Sean, welcome back to the webinar vet and it's over to you. Thank you very much, Bruce, and thanks everyone for joining us on this Monday evening. So I must admit, when kind of thinking about what topic to cover next for our sponsored series of webinars at Heals.com, obesity crisis or the pet obesity trend, was one that I was a little bit hesitant to do because There's an absolute wealth of information out there about tackling obesity and practical advice on running weight clinics and how to work out calories for, for different pets and so on.

And I, I kind of Thought about it for a while and thought, how can we do something a little bit different, a little bit more useful maybe, or, or kind of tackle it in a way that it hasn't been done before. I don't want to spend an hour or waste an hour of your time, you know, kind of going over old rope and kind of teaching you things you already know, but I hope to bring a little bit of insight, from Tas.com, who are very much a customer led.

Data-driven company, and we know a lot about dogs and their owners from what our customers tell us and what we ask of them. And so hopefully sharing some unique insights in that respect. And also talking a little bit about where we're getting it right when we talk to pet owners about obesity and their pets and where we're getting it wrong, most importantly, so hopefully we can remedy that.

So Bruce has gone through my history, but one of the reasons that I joined Tails.com from clinical practise. A lot of you may be familiar, but just a very quick introduction to what Tails does.

We, we deliver tailor-made diets to individual dogs based on their needs. Customers tell us about their dogs in an online consultation, and we design an individual diet around that dog's needs and tell the owner exactly how much to. Feed as well to keep them at a healthy weight.

So calories and portion control and feeding the animal to ensure that it lives at its ideal body weight, you know, on an individual basis was something that really attracted me to tails because no other brand is doing that on an individual basis for dogs. And really the reason. That we talk about obesity and the reason that we take so much care on, you know, calculating calories for, for each dog based on their lifestyle and individual needs, is we want to prevent obesity in in dogs and hopefully later this year or early next year when we move into cats as well.

We'll be doing it for cats. But as you all know, this is preaching to the converted. You all know that obesity, does impact both the quality and quantity of life, in, in our pets.

So it's something that we want to talk to owners about and educate owners in a supportive, helpful way, so their animals or the pets will live a longer, happier and healthier life. So what I hope to do basically is, to give you, as I say, some unique insights and some data insights from, from our side. What is the state of play as it, as it stands?

And, share with you some quite interesting papers and references at the end, for the reading that you can go off, you know, after your hour of free CPD if it interests you and, and learn more about it. What I'm not going to do, as I said at the start, I'm not going to go over the same kind of, information again that's out there already and countless articles in vet times, you know, throughout the year on calculating calorie requirements and what the mathematical formula is and how to, you know, run a weight clinic in, in, your clinic. You're probably absolute experts in doing that, but I hope to to cover key communication tools and things on maybe how you can improve what you currently do.

So, I've broken tonight's webinar down into kind of 5 main areas. We'll we'll frame the problem and and as it stands at the moment. And talk a little bit about reframing our thinking and our current approach.

I want to talk to you about the state of the dog nation. So specifically about dogs. What are the stats?

What, what level of obesity crisis are dogs facing in the UK at this point in time? And what do we know as Tails.com, talking to customers about their dogs and having a very large and unique database on on dogs and owner feeding behaviours.

And then owner feeding behaviours obviously play a lot, a large role in, pet obesity. And we want to talk about a little bit about what motivates our clients, what, motivates them as pet owners and understanding that human-animal bond and how it interacts with kind of managing pet health. So we'll talk a little bit about that.

And then a little bit about kind of The current thinking about strategies to address weight control or or pets being overweight or obese in a clinical setting. But talk a little bit, maybe a light criticism about kind of the current thinking around kind of managing client compliance and so on. And then I want to talk at the final stage a little bit.

Bit about the kind of one health viewpoint where, you know, the veterinary profession is charged obviously with animal welfare and animal health, but we do have a role to play in public health as well. And I think there's a sort of an awkward overlap. I think we probably all agree sometimes in talking about obesity and weight issues and kind of managing.

Health when potentially pet owners, you know, might not be managing their own weight or or kind of long term health or nutrition in a very good way as well. And I think we've all had those consults where we feel a little bit sheepish or a little bit embarrassed to really kind of honestly discuss pet weight and obesity. So let's talk a little bit about that at the end.

So reframing our thinking first of all, what is the the the current problem that that we're dealing with? And I'm going to start with a little bit of a curveball, I guess. I've been thinking quite a bit about this in the last few weeks of, you know, what shall I say, and shall I be really, really bold in, in kind of my thinking on it.

But I, I am going to start by saying that it's not pessimistic and it's not defeatist to say that there's a certain number of pet owners that we're just not going to get through to. And I haven't heard that kind of messaging out there with anyone who's talking about nutrition or tackling the obesity crisis, or you know, giving pet owners the right advice for, for their overweight pets. No, nobody's saying that actually there's a certain number of of pet owners and our clients that we're just not going to get through to.

And I think it's actually quite healthy to take a step back and see that and accept that and say, do you know what, pets are going to continue to get more overweight. You know, the puppies that we're seeing, puppies and kittens that we're seeing today may well be overweight and obese, in kind of 2 to 3 years' time. And a certain proportion of them, no matter what we do.

We're unfortunately going to be unable to help. So I think that's realistic rather than being kind of pessimistic or defeatist. And I think it's far healthy for us to start at that point and say, OK, let's identify the pet owners that we can help and help them very well, and let's not stress so much over the ones we can't help.

I get emails all the time or our customer experience department. Emails and I see them from vets and nurses saying, can you help with this client I have and this pet, and I've tried everything and, and, and talking to people at congresses and shows when we exhibit there. And I can see, you know, vets and nurses getting really, really stressed and sometimes even angry because clients aren't listening to what they say and the good advice they're giving is falling on deaf ears.

My first bit of advice is step back and say, Let's not stress about this. There's a certain number of clients that we're just not going to get through to. And yes, that's sad for the pet, but I think it's really important in these times that we take care of ourselves first and our clients and patients second.

