Oh no: our pets have gained the COVID kilos too

A word I had never heard of two years ago, but which I have now confrontingly dealt with a lot: corona kilos. It is a term that has now become almost impossible to ignore. Now I don't know if what I want to lose is still really corona kilos or if I should just acknowledge that I can no longer blame corona for this, but that's the easiest thing to do, so let's keep doing that.

Apparently, we are not only our own feeders during corona, we are also those of our pets. Veterinarian Stijn Peters pointed this out yesterday: ‘I am seeing more and more that animals are overweight. If I look at the past week, half of the animals in our practice have some degree of overweight.’ Uh-oh. *looks at own cat Pebbles*

Yes, because of working from home, — in my case — the cat gets more attention than before, and thus also more food. More treats. ‘Owners spoil their pets a bit too much,’ says Stijn Peters. By the way, you can check at home if your pet is overweight. ‘You can feel along the ribs: if you can't feel them, then your pet is too heavy.’ Thank goodness I can still feel those ribs, although Pebbles herself didn't necessarily find it a fun exercise.

It doesn't just stop at cats and dogs, no, even guinea pigs are struggling with overweight. The corona kilos have also reached the rodents. I find the solution quite hilarious: let the animals move more. How do you do that with guinea pigs? Buy another wheel? Let them loose in the room and just let them run around? The latter is at least what Stijn Peters recommends. And give them less food, but that goes without saying.

Okay, my New Year's resolution was to exercise more, but apparently that applies to my pet too. Summer body 2022, me and Pebbles are coming for ya.