Do you have to drag your dog around the park rather than walk it? When your cat sees a mouse, does it turn over and go back to sleep?

If so you may be one of the millions of pet owners contributing to an animal obesity crisis.

Over the past year a million cat owners and 1.7million with dogs have been warned by vets that their pet is overweight, researchers revealed yesterday.

One in eight dog owners, or 12 per cent, now has an overweight animal, up from 8 per cent only two years ago.

The research, based on surveys of 2,000 people by Opinium and more than 100 vets by Pureprofile, said vets estimate that the number of overweight pets being taken to surgeries has gone up by nearly half over the past year.