The important thing I think to understand and we all do, but I think certainly it's been of benefit to me to step back from clinical practise and engage with our Tales.com customers, which were my veterinary clients in a different way and really have the time and the Privilege to be able to listen to them, what they care about, what their concerns are for their pets that I just didn't get. I just didn't get that level of engagement or ability to listen to their needs and their wants and their desires for their pet that I would have had in a 10 or 15 minute consult in the clinical setting.

And there's countless, kind of studies out there and, and articles written about the human-animal bond and how strong that is and about pet owner, psychology. But one of the most kind of, potent kind of, factors in maintaining that that bond that pet owners have is the feeding relationship. It's in our nature to nurture.

I've said that before in a couple of articles I've written, and it really is true that one of the main reasons that we have pets in the first place is a desire to nurture another living being. And one of the best ways to nurture, one of the most powerful ways that we, we Keep that animal happy and well and maintain that bond is by feeding them and seeing the enjoyment they take in feeding behaviour. So it's a very powerful drive that that pets have over us, you know, or control that pets have over us, that we do worry as pet owners, what they eat, how much they eat.

Are they enjoying their food? If they're not enjoying their food, you know, really, really strong reactions and, and, behaviours around, kind of, feeding motivations, in pet owners. So recognise that that feeding behaviour is a very strong driver of our client's behaviour, and it can lead to us getting frustrated with them.

But step back if you have pets of Your own and put yourself in their shoes and just think about the joy that that your pet experiences when they're eating. That's often the primary focus rather than thinking long term, am I damaging my pet's health by feeding them just that little bit extra or just that one or two little treats, extra on top of kind of the daily calorie allowance. It's very strong driver.

Are we responsible as veterinary professionals for the pet obesity crisis? I would say, in some respects we're responsible because we, maybe are key educators and, you know, part of our remit really is to talk to our clients about the pros and cons of how they manage their pets and, and what impact that can have on their pets' quality of life and their longevity and so on. But one of the phrases that I see quite a lot, especially in some of the, kind of material coming out from, the states in particular, you know, with articles on kind of burnout and compassion fatigue and and looking on veterinary forums, .

People say over and over again, we can't care more than the owners care, because if we care more than the owners care about their animals, eventually that can lead to problems with our own mental health and lead on to kind of burnout and compassion fatigue and all of those things that contribute to, you know, the the state of play in the veterinary community at the moment with regards to mental health and staff retention in in the industry itself. . I would openly admit I talked on my own Instagram last week about my mental health journey and my burnout phase after 6 years really in clinical practise, of kind of being bored clinically in in a GP practise setting and wondering whether to specialise, but also a little bit of compassion fatigue that my heart really wasn't in it after, after 6 years, doing the same thing day in, day out.

And I did experience a little bit of that. So I just wanted to Start the the talk tonight saying be kind to yourself and and don't take on the burden of the clients that are the really frustrating ones that just won't listen or even if they do listen, they don't put into practise your advice. You can only lead a horse to water, you can only do so much.

And I think it's very important to start on that because I don't hear that messaging anywhere else. We, we, we are responsible in a way, but we can't take that responsibility home for every single case that we talk about. I think one of the, really important things to say is that certainly I dug out a lot of articles that I've kept aside over the last kind of year or two on.

Cat and dog obesity and just had a look at some of the messaging in there and a lot of it is, you know, quite, instructional about telling clients this and telling clients that and, you know, making sure they understand something and giving them a plan and, and really talking at them in a way, if I, if I can say a lot of the advice, the kind of tone of it is, is around compliance and I don't really like the, the term compliance when it comes to talking about partnering with pet owners in helping their, their pets, lose weight. I think owner compliance is, is a better term for talking about, you know, finishing their course of antibiotics or sticking to a treatment regimen. But I think there's far more, emotion and there's far more kind of multi-factor.

Issues at play when we talk about managing our pets weight. There's a lot of, you know, kind of owner psychology involved and there's also a bit of an issue with regards to how we speak to them and whether we get them on site or not. And I think the the the other take home message at this point is that we need to partner with them in a very supportive and educational way.

And I think the veterinary profession does have a little bit of a PR and comms problem when it comes to pet owners trusting other messaging they're hearing over, over what their vets or vet nurses are saying in clinic. And so I think we need to learn to speak their language better and and get them on site and hopefully I can give you a few tips on on how to do that. Now moving on to kind of Tails.com insights and and some of the other insights around what is the state of play with pet obesity in the UK right now.

I think we are faced with an obesity crisis and all the, all the statistics that are out there, seem to support that, that that pets are getting more overweight with time year on year, the kind of estimates are going up. So the PFMA, the Pet Food Manufacturing Association, does Survey of vets, and the public, the pet owning public every year. And last year's results, the estimate for dogs, from vets was that 52% of dogs, are overweight or obese according to vets.

Now, the, the problem with that is that there's a massive discrepancy with what pet owners think when it comes to their dogs. 83% of owners don't think their pet is overweight. So there's a massive issue there where, you know, vets who are vets and vet nurses who are clinically trained to look at a dog or cat objectively and measure their, their kind of weight and body condition objectively and scientifically are saying that we're seeing a pet obesity crisis on the rise, but there's very little engagement or knowledge, I guess, of, of that obesity.

Crisis amongst the pet owning public or potentially, and almost certainly for some people a level of denial there as well that maybe they're killing their pet with kindness by by having them overweight or obese. And it's not just dogs either. I think it's important to mention obviously at Tails.com, we currently just feed dogs.

We're moving into cats soon, but it's important to talk about The other species as well. 47% of cats in the same study estimated by vets to be overweight, 32% of rabbits and 12% of birds. So, definitely this, this powerful feeding motivation of pet owners is having a detrimental impact, and it does seem to be getting a little bit worse over time when we compare those studies over the years.

Intels.com itself, we have, we're sitting on a database of, you know, well over 150,000 dogs, at the moment in our database, active or paused state. And looking at the stats of what owners tell us about their pets, it's remarkably similar, 82.7% of our customers tell us that their dog's in ideal body condition.

Going back, 83% of owners in the PFMA study don't think their pet is overweight. So I think our database is pretty representative of the the national kind of dog ownership picture. Only 10% of owners are telling us that their dog is overweight.

