You know, I've had animals since I was a couple of years old, dogs, fish, birds, rabbits, horses, and cats. And now I've had cats for 24 years, and during those 24 years I've done MANY visits to the animal hospital and also tried out two other small vet clinics ... thus I've been in the waiting room for so many times, seeing and talking to many of the other cats also waiting, then I have friends that also have had many cats ... and out of all this, I haven't seen any obese cat here where I live in Sweden.
The vets can say they are slightly over weighted, but haven't seen any of those really HUGE fat cats I've seen on pictures, youtube videos and on vet dr Lisa's site.
Yet we feed them the same food as over there, commercial dry food with 35-40 % carbs in, and commercial wet food with high carbs in. Isn't that strange? Nor do I think we exercise them more.
But what I have seen though, is obese dogs here. Often belonging to elderly or disabled persons, and I have one little dog where I live who is so fat you can't tell it is a small dog, and his owner is an elderly now knee disabled woman with a walking aid, and she doesn't walk faster than ... well she walks in ultra slow motion, and thus does her little dog do then too!
I've also baby sitted two friends various dogs - one was half mine, we got him as baby and I baby sat him so much so I was a part time parent. He was a larger white shepard, and one day I decided we would walk ca 6.5 miles, but my friend never took him for longer walks than around the house, so after 75 % of the stretch he was so washed out and so tired in his muscles, and I was so surprised over his lousy condition. The other friend's dog was a small dog and we walked the same stretch roughly, ca 6.5 miles. And also after 75 % of the stretch he was totally washed out and couldn't walk one more step at all, so I had to carry him to a bus stop (this was downtown in the city) and get us on the bus for the last stretch back to his house. :lol:
It was the same for him, he never got to go for any longer walks than just around the house.
No wonder why they get obese and in low physical shape.