weight loss or gain while boarding

Boarding your pet with us or another facility? ARE YOU CRAZY?!!!! DON'T YOU KNOW WE CAN'T BE TRUSTED?!!!!  

Now, for those of you who are still reading this (anyone out there?), we want to give you the real poop about your pet losing or gaining weight while staying in a boarding facility for a while (how long is "a while"?... or a piece of kitty-string?). Dog weight loss and gain. Cat weight loss and gain. Life.. ain't it grand?

This is a looooong bit of reading... so go get your coffee.

It's very important to distinguish between weight loss due to illness and weight loss due to increased stimulation and activity levels. The latter is very common in a good boarding environment because of the way your dog is being cared for.

It's also important to understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy weight loss. A significant and sudden decrease in weight, perhaps accompanied by weakness, for example, would obviously be unhealthy weight loss. But gradual weight loss which brings your pet down towards a weight which may not match your idea of ideal weight but in fact does get her closer to what vets and other experts think is ideal, can often be a natural result of being in the stimulating and active environment of a boarding facility. And it can be a good thing.

Think about it. What's healthier? Thinner (but not too thin) or chubbier (even if not too chubby)?

So, you leave your pooch with us for two weeks and you come back finding that he's lost weight. Why is that? Were the handlers (you thought you could trust) STARVING YOUR BABY!!!? Did they notice that he's lost weight?! You get upset and angry and think to yourself, "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MY LOVEY-DOVEY!!!? He's never lost weight at home! WHAT HAPPENED!!!?" (Which you say to us very calmly and nicely, of course.   )

So what did happened?

Weeellll... first of all, let's put aside health concerns: If your poochy-woochy had been ill during his stay with us, we would have contacted you long before your return, for sure. So let's assume, for a moment, that your pet is not ill and that we have not been negligent. (Tough to believe, we know.)

Now picture life at your local awesome kennels. At DKC, for example.  

Your dog sleeps much much less (don't worry!) during the day (and even, to some extent, at night too). There is SOOOOOO MUCH going on ALL DAY LONG! Staff and visitors constantly moving around and back and forth... other dogs happily and excitedly bouncing and barking (and barking and BARKING) at every little thing... running around in our yards playing... and OH the smells and the birds and the distractions! It just never ends! And who would want it to?!

With all this going on, this constant sometimes-obvious, sometimes-not-so-obvious excitement, what do you imagine is the state of your poochy-poo's activity levels? That's right ~ pretty high; or at least higher than at home, and much more sustained than at home.

And this, in and of itself, can, and often does, result in weight loss. But a good kind of weight loss. The weight loss that comes from a good kind of activity level, where the smaller amounts of sleep and larger amounts of barking and excitement result in a pretty happy, and also energised, dog. Nice, right?

But if this is the case, and our staff are aware that your dog might lose weight during his stay with us because of all this extra, unusual excitement and activity, why don't we just increase your Rover's daily amount of food so that it matches the increased energy expenditure? Good question! Glad you asked.

And what about cats?

Well, it's also very common for cats to lose weight too when they're out of their usual environment, but in their case it's not because of excitement or stimulation but rather because of stress. Sad but true, cats are homebodies and can be very territorial, so they will in many cases not enjoy the whole experience of being away from their home in the way dogs do. Now, although the stress they feel does not put them at risk, nor does it mean they are miserable, a cat away from home can become sufficiently stressed to cause it to lose weight. What does this mean? It means not eating or drinking much for, usually, the first few days when they join us, and this results, usually, in some weight loss. This said, even after a few days, once they've started to relax and settle in, they still might not eat as much as they do at home, which continues to contribute to the weight loss. Not LOTS of weight loss, understand, but grams ~ small amounts of weight which does not expose them to any kind of health risk (in almost all cases) but enough for us to notice the difference and, indeed, for you to notice the difference too once you come to collect them to take them home (which is when, of course, you freak out at us because WE'VE STARVED YOUR CAT!).

So when does weight loss become a concern? Is it when your dog or cat loses 100 grams, 200 grams, 1kg? Well, as you've by now gathered, the answer is not entirely simple or straightforward (which is why this entirely-too-long article has been written for you, by the way ~ are you still there?).

You see, we worry. We worry that you might not be aware of the whole weight-loss picture and that because of that lack of the whole picture, many of you will automatically consider weight loss in your pet after a boarding stay with us (or any kennels and cattery) as a bad thing, causing in you anxiety and distrust (and yelling and screaming and threats of bad-mouthing us on social media ~ it's ok, we're tough, we can take it). We do understand the anxiety and distrust because even we professionals are inclined to feel this way when it comes to our very own pets (regardless of our knowledge and experience), so we can certainly see how it all can affect you (except that we can't yell and scream at our colleagues, so you're rather lucky, actually, aren't you!   ).