Only 1% of owners, quite tellingly, are telling us that their that their dog is obese. And I think, in, within that and we're testing this theory at the moment, this, this, these stats are from late last year. Or early this year, potentially, but we've since changed our language a little bit and how we ask that question.

And I think this illustrates the importance of language. We're seeing an increase in the number of people now telling us that their pet is very overweight because we've changed the language from obese to very overweight, and we've seen people volunteer that information . Much more frequently.

So think about the language we're using. If we're using very clinical or cold language or medical language, and obese as a term is actually sometimes pretty insulting to some pet owners, maybe we need to think about how we talk about pet obesity, without using that language that alienates our clients and, and they clam up and they don't want to engage with us. The perception problem as well.

I think it's important to, to mention that, what, what we see all the time normalises, the condition. So when we're looking at, you know, over half of dogs walking down the street with their owner are overweight or obese, then the general public thinks that that's what dogs are meant to look like, or that's what specific breeds look like in particular. We have a list we can look at what what breeds are most overweight on our database.

Beagles come out top.taffordable terriers are up there, Labradors are up there, pugs are in there as well. But if you talk To most people who are maybe not hugely familiar with dogs or maybe have their first dog, and you know, they're not veterinary professionals.

A lot of them do think that what they see in some of those breeds is normal and for the breed. And when they see an athletic or a very lean or an ideal body condition version of that breed, they actually think that the dog is quite underweight. And I'm sure you're with me on this scenario.

When I was in clinics, I had plenty of owners of Athletic working dogs, gun dogs, and so on, and retrievers and so on that were in absolutely ideal condition. Beautiful athletic looking dogs. And when I would say at the annual checkup, you know, he or she is in really good condition, you're doing everything right, they would thank me and say, oh, because everyone in the park always Tells me that I'm not feeding him enough or that he looks really unwell or even that, you know, they've had quite negative comments about how they're treating their dog because it's in ideal condition.

So there's a real perception problem when overweight condition is normalised and ideal is seen as underfed. We did some, surveys of our own database of, of dog owners, for a PR piece last year as well. And we showed owners side by side these kind of pictures of different breeds and different specimens of of each breed.

And 1 in 5 owners didn't identify the overweight dogs. So we, we went in. To a good bit of detail afterwards on how to body condition score your dog.

This is just a very simplistic kind of graphic to kind of illustrate the point early on in that in that journey. But it's really remarkable how, how many people don't recognise that an overweight pet is sitting in front of them. And then I think, looking at kind of deeper into our database on how owners understand, understand weight and what they tell us.

And this is, perhaps, you know, we have been asked like, is this a weakness of your system at tails.com because you're allowing the owner to tell you what weight and body condition. Their dog is in, but it's the exact same weakness that we face in veterinary clinics where we're asking owners to to kind of give us accurate inputs on diet or accurate input inputs on activity level.

We all know that there's kind of a little bit of economy of truth or or little white lies that owners say to alleviate a little bit of guilt. It or just that they don't know exactly how much they should be feeding their dog. But going back to kind of what they're telling us about about their dogs, tales, the, the owners that are telling us the dogs are in ideal body conditions.

So the middle bar on this graph, 51% of those dogs in the ideal body condition category. Are actually within the breed standard reference range of what that breed of dog should be in terms of weight. Now, obviously there's outliers, there's larger stature dogs and kind of smaller versions of that breed, and there's a little bit of issue with some breeds, like for instancetaffys where owners put down staffy, but as we all know staffies can be a description for a wide variety of phenotype of dogs.

But generally, let's talk about averages. Within, within the ideal category, 51% of those dogs are within the breed standard reference range for for body weight for males and females in that in that breed. 32% of of those dogs listed as ideal are actually heavier than, the, the breed standard says that the breed should be.

And when we look at underweight, I think it's most interesting. We can look at overweight and obese and, and whether they're getting it right there. And to a large extent they are getting it right.

But when we look at the underweight and severely underweight categories, I think that's quite telling on the flip side, that 53% of dogs identified as underweight were actually ideal, and 41%, where an owner told us their dog was severely underweight, they were actually within the ideal range of weights for that breed of dog. So the underweight condition is seen as more of a negative for the for the dog owner than their dog being overweight or obese. So that's quite important to recognise.

And I think we'll talk a little bit about a trick that I had that kind of got People talking and when I was in clinics or in the waiting room, that really try to drive a bit of a cultural change amongst our clientele in our practise, when I was when I was in practise last. So understanding client motivation and how they think and what they currently think is the key to changing some behaviours and changing their thoughts around and their perceptions around their their dog or cat or rabbit or bird being overweight. So, let's talk a little bit about pet owner and psychology.

The first thing to say is one of the biggest reasons pet owners don't know what to feed, or don't know how much to feed, or don't know if they're making the right dietary choice for their dog is pure confusion. Because it is an absolute minefield of information out there with every brand of food clamouring to tell, tell owners what they do is best and that their way is the right way. And there's also all manner of information, a lot of it misinformation and a lot of it quite scaremongering tactics online from certain certain movements or certain theories of how we should be feeding our pets.

You know, and kind of giving out false information or information that isn't backed up by evidence. And, owners are being bombarded with, all of this information and then they're going into, you know, wherever they buy their pet food, whether it's online or whether it's walking into, you know, a pet store and, and looking at the vast array of pet foods that are on offer. And it's information overload, which is Which means that they're very, very confused about what they should be choosing.

And then when you get to the issue of how much they should be feeding their dog, you know, the pet food industry is bombarding them with saying you should be giving these treats and you should be giving this food and you should be feeding dry and wet and treats and puzzle toys and all the rest and, you know, they're they're bombarded with so much information that it gets, it gets quite confusing and they don't know what to do or how much to feed. And then pet food labelling is not the clearest. This is something I pulled off.

I'm just petmd.com, great website to refer your clients to for evidence-based and well-written articles on every healthcare issue they might have questions about if you don't have time to explain or you don't have a handout to give them. It's a very good, good website to refer them to.

But this is just an example, from an American kind of brand of the type of information, the type of table or diagram that we're giving to owners and expecting them to work out exactly how much to feed. And unfortunately, on a lot of this, this one isn't such a a kind of bad example, but on a lot of these feeding guides or food labels, they're giving a range of kind of grammes or calories or scoop. Measurements or cup measurements, and the owner is left to try and work out exactly where their dog fits or where their cat fits, and how much to give within that range that they're given.

