Dog Owners' Perceptions of Canine Body Composition and Effect of Standardized Education for Dog Owners on Body Condition Assessment of Their Own Dogs

Abstract

Overweight in dogs is an increasing problem, with a prevalence of about 30% in Sweden. To prevent the negative health effects of overweight, it is important to identify and treat canine overweight. Dog owners are essential for such interventions. The aim of this study was to evaluate dog owners' perceptions of various canine body compositions via indirect assessment based on photos and direct assessment of their own dogs. A second aim was to evaluate the effect of a standardized practical education for dog owners on body condition score (BCS) assessment of their own dogs. The 9-point BCS scale was used, and two study samples were recruited: one was a survey sample where 564 dog owners assessed the BCS of dogs using photos, and one sample was a separate clinical sample where 82 dogs were assessed by their owners and by veterinary health care personnel. The initial BCS assessment by the dog owners in the clinical sample (mean ± SD) was significantly lower (4.6 ± 1.0) than the BCS assessed by the veterinary health care personnel (5.2 ± 1.1), but the owners improved significantly after receiving the standardized education (5.1 ± 1.0) (both p < 0.0001) and performed as accurately as the veterinary health care personnel (p = 0.99). The results should be verified in the broader dog owner population based on a randomized selection of participants. "Weight blindness", defined here as an underassessment of normal-weight dogs and an inability to identify overweight dogs, is likely to have a negative impact on canine overweight prevalence. Deeper knowledge about dog owners' perceptions can inform the development of new strategies to help prevent and manage canine overweight, whereof standardized practical education on BCS assessment is shown here to be one example.

Keywords: BCS; body composition; body condition score; dog; obesity; overweight; perception.

Figure 1

Pie chart presenting the proportions of negative consequences for overweight dogs stated by dog owners. The respondents were able to submit more than one answer to an open-ended question, and a total of 1061 answers were recorded from the 564 survey respondents. The recorded negative consequences were grouped into nine categories, as shown in the figure, and the proportions in percentage were calculated from the total sum of 1061 answers.

Figure 2

Descriptive statistics of owner perceptions in the indirect assessment based on photos. The results are divided into underassessment, equivalent assessment, and overassessment compared to the exact BCSs set by the primary investigator in the “in vivo” assessment of the same dogs, shown per body condition score (BCS = 5–8). Owner assessment of normal-weight dog (BCS = 5), slightly overweight dog (BCS = 6), overweight dog (BCS = 7), and obese dog (BCS = 8) are represented by different patterns of the bar charts, and data are shown in proportions (percentages) for each BCS category. The dog owners’ accuracy in the indirect assessment based on photos depends on the BCS of the assessed dog (Chi-square test for trend, p < 0.0001).

Figure 3

Dog owners’ body condition assessment (time points 1 and 2 on the x-axis) and BCS assessment by veterinary health care personnel (time point 3 on the x-axis) performed on the same dogs (total numbers of dogs, n = 82) analyzed using a mixed model random analysis. Data are shown as mean ± SEM (a,b). All groups (except for the group “38–55 years” (n = 27, (a) and the group “0 former dogs” (n = 10, (b)) significantly underestimated body composition in the direct assessment of their own dogs (time point 1) compared to the trained veterinary health care personnel (time point 3) (** p = 0.001 and *** p ≤ 0.0003). After the standardized BCS education (time point 2), the overall assessment improves significantly (*** p < 0.0001) compared to time point 1, and the BCS assessment is equivalent (NS, p ≥ 0.89) to the professional assessment (time point 3) (a,b).