The canine obesity epidemic. The name itself sounds a bit like a satirical Onion article but it isn’t a joking matter. Obesity in any species is a life-threatening thing but it is a solvable problem for our beloved pups.
In the US alone, there are 70-78 million dogs and about half of them are overweight. That adds up to more than 35 million overweight pups. In addition, a recent study confirms that being just moderately overweight shortens your pup’s lifespan by more than 14%. That means that being overweight for a dog is deadlier than a lifetime of smoking for a human. (!!!)
Part of the problem with canine obesity is that many pup parents innocently (but mistakenly) believe that their dogs are in pawfect shape when they’re actually overweight. For humans, its much easier to calculate calories when you’re on a diet. For dogs, it’s much more difficult. Just look at a dog food bag. The labels are stinkin’ useless when it comes to calculating the caloric intake of your pup. If you want to help your dog lose weight it takes research and some proactive moves to figure out how many calories your pup needs from that kibble.
That’s where this new app-in-the-making comes in. It’s called Kibblr and it helps you figure out the pawfect amount of food for your pup.
Coach Dan wanted Kibblr to be insanely easy to use. You tell Kibblr about your dog, then Kibblr tells you exactly how much of your dog’s specific food your dog really needs. Kibblr’s algorithms are based on published, peer-reviewed veterinary research and the Kibblr database includes hundreds of common dog foods (and updates regularly), so any dog owner can use it.
To find out more about Kibblr and the rest of Daniel’s paw-jects, head over to Indiegogo to get the Kibblr app for when it comes out!
Best of luck to Coach Dan and the rest of his team. Paws crossed they can get this launched! Pupdate on 7/14: Just a few days left to help Coach Dan + team reach the goal to get Kibblr to be a reality!
Featured image via Your Pet Friends.