So there's a massive grey area there of exactly how much they should be feeding, and eventually they just end up feeding by eye and and we know what happens when when owners feed by eye. It's often they overestimate actually how much their their pet needs. Especially when it comes to dry food, it can look like a very small amount.

We've all, you know, subconsciously or or kind of, invisibly rolled their eyes hopefully in front of a client, kind of in our own minds when we say, you know, your pet is a little bit overweight and could do it losing a couple of kilos, and the first thing they come out with is, oh, but I only feed him a tiny amount. We've all heard that and we get it every day in clinics. And again, let's let's not roll our eyes and let's not sigh and get stressed and say, oh, you know, This owner just doesn't get it and lose our patience.

But let's understand that actually dry food, dry kibble in particular, is a very concentrated source of calories and it's a very small amount. And we anthropomorphize or we humanise our pets and we think of them in our terms, and what looks like a very tiny, tiny portion to us can actually be OK for our dog or a cat that is much smaller than us. So try and understand the confusion that that owners are facing and try and Understand that actually, you know, it's a genuine concern that they're not feeding their animal enough.

They don't want to starve their dog. They don't want their dog or cat to be hungry and asking for food. And unfortunately, you know, our, our pets are instinctively designed to to ask for more food because it's in their nature to not know where food is coming from next and they enjoy it, so they ask for more, and owners perceive that as hunger.

So, just recognising that those labels are very, very difficult to interpret and if you're handing out a bag of food, do take the time if you can to help the owner understand exactly how much you would like their dog or cat to eat. And then I think the other thing that's missing from some of these labels is they can be quite simplistic. This one in particular just breaks down dogs into toys, small, medium, and large.

And tells you if your dog's this weight and it's this category of dog, feed them this amount, which is quite exact. But that doesn't take into account all the other variables that factor in to designing and tailoring the calorie level to the individual dog. So, it is a little bit, a little bit open to interpretation there and can definitely get it wrong.

You could overfeed or you could underfeed a dog just by using this guide according to the the label. One of the things that we did, at Tails.com and we realised very early on that would be, kind of a, a unique feature and an integral part of our offering as a brand is that we want to serve, food that the dog really enjoys, with the exact right nutrition for them, unique nutrition for, for every dog according to their needs, but also getting the portions right.

Taking the guesswork. Out of portion control and not expecting the owner to decide exactly how many grammes or how many calories or what exact copper scoop setting they needed. So our algorithm that we've designed with our entire kind of food range will calculate based on that dog's unique recipe, exactly how much of that recipe will provide the dog's daily calorie allowance.

And we, our scoop settings are unique scoop that we've designed to get those portions correct, we'll get it right to within kind of 10 or 15 calories of the daily calorie allowance most of the time. So, really, really unique way of taking the guesswork out of portion control and taking that hassle away from owners of trying to figure out based on their dog's breed and life stage and activity level and current body weight and condition score, and how much they should be feeding. And, there's some interesting studies I've included at the end.

Obviously can't get through all the insights from all of them, but have a look, at the end and, do, do explore some of the ones of interest. But this one, by Edinburgh, it. Talked about a lack of knowledge and control or perceived control, were the biggest drivers of pet obesity.

So first of all, just not knowing how much to feed, but also not having that exact control over how much they're feeding. Maybe there's, you know, multiple people in the household feeding the pet. Maybe there's children in the household that are Dropping food on the floor, maybe the dog is being looked after by kind of different people or given treats and tidbits by other carers that the owner doesn't know about.

But those are the two biggest drivers of of pet obesity that leads to that confusion. And if there's lack of control and lack of knowledge over time, then there does become a degree of complacency and And kind of hopelessness that, oh, I'm never going to get this. He's been overweight for 2 years now and the vet keeps telling me off for it, but I'm just not going to engage anymore.

So that's the kind of thing that we want to try and in an educational and supportive way, rewind the clock back and develop a partnership that allows vet or pet owners to engage again with weight control. Treats, the big, the big kind of, elephant in the room, especially when we're talking about weight, we ask, you know, what other foods do you feed your dog? No, nothing.

He just has, or she just has, you know, a tiny amount of, dry and wet food in the morning and then I give her half a cup of dry food. In the evening. And, interesting time to mention, you know, a cup is not a cup is not a cup.

So one owner's cup is very different to another owner's cup. So try if we're talking about cups and things to get the owners to measure out in grammes how much they're feeding and, and work backwards from that. But the real, the real thing we want to get out of owners, is what else they're feeding, because there's a natural tendency to clam up in the stressful environment of the waiting room and then coming into the consult room and being quizzed about their pet's weight.

You know, it might be their first visit to the vet. In a year for an annual booster and health check, and they're being bombarded with information and maybe they've got 6 or 7 questions they want to ask in the back of their mind. And when we say, what else do you feed, the natural human response is to say, no, nothing, I just feed him his, his diet and I don't understand why he's overweight.

But if we're clever and if we're empathetic and if we're kind of well versed in how to talk to owners and and Level with them that, you know, I feed my dog, you know, an odd bit of toast or a biscuit or I probably have given him, you know, a couple of too many gravy bones himself, myself, and he needs to lose 1 kg. If we empathise with pet owners that we understand that it's difficult not to feed a treat or not to give in to those begging eyes or, you know, spaniel, that spaniel look that we see in. That picture.

And if we empathise with them, they're far more likely to be honest about treats. We've all had the situation where, you know, the husband comes in with the dog one week and the wife comes in with the dog, a couple of weeks later and they have different stories or vice versa, or, you know, both of them come in together and one of them rats the other one out about how much they're they're feeding the dog or whether the dog is getting, you know, a biscuit with lenses every day, every morning and so on. We've all had those things.

And I think if we lose the kind of authoritarian kind of viewpoint or or tone of voice and chastising owners about their pet's weight and level with them and have a little bit of humour about, you know, we all, we all do things we shouldn't do as pet owners and you know, I'm guilty of feeding my, my pet a couple of extra treats here and there, and he could do it losing a little bit of weight. Even if that's not the case, that's a little white lie that can actually get an owner to open up and be honest and then we can factor those treats into the feeding plan or the weight. Loss programme that we're going to design for their pet.

