Part of me finds that maybe someone overbought at peak.

"Oh the dogs stood up so I couldn't shouldercheck when I rammed my van into your sedan in the HOV lane." "Oh, even after repeat letters and visits from Animal Control I didn't know that leaving my skittish Great Dane with its deep bark outside all day when I know it barks at flickering shadows would bother people who work from home." "Oh I didn't know that my dog would walk in front of your moving car if I left it off its leash." "Oh I didn't know that I couldn't control three large dogs as I walked them all at once and one of them could break from my leash grasp and go kill your smaller animal." You big meanies, expecting animal owners to be aware of their responsibilities.
Too many animal owners have come to the conclusion that if you have to be aware and considerate of other people when you raise and keep a large animal, that's just a sad sign of the police state America has come to be.

There's no such thing as a healthy dry-feed for cats; I assume it is much similar with dogs as well, but I am not familiar with their dietary requirements.

Put on a diet consisting purely of animal bits (fowl is preferable, fish may encourage creation of bladder stones), cats will easily drop excess weight. I believe they call this the "Catkins" diet.

@4: And over time the cat will die of malnutrition. They don't manifest symptoms of malnutrition usually until permanent damage is done.

I feed my cat the breath of sleeping children.

This country is disgusting.

Considering the ever-growing obesity problem among humans in this country, it's no surprise to me that many are overfeeding their pets as well. Plus, my guess is a lot of these humans are now so fat they can't properly exercise larger pets, which simply compounds the problem.

I wonder how much of pet obesity is due to caloric increases in pet food and how much is due to feeding pets scraps of human food in addition to their pet food.

...or they started feeding meal leftovers rather than dog or cat food....and yes, my understanding is cats do need more than just meat (as in muscle). Some of their nutrition comes from eating, what would best be termed 'guts'.

Finally I had 2 cats make it past 20 on mostly dry food so maybe it isn't entirely bad (although one was quite pudgy between 10 and 18).

And this is a repost of the article put up by Goldy not an hour ago. Now that's a new record in lazy reportage, Charles!

@5

I haven't heard of any feline, eating a consistent diet consisting entire of slain animals, ever dying of malnutrition. And when I talk about slain animals, I mean the whole animal--fat, connective tissue, organ meats, contents of stomach, whatever bones can be digested. Felines eat the whole animal.

Do you somehow think self-interested feed-companies know better than millions of years of evolution?

Just look at the shape of a cat's teeth, obviously intended for rending flesh rather than masticating plant material. The molars of a human, or a bear, for that matter, are much better used in an omnivorous diet.

But no, we have heroes like you ensuring cats suffer chronic urinary dysfunction, chronic gingivitis, and poor quality of life--equating a human diet with the diet of obligate carnivores.

I think the problem is simply giving in to pet demands for food, or allowing pets to free feed. Feed your pet at consistent times of the day and no table scraps. It's not rocket science.

Maybe it's genetic, you guys. C'mon, it's not their fault. It's in Fido's genes. Stop discriminating and being so fat negative.

America = gluttonous pigs. Disgusting.

Cats don't eat corn in the wild, for instance -- the few grains they get from the stomach's of their prey is miniscule compared to the large percentage of grain in dry cat food.

Or the canned, for that measure.

Canned or dry also contain preservative chemicals, cats also don't get from free foraging.

And, if you're feeding a food that includes "by products" on it's ingredient label, those are horrors that would make you squeamish. "Meat by products", for instance, can include the euthanized pets from shelters, rendering while wearing their toxic flea collars.

At 15, my cat remained ill for months on end, no matter the brand of commercial pet food. I'd lost his litter mate the year before to kidney disease and was afraid I'd have to have him euthanized. Until a last ditch attempt to cooking his grub myself, balanced as much like a natural cat diet as possible.

He almost immediately came out of a health tailspin -- he became his younger self again, and even his coat improved. Not fat from his food, but fit.

One of my two cats is fat. Makes her more cuddly.

@16: The solution: have a yard for a dog to trot around in and have a decently large house for a cat to scamper, bug-eyed, through every corner of in the wee hours.