A doggy diet drug.

Too many dogs lounge around all day white their humans are at work, then stuff on table scraps at night. As a result, say veterinarians, there is an epidemic of obese dogs. Help for canine couch potatoes is now available in the form of Stentrol, the first prescription diet drug for dogs. But George J. Fennett, a vice president of Pfizer, which manufactures the drug, cautions, "This is not a passport to abandon exercise or diets." Veterinarians define obese dogs as those that are at least 20 percent overweight. According to the Food and Drug Administration, which recently approved the drug, about 5 percent of U.S. dogs are obese; another 20 to 30 percent are overweight. Some breeds, like beagles, Labradors, and dachshunds, are more prone to obesity than others. Like their human counterparts, obese dogs are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.