The same PR piece we did, the survey we did some time ago on pet owners and pet weight said that 13% of dog owners would lie to their vet about their dog's feeding behaviours. I'm pretty sure you're all in agreement with me that that should say 13% of dog owners admit they would lie to their vet about their dog's feeding behaviours, because I, I think based on my experience, it's it's a lot higher than 13%. But again, let's understand that that is just human nature and there's a level of guilt there and it's not nice to, to come into a vet clinic and be told your pet's overweight and he's going to get arthritis early and this is going to limit his life span and all this negative messaging that we're quite used to being told is the right way to, to, kind of.

Instil in our clients, the gravity or the seriousness of their pet being overweight or obese actually can be detrimental to the vet or vet nurse and client bond and, and really getting them to engage with us. So let's try and understand that honesty conundrum is, is something that we can work through. What about exercise?

So, again, just like, you know, how many treats do you feed or how much do you really feed or what is half the cup, or do you, do you do it by eye, or do you measure it out. We get these little, little tiny kind of white lies or I'm trying to put, put the best foot forward. And we're being quizzed as a pet owner, by saying we're a responsible pet owner and honestly, we're doing everything OK and we just are scratching our head as to why our pet is still overweight.

The same kind of behaviour comes through when we start quizzing pet owners about the amount of exercise their pet is getting. And, you know, in this day and age, it's very difficult. We all live busy lives, and one of the biggest guilt factors for pets is, you know, how much, mental stimulation their their dog or cat is getting at home, especially dogs, and definitely with dogs, how much physical exercise they're they're they're investing or spending, doing with their dog, kind of bringing them out for for daily exercise.

A lot of dogs, as you'll all know, you know, are only getting out for a quick walk kind of once or twice a day, and that that could be just, you know, a 10 or 20 minute walk around the block for a kind of toilet break at a time that's convenient for the owner. And I think it's really important that we take a little bit more time to understand what the owner means by 20 minutes twice a day, because one person's 20 minute kind of stroke. Can be another person's, you know, high impact kind of jog around the park.

So just how much exercise does your dog get? Oh, about 20 minutes in the morning and about half an hour in the evening after work. That doesn't give us the full picture that we need to really do justice to a bespoke feeding plan or weight loss programme, because we have to take into account that the activity level does impact how many calories those those pets need.

So take a little bit of time not to skim over that exercise question and really understand both the duration and the intensity of the exercise. We did a lot of work in the early days, testing different phrasing and different ways of asking the question, how much exercise does your dog get, also with the body condition scoring question on our online consultation. How, how would you rate your dog's body condition, giving them different ways of, of, you know, instructing them to get hands on and, giving different types of descriptions and testing, how what kind of, output we got in terms of kind of honest answers and how those dogs.

Fared in terms of weight loss. So we're always testing and learning at tails.com exactly what language is good and and how dog owners respond to language and and turn a phrase.

So hopefully, we can share some of that to help, get the right outputs from them when you're designing a weight loss programme. The next thing then to say about exercise is, it is important to say, exercise is one part of the picture, but the main thing, it's been shown in a number of studies, the, the main driver of a controlled weight loss plan will be dietary restrictions. So calorie restriction is shown to be a more potent driver of, of controlled weight loss than exercise.

But that's not to say that exercise isn't an important part of the of the picture. This was a quite a recent study. I think it was from this year.

It's referenced in the in the back on the last slides. But it was quite an interesting study because they looked at kind of a controlled randomised trial comparing just dietary restriction alone, against physical activity. And what they found was that dietary restriction was far more effective than physical exercise in reducing body.

The weight, but the body composition change occurred with both approaches. So they were measuring the circumference of kind of the neck and the thorax and the abdomen and so on. And they saw that there was, there was kind of remarkable body composition changes with physical exercise as well.

So it may be redistribution of of kind of fat and muscle and so on, that doesn't affect the weight number. So make sure when you're designing this programme and when you're talking to Petto. Owners about weight that you don't just put the dog or cat on the scales and say that's the absolute kind of figure we're going to go with as your measure of success.

Talk to them about getting hands on and looking at body composition and body condition scoring and giving them that tool. It's an amazing tool when we empower owners to use body condition scoring themselves and to recognise the signs that their pet is doing well and and going. In the right direction, because let's remember they're, they're seeing their pet every day at home and you're seeing them maybe if they're on a weight management programme once every couple of weeks or once a month or so on.

And so you'll really see the difference, but actually giving them the body condition scoring technique and walking them through that gives them the ability to really feel that their pet is going in the right direction. That's a powerful driver and motivator to continue on the programme you've devised for them. I think at this point it's quite useful to acknowledge as well the the dread that a lot of our clients unfortunately have with visiting the vet clinic.

We'd all love to think that it was, you know, a pet owner's favourite place to come and that we were offering them such a fantastic service that they were all coming, skipping in the door very happy all. The time, but we know that it's a scary place for pets, and actually it's a scary place or a daunting place for pet owners as well. So there was a recent survey done a study done by an insurance company about pet owner guilt.

You might have seen it. It was released in March, I think this year. And 1 in 4 dog owners, your clients, felt judged when they come to visit the vet, which is not a nice statistic to hear that 25% of our clients feel like we're judging them in a very negative way.

And I'm sure some of you are having a little chuckle and saying, yeah, damn right, we're judging them. And that's fine, but I think, if we're going to get places and if we're going to effect positive change, we can judge silently if we want to, but I don't think we should be, OK with the fact that the clients are perceiving that we're judging them in a very negative way. And do have a look at that link.

It's quite interesting. It's quite a long kind of list of results and and quite interesting graphics on there on on different stats that they found. But it, it varies between kind of age of pet owners and we're seeing different demographics now, of pet owners.

The main ones in the UK are the kind of empty nesters or kind of. Baby boomers that, you know, the kids have grown up and left and they're a very different demographic in terms of their attitudes and their perception of, of kind of managing their pets and and how they engage with us than the younger generations who are maybe having their first pet before they get married, before they have kids of their own, and so on. So it's a very interesting study and If you want to go and have a look at it, but just to say and acknowledge that dog owners in particular, really fear the question about exercise and they also talk in that study about the weight issue as well.

