So I'm eating a zone dinner every night, either the Zone Pasta, Orzo or Pizza, and my lil' white 12 yr old smooth hair chihuaha barks and barks as if I were eating prime rib! He jumps at my fingers to eat a few bits of Orzo or a crush part that's crunch... And since he's been snacking on zone foods, he's gotten a tad little chunky. Just wondering, does feeding our pets zone table scraps cause their weight gain? The little critters are quite a bit different than us...

Feeding dogs more food the they require will cause weigt gain, just as it does in people. A tip, dogs do well on a Zone-like diet, and that's including fish oil supplementation also. Cats, on the other hand, require a much higher percentage of protein.

Yep, I've recently had the same issue with my Shih-Tzu/Poodle mix (in my profile pic). Muffin typically weighs about 8 1/2 pounds, but at her last visit was just under 10 pounds. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that's a gain of 17% of her original body weight! The only thing we've changed is that she was getting more table scraps (now that we eat more nutritious dinners, there's more chicken/salmon/etc. which she loves). Unlike her regular dog food (which she "grazes" and eats only when she's hungry), she ALWAYS eats the table scraps -- so it's definitely more calories over the course of the day than she needs. We've instituted a new policy -- NO table scraps! She's prone to joint issues, so we need to keep her at a healthy weight (like "mother" like "daughter" ... )

Laurie