Do you consider over and improperly feeding an obese pet animal abuse?

Yes. Those do not look like happy animals.

Yes, it really is IMHO

Yes - you're killing your pet and should be prosecuted.

I guess so.

I don't know. I'm not sure what the legal definition of abuse is. Deliberate maltreatment? No. It seems more like neglect on the part of extremely ignorant/oblivious people. You can't treat stupidity the same way you treat manevolence.

I think we need to be careful about how we use emotionally loaded words. Not properly taking care of something is different from actively trying to damage it.

Yes!

I think the same about a pet as I do a human. The body is just starved for nutrition, eats the wrong foods, stores as fat.

Yes, I do consider it a form of abuse. I do consider starving as being worse, especially since starved animals are often neglected and abused in other ways. But animals are fed by their owners, and the owners are responsible for them.... most owners would take their pet to the vet if they were injured, so why not feed them so they stay healthy? (No table food!) Especially if they are anywhere nearly as obese as the two in these pictures!!

My answer is no surprise. Yes, animal abuse because there are people who have sick animals because they are obese and owners continue to feed them all day and human food like cheeseburgers. They are killing those animals.

I have a fat Min Pin but she has a doctor's note. She does have hypothyroidism and has lost a lot of weight. She never was over fed though. See a pic of her on my userpage.

Good question.... no, I don't because I think fat pets are insanely cute.

I think that there's a definite difference between feeding an animal cheeseburgers and just leaving a bowl of dry food out all day for a cat which eats too much or is already overweight.

Neglect not abuse...

Abuse is getting to be such a political power word these days...I'm going with neither abuse or neglect, I will say 'ignorance'.

In a manner of speaking.

If anyone is taking their pets to the vet it can't be ignorance. The vet will and do say something. The more morbidly obese pets have physical problems as a direct result of their obesity- joints, heart, diabetes, etc and they are seeing a vet. So if you are never taking your dog to the vet then that is the only way I'd call ignorance.

Those pictures are sad.

Some people over feed their pet out of love, they cannot tell the difference. It is similiar to an eating disorder that a person would have but instead is handed to the pet. It is not abuse to over-love or love wrongly. I am not saying you are wrong in how you feel about it, I am stating what I see as true in some instances. When they honestly believe that feeding is associated with love, there isn't anything anyone can say that will make medical sense of it.

Sounds like Munchausen by proxy in a way.

I don't know what that is without looking it up, replacing love with something else is a wierd thing.

Yes.

Substitute "pet animal" for "child" and it's still a yes.

No

Sometimes you can't help it. One of our cats is obese, weighs about 20 lbs. The cats are open fed, with their dry food bowls kept filled. For the fat one we attempt to give her special food but the other ones move in and eat it. And we can't physically keep her out of the other bowls of food. Short of locking her up in isolation in her own room we can't do much. Can't see making her a prisoner either.

But no one cares if you have a fat kid who lives on junk food. You won't get turned in for that.

Given the financial drain that obese people have on the health system, suggesting that "no one cares" is inaccurate. A more accurate interpretation of your comment would be "you don't care".

I meant that no one in your neighborhood, your kid's school, etc. would ever say anything if you had a fat kid. There is no crime/child abuse law about over-feeding kids, giving them junk food, etc.

Most people are over-weight in the U.S. Nothing but fat ass doges, guys with beer bellies, fat kids. People live off of fast food, chips, beer and frozen dinners.

Whether or not I personally care about fat people has nothing to do with my previous comment. But, if you wanna know - I find fat people objectionable to look at, especially in tight clothes, waddling along. I don't care about children, fat or otherwise.

It doesn't fit it exactly but comes close. It is making some one close to you sick on purpose for a variety of reasons but all self serving. Sympathy junkies, crisis junkies, etc. Munchausen alone is when you make yourself sick on purpose or fake illnesses to get attention. It's a most interesting phenomenon.

When I did my pediatrics rotation in nursing school I took care of this baby that was 1 1/2 or so. This baby was HUGE. Beyond chubby baby. I learned why. Her mother was a heavy woman that used food for comfort. I had to teach her how to give her baby a painful injection that she would have to do at home. She cried the baby cried. As soon as we were done she grabbed the girl, popped her in the high chair and said- why crying herself, 'We'll get you something to eat. It'll be better.' And proceeded to feed the baby even though the baby was not hungry and it was not feeding time. It threw me for a loop. I didn't realize such behavior could be put upon a child so young, how early the association was implanted pain -> food=pleasure. This is more like what people do with their pets. Food makes them feel some comfort and they assume their dog or cat will have the same pleasure feelings. They think it makes the pet happy. Now really, what makes a dog happy? What do dogs do for pleasure? Chase, run, roll in the grass.....just take your dog to the park and massage his head. Dog's get endorphins when you massage their heads.

Didn't you say that most of what you eat is fast food? And you do care about children, not the fat ones, the young hispanic female ones.

It isn't healthy for animals or people to be obese. Obese animals can get diabetes and heart conditions just like people.

wow-there's some really weird stuf out there...

I like to have my head massaged too

It's wrong, but I wouldn't lump it in with abuse - loving an animal too much can be just as harmful, but intent is a very important factor in this.

Yes, guilty of that. I don't "care" about children, just their bodies

I got my hair washed and cut today. I love going to the get my haircut, some one else washing my hair and combing it.

ahhh, simple but important pleasures...

Only way that can happen is if you feed them 15 times a day with foods completely soaked in grease like McDonalds & Burger King & other fattening crap.

yes

As an overfeeder of an obese pet, absolutely not.

One of my cats is a fatty, while the others are normal weight. It must be a problem with metabolism since I feed them all the same cat food. The vet prescribed a reduced calorie/fat cat food for my fat cat, but I have the same problem that another person here has, the other cats get into the diet cat food. If I try isolating the overweight cat from the others and feeding her separately, she gets very unhappy and howls because she's lonely.

When my friend committed suicide, his pets were in the house with him for about 3 days.

His mom took in the dogs, and my sister took the cat. It's been about 7 months. ALL of the animals are now obese. I don't know if they are overindulging the animals or if the animals are depressed.... but it's very sad.