We don't want to come across like the enemy, we don't want to come across like, you know, the finger wagging, kind of, disciplinarian, because I think that does decrease engagement and is likely to frustrate us all the more when we, we, get frustrated that, you know, we're not getting the right results or this owner isn't engaging with my weight control programme or I've seen this dog for the last 7 years and all it's done is crept up in weight. Let's think about, you know, the control we have, let's think about the responsibility we have, and let's think about what the owners are feeling so that we can engage them better. One of the messages that's kind of Put out there all the time when it comes to giving advice on tackling pet obesity is try and instil in owners the kind of the serious nature of, of what will happen if your pet is overweight or obese.

And you know, life span is affected. Your dog or your cat is likely to live a shorter life if you're overfeeding them and if their, their body condition score is higher than, you know, 6 out of 9. That's quite scary for a pet owner to hear.

But I think it does more harm than good sometimes. Pointing out a list of complications that may happen and talking about how your pet is going to suffer or be in pain because of something you've done or are doing every day. Sure, far away, I would think to turn pet owners off and say, I don't really don't like my vet, or I really don't like my vet nurse, or I really don't like that vet nurse, and I don't want to see him or her again, you know, next time I come in.

So, thinking about that and giving people, you know, very clinical language and, it's, it's quite, it's quite normal for us. I think we forget that, you know, we in, in veterinary practise are talking about these things all the time and they become very normal to us in saying, you know, oh, that dog's mobility is going to be awful when he's older because, you know, he's he's grossly overweight and I'm sure we're going to have to put him down because, you know, this isn't helping his spinal disease, and we talk to each other in that kind of language. But one of the big things I've learned from moving from clinical practise into industry and writing content, especially with our copywriters on, you know, to a pet owner audience is.

Toning down this clinical language that's very normal for us and thinking about the impact it has on our clients is really, really important. So I think the, the advice of throwing the longevity argument and saying, you know, your dog's not going to live very long or your dog's lifespan is going to be limited by, you know, several years if you don't get this under control now. Saying your dog's going to suffer, your cat's going to suffer with this, or your cat's going to get diabetes.

Actually, that's a very negative way to approach it. And I think it's very, very well illustrated by my colleague who's moved on now, a wonderful colleague that I had called Dom and her dog Bailey, that you saw at the start when we talked about the, the kind of it's in our nature to nurture. Psychology of the human-animal bond.

Dom said something, very, kind of, thought provoking very early on when she started her tails. When we were saying about, kind of the impact of being overweight and the impact on, longevity and so on. And kind of talking quite clinically about nutrition and the benefits of a tailor-made diet, she said, I don't want to think about Bailey dying.

I never want a brand of pet food to say to me that my dog's going to die. I don't want my vet to tell me my dog's going to die. I want a brand of pet food or my vet to tell me that if I do something, if I make an effort.

To, action something or change my management of my pet that's costing me time or money or effort or, you know, stubbornness in changing my ways. I want to think of the positives. I want that framed very positively.

And she said, I want to have the image of Bailey being there at my daughter's graduation, not to focus on How and when he's going to die, or what his later years are going to be like, that he's going to be in pain or suffer. So I think flipping, try it in the next few conversations you have of reframing how you have the discussion about what the impact of obesity is on an on an owner's pet, but also what the impact of their positive change might be. So really turning a negative message into a positive message may actually be a kind of a light bulb moment.

So try it with your next 5 clients that you want to have a talk about changing their feeding behaviours for their pet, framing it and positively what the impact could be if they change their habits. The little white lies we've talked about already, you know, owners, do have a tendency, and we're not immune to this, you know, we're, we're pet owners too. We have a tendency to play up the amount of exercise we we allow or give our pet actively and play down the amount of food or treats.

So we've all had, as I say, the situation where we, we know a client is probably being a little bit dishonest to us. Acknowledge it and and maybe try and get on side by laughing about it and say, really, do you honestly not give him, you know, A little bit of leftovers or, you know, what's in your treats cupboard at home? And how often do you give them?

Do you occasionally give in to the the puppy dog eyes, smile when you're saying this, you know, it, it's kind of communication 101, and I apologise if it's it's so basic that some of you are going. Why are you telling us this? It's common sense, but it's remarkable and sometimes to observe kind of the conversations we're having, and we're almost rolling off a script that we talk, you know, that we say 30 times a week, and we forget to really smile and engage with the the client in front of us and say, does he really not get like a bit of toast in the morning or are you sure, you know, you're not buying kind of an extra packet of gravy bones this month, you know, that have gone, gone AWOL.

Make a little bit of humour about it and then the owner will, will, kind of lose that defensive barrier that they're being judged and that you're, kind of telling them off. I think we need to definitely get away from that vibe when an owner comes in the door. So strategy advice, I know we're running fairly short on time.

I'm not going to get into, you know, how to calculate a dog's calorie requirement or a cat's calorie requirement. I'm going to talk a little bit about compliance. You guys are managing weight and probably devising weight, weight loss programmes in clinic.

This is Amy, our vet nurse, that works in, in Tails HQ with us. She previously worked for PDSA and did a lot of engagement around pet obesity. This is, Jumbo Jack, I think he was called, one slimmer of the year, I think.

For PDSA, but all of the things we're doing with calorie calculations, make sure we're not making the mistake of the pet food label and saying, oh, your dog's medium size and he's this weight, so he needs this many calories. It's far more technical than that. There's far more variables involved.

So body condition score and and current weight, activity level drill down into what type and what intensity and duration of activity. Nering status, you know, you may. Reduce the calorie allowance slightly by 5 or 10% depending on neuting status, life stage.

Is the owner using a scoop or are they weighing the food? Are they honestly counting treats and tidbits and so on. But just recognise that talking calories and kilocalories and all this kind of stuff is really off-putting or confusing to many owners.

So think differently about how we talk about portions. And also verbal communication gets lost. I I can't remember the statistic, but they did a study in, I think, human medicine about how much of the information was retained after a consultation with a GP.

