BETHESDA, Md. - A team of researchers at a medical school in Bethesda say pet owners who aim to get their dog in shape will most likely benefit from the weight loss routine as well.

Maggie is a whole lot of dog, too much actually, so her owner enrolled her in a government study aimed at getting pets in shape.  Jean-Pierre Jousse, Maggie's owner, is sticking to a prescribed routine and says that making sure Maggie gets a workout also mean he works up a sweat.

"People seem to be getting out more; they are getting preliminary reads on the pedometers, so people are walking more," said Cindy Wilson, who has a PHD in Public Health.

Cindy Wilson and a team of other researchers at the Military Medical School in Bethesda, monitor an array of pudgy pets and their overweight owners in an effort to compile data to prove the correlation between pet and owner weight loss. Wilson says she hopes to prove getting a dog in shape benefits the owner.

"At the end of the study we hope to see that both the dog and the owner weigh less," Wilson added.

As far as Maggie's owner is concerned, however, Jousse just wants his beloved pet to be healthy. But if Maggie loses weight in the process that is fine with him, saying he could obviously stand to lose some weight himself.