But weight loss is not always a bad thing. When it IS a bad thing, it's not always as bad as we reflexively tend to feel, even if it is not a good thing in our particular pet's case; and often it's actually a good thing because, truth be told, so many pets are actually overweight without their owners realising it. And indeed, even when weight loss IS a bad thing because it's a really bad thing, it's often still a slightly good thing because it acts as an observable clinical symptom which prompts the necessary veterinary care, especially if our pet is regularly monitored and weighed, as any good kennels and cattery should be doing.

A simple example:

Marley, a 2-year-old chocolate Lab comes to board with us and his weight on arrival is considered "ideal". He is extremely active (hyper, as almost all Labs are!), plays a lot, runs a lot and is excited pretty much ALL THE TIME (geeezzz...). AND he eats EVERYTHING!

But... alas... Marley loses weight. 1.5kg in 1 week.

Bummer.

And why?! He's eating. He's happy. He's healthy, damn it!

If we strictly followed the generalised veterinary expert guidance on this, we would have to rush Marley to the vet to get him checked. But in fact we don't do this necessarily ~ certainly not in all cases. Why? Because although we are seeing some weight loss, we are seeing it in the real-time context of a happy, eating, playing, running dog with no signs of stomach upset or anything else adverse at all. We are also seeing... indeed we are encouraging and a part of... a significant increase in Marley's activity levels because he's now in a kennels, surrounded by and playing with other dogs almost constantly ~ and therefore the weight loss. Weight loss caused not by illness but by improving fitness and a whole lot of fun. Context is everything.

This does NOT mean we don't take any action at all ~ of course we do. But we don't get to worrying unless Marley shows signs of actual illness and/or we notice a decrease in his activity levels and appetite. Now don't get us wrong, that doesn't mean that we've never sent a dog or a cat to the vet to be checked because of weight changes. We certainly have and do. All this merely means that based on our experience, and real-time involvement with Marley and all our boarding pets, not all weight loss means "DANGER". Dealing with hundreds of pets every month (sometimes every week) has shown us that there are other factors which contribute to weight loss, and that this is not always something to be concerned about, though awareness IS always important. So what we need to do is first determine some sense of an ideal weight for that particular pet, discover reasons behind any weight loss, and act accordingly... if acting is necessary at all.

So what happens when your dog or cat first comes to board with us?

• Your pet is given the food specified by you or provided by us, depending on your choice; the daily intake is determined by our handlers based on size, breed, age and activity levels... and of course recommended servings from the manufacturer of the pets foods used.
• Toileting sheets (i.e. daily monitoring of food intake and toileting) are started immediately for your pet.
• If your pet is not eating well for a couple of days, our handlers start looking for reasons. Is it excitement, stress or because your pet doesn't like the food, perhaps?
• Once a handler figures out the reason (hopefully we figure out the reason!), we take action. Either reduce the levels of excitement by moving your pooch to a quieter area of our kennels, for example, or perhaps even to one of the offices to reduce the stress levels. Perhaps introduce other types of food (after checking with you first, of course). And any number of other possibilities, a process which can take days of trialling  and error as we whittle down to what appears to be the reason for weight loss, and hopefully coming to sound conclusions about what to do about it, including communicating with you about all we're doing.
• And IF we've had to go through this process with your pet, and after what can be several or many days of working through possibilities, and finally when you come to collect your pet after a stay with us, your pet may well have lost weight... which is when YOU START YELLING AT US! Bummer.

What about weight GAIN?

Most pet owners instinctively feel, somehow, that weight gain is OK, where weight loss is not. Loss means a health issue, gain means happy, robust, eating-well Charlie-Pooch and Frisky-Feline. Well... think again.

Weight gain in small amounts is just as harmless as weight loss in small amounts. But weight gain in significant amounts (how long is a piece of string?) is, and should be, as much a concern as it's counterpart, loss. In fact, weight gain can sometimes be MORE serious than weight loss for all sorts of medical reasons, the most common of which are canine hypothyroidism and Cushing's disease. Thankfully, weight gain can usually be dealt with rather easily... with a little regime of controlled dieting and adherence to RECOMMENDED portions... IF you can "stomach" denying those hungry, gorgeous pet-eyes when you're at dinner.

When pet owners select a boarding facility, their first thoughts are almost always on the way the place looks. How it makes them feel. And there is no doubt at all that this is very important for a number of reasons, on a number of levels. But it's also very important to keep in mind that how a place looks and feels to a human is in most aspects pretty much irrelevant to a pet because a pet's needs and indeed their pleasure and health are affected by things we humans often do not at first consider.

The bottom line, and the most important attribute of a boarding facility when it comes to your pet's wellbeing is... the quality of staff (the handlers) and their level of real animal knowledge, whether you're concerned about weight loss/gain or any other aspect of your pet's health and care.