I believe there's probably stats out there on the kind of consultation with vets as well, how much verbal communication is remembered and it's not that much at all. It's somewhere I think between 10 and 30% if I remember correctly. So information retention is really important.

So write things down. If you don't have kind of fact sheets or or that. Kind of weight programme sheets written up.

It's a good task to tackle tomorrow. Get things written down so the owners can take things away and mull them over. And that kind of comes into the next point I'm going to make about compliance.

I said at the start, I don't really like the term compliance when we talk about partnering with pet owners on getting their animals to lose weight, because it, it kind of says that we're being authoritarian and we're telling owners what to do. And I think that doesn't work. So, look up.

The stages of change model. If we have a weight or body condition score poster in the waiting room and, and owners are looking at that, that's the pre-contemplation stage where it might just trigger something in them that says, yeah, I really should, you know, work on, on getting fluffy back down to a healthy weight because she's been gaining over the last couple of years. Contemplation might come when, when, you know, you have that first chat with them and they say, yeah, you know, it mightn't be such a bad idea, but then maybe they go away and don't do anything about it.

But moving them through the, the stages of change and supporting them at every step is a really important, a really good helpful model for you to say, and for your practise team to say, what stage is this owner at in terms of their commitment to their pet losing weight. So I think doing a little bit of training in the stages of change model is a really good way to start on training the whole team to be consistent in their messaging and recognising those stages and, and, and kind of tailoring their message according to where each client and pet is. And moving on from stages of change.

Change talk is another thing that, very interesting to look up as a, a kind of a model or a theory and how we communicate. Change talk, asks, it motivates clients by asking them about how they're going to change. Change their behaviour or would they like to change their behaviour.

So, first of all, asking them open-ended questions to share with us what they, what they think about whether they want to change a certain behaviour, whether they want to change their pet's weight. Instead of talking at them, asking them questions and asking them about their desire, their ability, their reasons for wanting that change, or their need to change any unhealthy behaviour they might have. And the mnemonic that we use is darn cat.

So desire, ability, reason, and need to change is something that you want to ask for owners when they're in the contemplation stage of of making a change. And, and when they're in the action stage when they maybe they've committed. Commitment to change comes when you've, you've, said, right, let's get you on a programme and let's see you back in a month.

And let's activate something by writing it down and giving them a programme and, and having them take steps to book in at reception for a monthly weigh in and so on. So the darn cats and mnemonic is one to think about and and read up a little bit more on change talk. The, the trick that I talked about earlier, that I said that I often used in, in my last clinic and, and try to kind of, encourage everyone to use was to celebrate, and normalise more what the healthy animals look like in our clinic.

And I would often make a point of doing it outside the consult door when I had that experience where I told an owner, you know what, your pet looks great. They're in beautiful condition, and the owner was quite surprised that I said that because they'd heard negative comments from other pet owners. I would kind of make a point of walking them to the desk and saying, Absolutely spot on with his weight and his condition.

He, you know, he's absolutely ideal. He doesn't need to lose or gain any weight. Try and keep him at that, and he's going to live like a great, healthy and long life.

Hopefully it really does make a difference. And just that instilling that culture and that messaging that's often heard and often celebrated within your practise can lead to other clients coming and actively asking for help to do do the same with their own pet. It's important to say that we need to start that from day one with puppies and kittens.

You know, there's no point, or not, there is a point, obviously, but it's actually far more difficult if we start raising those questions at the point where the pet is already overweight or obese. So teaching a new puppy or kitten or maybe on their 2nd visit or 3rd visit when they're not overloaded with that. Vaccination and worming and and neutering talk and all the rest.

And when they're a little bit more settled in and they're on their kind of 2nd or 3rd or 4th visit to the vet clinic, talking to them then and getting hands on and showing them how to body condition their pet in the growing phase and how to recognise that they might be getting a little bit overweight because with some of these pets, we're not. Going to see them back until the next booster in a year's time or neutering or spaying, whichever comes first. So really making way to priority early on in the pet owner journey and holding their hand and being educational and supportive from the start will really stand to you in the future because it's harder to reverse the changes once they've already happened.

It's quite a good tool to to get out there and to share with your clients as well by the Pet Food Manufacturing Association, the, the hands-on poster in terms of empowering pet owners that they're in control of these things that factor into kind of a healthy weight for their pet. And I think it's very important as well to say that we need to recognise and support any comorbidities that a pet might have that act as barriers to weight loss. So the classic example is in older pets where their mobility is reduced due to osteoarthritis, for example, and they just can't do the level of exercise.

And maybe one of the most joyful moments in their day is when they get up and walk across the room and wag their tail. And ask for food. So, you know, on an individual case by case basis, try and identify and ask the owner.

I asked Amy, our vet nurse early on, what's your, your top tip in terms of getting clients engaged with weight loss? And she said, ask the owner what their interpretation is, what they want from their pet or what they want from the situation. You know, in terms of their pet's weight and health.

And often if you just ask, what would you like to change in your pet's life at the moment, and leave that as an open question, they'll volunteer some information that allows you to empathise, allows you to get that nugget and say, OK, well that's interesting you say that you'd like his mobility to be better, or that you'd like him to enjoy his food more. You can latch on to that one little thing and solve that one problem for them. That's a really, really positive, kind of bonding experience to, to, your practise and you as an individual that's helping them.

So moving on quickly because we're running out of time to the one health, kind of viewpoint, you know, vets are charged with animal health, but we're also kind of influential in public health as well. And I talked at the start about The inevitable awkward conversations we have, where I think we've all had difficulty or felt a little bit embarrassed talking about pet weight and obesity with overweight clients. I'm sure you've all been in that scenario and it can be difficult.

But looking at kind of the one health approach and looking at kind of weight management advice and and measures for tackling obesity in the human population. And it's been proven over and over again that if we just do clinical measurements and measures of success based on kind of quite clinical indicators and labelling people obese and and talking to them like they've created their own problem, it's proven to be demotivating and off-putting and actually counterproductive in, in engaging them in kind of healthier behaviours. Pet obesity is actually quite an interesting model for human obesity, and there's quite a few, papers I've included at the end, which talk about the parallels between kind of infant and child obesity and pet obesity because pets and humans are sharing the same domestic environment, and they're often, kind of, sharing the same kind of lifestyle factors and, and feeding behaviours as well.

