-moderate intensity physical activity and vigorous intensity physical activity were extracted from the accelerometer data and compared from baseline to month 6. RESULTS: Valid accelerometry data were returned for 14 of 16 dogs. Mean percentage weight loss over 6 months was 15% of initial bodyweight. There was no marked increase in any of the physical activity outcomes or reduction in sedentary behaviour.CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Substantial weight loss was not associated with a spontaneous increase in physical activity or reduction in sedentary behaviour. Although the dogs in this study lost a substantial amount of bodyweight without a measured increase in physical activity, dog owners should still be encouraged to facilitate increased physical activity in their dogs owing to the wide range of benefits associated with physical activity other than weight loss.

OBESITY in companion animals is a well-recognised welfare concern (Ellis 1990, German 2006. Rabbit obesity has been anecdotally associated with several health disorders of rabbits such as myiasis, pododermatitis, pregnancy toxaemia, gastrointestinal stasis and ileus (Harcourt-Brown 2002). There is little peer-reviewed literature describing pet rabbit obesity or identifying potential risk factors for the condition. This study aimed to use a first-opinion clinical database to describe the prevalence of obesity in rabbits and identify demographic risk factors associated with obesity.The data were collected from a national database consisting of 41 primary companion animal practices from a large veterinary group in Great Britain. Data consisted of body condition score (BCS), sex/ neutered status, age, location and country (England, Scotland or Wales) of practice, and date of birth of rabbits presenting at 11 equally spaced time points throughout 2008 and 2010.The rabbits' BCS was rated at each veterinary consultation using a five point scale (1 = Very underweight, 2 = Underweight, 3 = Ideal, 4 = Overweight, 5 = Obese) by the attending veterinarian. Overweight/obese animals were defined as animals with a BCS of 4 or 5 while non-overweight animals were classed as all animals with a BCS of 3 or under. As there are no published guidelines giving age ranges for different life stages, the authors defined age categories, derived from date of birth and consultation dates, as less than eight months -juveniles, eight months to 2.5 years -adults, 2.5 to five years -older adults, and five years and over -geriatric, based on clinical experience.Associations between age, breed, sex, neutered status and being overweight/obese were evaluated using either Fisher's exact or chi-squared tests as appropriate. Odds ratios (OR) and 95 per cent confidence intervals (CI) were also calculated. Statistical significance was defined as P<0.05. Differences in age between neutered and entire categories were assessed using the Mann-Whitney U test. All analyses were carried out in R version 2.10 (R Development Core Team 2009).As exploring the data through multivariable significance testing was not appropriate due to data sparsity, correspondence analysis was used to examine the relationship between variable categories as described by Sourial and others (2010). This analysis used the FactoMineR package (Husson and others 2010).Forty-one practices submitted records on 157 rabbit BCSs. In terms of BCS, nearly three-quarters of the rabbits were ideal (BCS 3) (76.4 per cent, n=120). 7.6 per cent (n=12) were overweight (BCS 4) and none was obese (BCS 5). Five rabbits were classed as very underweight (BCS 1, 3.2%) and 20 rabbits were underweight (BCS 2, 12.7%).One hundred and fifty-two (96.8 per cent) rabbits had records for both age and BCS. Twenty-seven per cent (n=41) were eight months or younger, 41 per cent (n=62) were between eight months and 2.5 years, 21 per cent (n=32) were between 2.5 years and five years and 11.1 per cent (n=17) were five years...