I was looking at this poor dog and this poor cat and wonder how people can overfeed their animals to this extent and not be considered criminals?
On a case-by-case basis, I think yes. If the over-feeding is harming the animal (i.e. if being fat is causing the animal pain or distress) then it should count as cruelty.
Shame the rules have to be different for obese children.
I agree that it has to be case by case. My cat is chubby, but it’s because he’s old and he’s fixed. He eats normally, he’s just an old man now.
Why anyone would over fed there pet is lost on me. It so easy to control that sort of thing.
(bolding mine)
Our cat has a certain way of making you feel guilty if you don’t feed her twenty seven times a day.
If an animal is obese but otherwise well-cared-for, no, I don’t think it should be anyone else’s concern. For one thing, we have enough homeless animals in shelters as it is without taking away pets that are well-loved just because their owners are overly indulgent with food.
Besides, I think it is debatable if obese animals suffer in the same clear-cut sense that a starving or beaten animal does. Obese animals might be a lot happier having unrestricted access to goodies than they would be if forced on a restricted feeding schedule, even if they were going to live longer on a diet.
If it weren’t for the severe social stigma on fatness, I think most fat people would be fairly happy with their lot in life. Eating whatever you want can be quite fun and pleasurable, actually. There’s a reason why it’s so very hard to stay on a diet.
I don’t approve of people knowingly letting their animals become obese, of course - in the same way I don’t approve of owners letting their cats roam outdoors unsupervised. In both cases, it’s a clear risk to the animal’s health and likely will shorten its lifespan. But people have different ideas about what will make their animal “happiest”, and as long as it’s not the clearcut cruelty mentioned above, I don’t object to that.
Agreeing with lavenderviolet - as long as the pet is kept where they are loved & cared for, even though it may not be to your standards - BACK OFF and MYOB!
‘Obese’ is defined as ‘harmfully fat’, is it not? Not just ‘unfashionably fat’ or ‘awkwardly fat’ or whatever, but actually, physiologically harmfully fat? Then if the pets ere actually obese, then maybe on a case-by-case basis something might be done.
Well if you’re going to be pedantic about it…
Only if we can have humans put to sleep when they piss where they aren’t supposed to.
Seriously, there can be a lot of reasons an animal is obese. We had 2 cats, both just about the same age, both eating the same quantity of the same food. One of them weighed just about 20 pounds, while the other was the customary 8 pounds. We had the Pork Roast to the vet several times to see if she had a metabolic disorder, and the only conclusion they could come to was that she had remarkable ability to conserve energy. My MIL’s dog is hugely overweight because she has only it to spoil and is too elderly to take it out for exercise.
Who would be in charge of deciding what’s “too fat?” You? Would you have taken away the fat cat and left us with the thin one? How about our dogs, all of normal weight? How about my marvelous but portly husband? Would you take away my MIL’s only constant companion because it is fatter than you think it should be?
Nobody could take any of my animals away from me less’n I was dead, but that’s beside the point. The point is that whenever you try to legislate civility, you end up with that sticky question of **whose **civility you choose.
I think it would be taking government intrusion into our lives way too far. Not to mention a double standard. We can overfeed our kids and start them on the path to very unhealthy lives as people and that’s okay, but let someone have a fat cat and they can’t have him anymore? A bit ridiculous, and would really send the message that animals are more important than people, to me.
Obese children aren’t even removed from their homes. Who gives a shit about a fat pet? :dubious:
As soon as we solve the starving cat problem, let’s be sure to take up the topic of obese cats again.