30 Percent America's Cats & Dogs Overweight; 20% of Pets Obese

Love to Eat| We learned last night that Cleveland zookeepers have trimmed a good 65 pounds each off big boy gorillas Mokolo and Bebac by changing their diet to vegetarian. Next up an exercise program.

We just wrote up Yahoo’s lead story that Rush Limbaugh has called First Lady Michelle Obama obese. Yes, the very rich and influential man with the big girth and four wives, who believes in creationism and rejects nanny gate has inflated Michelle’s healthy meal to fit his own version of barbeque ribs, before calling the First Lady obese.

Welcome to America.

Heck, we might as well let it all hang out, sharing today’s Wall Street Journal report that more than half of America’s pets are overweight obese, 20% of them medically obese or more than 30% overweight. It’s a good story, lots of information.

The main culprit: owners who routinely overfeed pets, don’t exercise them enough and are unaware of the severe, and costly, health problems caused by excess weight. Common woes include diabetes, arthritis, kidney failure, high blood pressure and cancer. Research also suggests that pets fed less over their lifetime can live significantly longer.