Vet interviews founder of TrimDog exercise belt: Does it work?
April 11, 2011 • Trends • Health & Wellness •
By: Jed Schaible, DVM, VetLIVE.com, LLC
Pet parents are always asking us for advice, tips, and tricks to help their dogs lose weight. While diet and exercise remain the backbone of any weight loss program, it seems now that the pet weight loss world may have another option.
Jack Lalanne first popularized the use of exercise equipment to help humans get in shape in the 1950s. Now, almost 60 years later, the invention of the TrimDog Exercise Belt is leading the way in canine wellness to make it easier for dogs to get fit and healthy.
I recently interviewed TrimDog co-founder, Ike Kinlaw, and my skepticism has been reversed: the exercise system seems to indeed have its place in canine weight management.
The TrimDog exercise weight belt was created by Ike and Anna Kinlaw in order to help their overweight Shih Tzu, Lily, shed some pounds. Ike used his knowledge of exercise physiology and Anna’s knowledge of nutrition, to develop an exercise program for dogs. The goal, Ike says, “is to allow dogs to burn more calories per walk by moderately increase the intensity of exercise.”
Ike had been successfully training athletes by having them walk with weighted vests on treadmills, but it wasn’t until 2010 that he read a clinical study from theAmerican College of Sports Medicine that proved the concept behind the invention. The Kinlaw’s began designing the belt for Lily and 50 prototypes later, the TrimDog exercise system is available to all pet parents.
Although Lily could act as a testimonial for the product, their veterinarian was interested and encouraged the Kinlaws to carry out a clinical study of the TrimDog’s effectiveness. Though it was a small sample size of 12 dogs, the randomized clinical trial with the concluded that dogs that walked with the TrimDog Weight Belt lost more weight than dogs that walked without the weight belt.
When speaking with my veterinary colleagues, concerns arose over whether a pet parent could unintentionally do harm using the TrimDog. For example, if a dog had severe arthritis, the additional weight could be harmful to their joints. In order to protect unhealthy pets from unintentional harm, the Kinlaws decided to distribute the product under the direction of veterinarians. Kinlaw states, “what we recommend you do is go to TrimDog.com, print out the brochure, and take it to your veterinarian and talk to your veterinarian about the program to make sure it is appropriate and so that other causes of weight gain can be ruled out.” The product is intended to work with and under the supervision of veterinarians.
The TrimDog system comes in four different sizes and retails for $37.99. It is available now on TrimDog.com. The package comes with the exercise weight belt, a walking regimen, a nutritional guide, and the opportunity for pet parents to send in their current feeding schedule for a nutritionist to review and make feeding recommendations that have been approved by Dr. Rohrer, TrimDog’s Senior Medical Advisor.
Dr. Jed Schaible is a veterinarian and a pet blogger. Together with his wife Laci, also a veterinarian, they founded VetLIVE, a website that provides pet parents the ability to ask a vet pet health questions 24/7, chat live with a vet, upload photos or medical documents, and more.
