BOOK REVIEW DIALOGUE: TIES THAT BIND (Thomas Donaldson and Thomas W. Dunfee, Harvard Business School, 1999, 306 pages)

Randomly selected dog-owning households (n=657) were interviewed to identify exercise, dietary and other factors associated with obesity in dogs. Dogs (n=860) were categorised by their owners as underweight, correct-weight or overweight and the weight of 386 dogs was also recorded. Twenty five percent of dogs were reported as overweight. In random-effects logistic regression, overweight dogs had higher odds of being neutered (OR=2.8), fed snacks (OR=1.5), fed once a day (OR=1.4) or living in single-dog households (OR=1.6). For each year of age, the odds of obesity increased (OR=1.1) and for each hour of weekly exercise the odds of obesity decreased (OR=0.9).