. But it's, it's in our interests, like as kind of guardians of public health in a way as well to effectively communicate the benefits of physical health both for pets and for people in preventing kind of health problems associated with obesity and obesity itself. The World Small Animal Veterinary Association, talks about the vital signs that we should be measuring and recording when we're taking a health history, from our pets. They talked about the 5th, vital sign, is a nutritional assess.

A couple of years ago when they, when they talked about the vital signs, but they also talk about physical activity being captured as a vital sign in, in taking a good and thorough health history in people and pets. So I think just any clinical exam, it's hard to do a full nutritional assessment, but we should be asking, especially in kind of orthopaedic or lameness cases, and what the physical activity level is. And I think it's something that's easily forgotten.

I would put my hands up to that as well. The effect of language I've talked about a little bit, and that's quite a good paper that talks about, allowing people, and allowing pet owners and pets to be overweight and, and trying to get at the, the, The other health issues they can control besides weight without turning them off by by banging on about weight. So I'm talking about kind of health at every size is a newer kind of take on how to tackle the obesity crisis in the human field.

It's not allowing or Ignoring the fact that a pet or person is is clinically overweight or obese, but it's allowing them to be and trying to go and say, but how else could we tackle the health issues that you're experiencing alongside the weight issue that we'll also tackle too. So separating out those things and allowing, you know, recognising them that the overweight is one issue, but there could be other issues that we can tackle quicker. Early behaviours, again, I talked about infants and children and how those kind of household and socioeconomic factors and, and kind of types of owners and how they feed or how they view feeding their pet can be significant indicators of future obesity as well.

So learning to recognise patterns in pet owners and tailor our messaging accordingly is is quite a good skill to develop. And then really recognising the complexity of Marge Chandler and some colleagues came out with this really interesting paper, listing all of the different factors that that feed into kind of human and pet obesity. It's not just the case, as was once thought, or as we, in our more cynical moments kind of say, look, you're just feeding your dog, your dog or cat too much or you're just not exercising enough, and it's calories in, calories out.

Actually, that's quite simplistic. Overarching the calories in calories out. Asian is very, very important, but there's a lot of other factors there.

And there's even breed factors that I didn't go into, you know, with Labradors in particular. We talked about the Palm C gene that regulates hunger and it's it's defective in a certain number of Labradors. So recognising that sometimes the owner will actually be scratching their head and saying, I have no idea why my dog is not losing weight, and they're actually genuine.

So don't doubt everyone and recognise that each animal and each owner is in a different scenario. So, long list of references and further reading. I apologise we can't, don't have more time because it's an absolutely fascinating subject, and I've included lots of recent, papers there that are, coming out with very new and interesting insights.

On kind of weight and obesity in pets and how it overlaps with the kind of one health approach. So, I'll take some questions if we've got a few minutes. I know I've kind of run up to time, Bruce.

No, Sean, don't worry. That was absolutely fascinating and it's really nice to hear these slight changes and tweaks to To the old, as you say, banging on the drum messages of, you know, just gotta keep going. Well, it's not working, is it, if the if the stats are going up.

So I think we need a new approach. Yeah, absolutely. And I think something else that's also important, you know, when you, when you're talking to clients and that sort of thing is To remember that they're not always gonna tell you or think about all the extra stuff like the, the treats and and how much the dog is fed when the dog training and everything else.

Yeah, yeah, I think illustrate like telling them that, you know, everything counts. So do you use training treats like asking them the common questions that they might have overlooked because it's it's easy to forget in the the kind of panic of a vet consultation for 10 minutes and trying to cover a lot of ground. So yeah, good point.

Yeah. It's, it's interesting you, you mentioned right near the beginning that there's, there's problems with trust issues and that sort of thing. And it's, it is quite hard sometimes to, you know, politely tell somebody that, you know, you are the one with the veterinary degree and you do have more insight than, you know, the neighbour or missus.

Or the the guy off Facebook. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

And it's it's coming through in some of the questions, you know, it's a, it's an issue and and how do you deal with that? It's, it's very hard. And I think you've you've covered a lot of it of, you know, be empathetic and and let them know that you also give your dog.

You know, some extra treats and tidbits and that sort of thing. Yeah, I think it kind of, I think a human story like is very important to to kind of take the clinical hat off. It's kind of a tool that's used often and and kind of communicating is, you know, making it about a specific case you've seen last week or last month and and saying Do you know what we could do?

I had this really a dog that was very similar to Betsy last month in, and she's actually lost 3 kg doing this. So putting, giving a bit of a picture, you know, in, in an owner's mind of another client very like her or him that has a dog, very like, you know, their own, that actually succeeded too, and just putting that picture in their mind and saying, look, this, this advice that I'm giving you. Actually works.

I've got an example, you know, or having your, you know, pet slimmer of the month up in the waiting room for all to see and normalising what a healthy dog looks like or showing the success stories, not, you know, we should be celebrating the success stories and having it embedded in the culture of the practise that, you know, this is not an impossible task and we're here to help you and we're the experts in it. Look at our proof. You know, yeah, and changing that mindset, you know, when clients come in and you look at the dog and you think, oh my heavens, that is so overweight and you say to the clients, you know, fluffy's got a bit of a weight problem and they go, nah, really?

Do you think so? And you, you know, it, it's their perception. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, fabulous, fabulous. Sean, thank you so much for your time this evening as always. And I promised at the beginning of the webinar a fantastic webinar.

And again, you haven't let us down. There are loads of comments coming through saying how fabulous it was and how insightful and thanking you. Great.

Do we have time to answer any of the questions or should we call themes that have come through and you have covered most of the, the the questions already by the approach that you're taking to getting the owner on sides instead of, you know, chastising them as it were. Yeah, yeah, I think it's really important, yeah. Yeah, perfect.

Folks, that's it for tonight. Thank you for attending and once again to Sean from Tails.com.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to having you back again in the future, and having you on as a more regular slot I think we should have. Alright, great. Thanks everyone.

Thanks, Sean and good night to everybody.