Food

As reported in Pet Food News, a Nielsen survey listed ingredients owners want to avoid when choosing a food for their pet, although the rationale the owners used for making the choices is not readily clear.

A conundrum for many cat owners is getting their cat to drink more. While eating dry kibble can be nutritionally adequate (and some cats definitely prefer kibble to canned), most cats could benefit from drinking more. More fluid going in helps with hydration and can help to flush the kidneys and bladder with more urine production. A recent study reported in the American Journal of Veterinary Research in July 2018 looked at trying to entice cats to drink more using a nutrient-enriched water option.

Your cat has a ravenous appetite but never gains weight and might even be losing weight. In addition, you may notice the litter box has more deposits than ever before-often soft and slimy with a worse odor than usual. Your cat may be suffering from a malabsorption/maldigestion disorder. Malabsorption means the cat cant absorb the nutrients. Maldigestion occurs when your cat is not producing the enzymes needed to digest her food. Digestion Gone Awry …

We want the best for our cats, and nutrition plays a vital role in any animals health. But advertising and lay opinions can leave a cat owner wondering whether to feed canned food or dry foods.

You may have heard you shouldnt use plastic bowls to feed your cat. Plastic bowls have been thought to cause facial pyoderma, or chin acne, in cats. Plastic allergies have been implicated in some skin problems in children, so it is not an unreasonable concern, but unfortunately there is no scientific data on this phenomenon in cats.

Life can bring valid reasons for switching your cats food, including an illness that requires a specific diet or a discontinuation of the formula you usually feed. Or maybe youve heard good things about a new brand and want to try it out. Or theres a great deal on a brand of cat food this month . . . the reasons are endless. So, is it OK to switch? Yes, just make the switch sensibly.

As cats are obligate carnivores, a raw meat-based diet sounds like the perfect option. Unfortunately, that natural diet also comes with some all-natural risks, including parasites and bacteria, such as Salmonella.

These points come to us from the Baker Institute of Health at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

With the American trend to consume less meat-which helps reduce the environmental effect of meat production-UCLA professor Gregory Okin began to wonder what the impact of our pets was. It turns out that U.S. cats and dogs cause 25 to 30 percent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the United States.

Were fortunate that many cats live well into their teens or even to 20 years of age or more. We generally define senior cats as any cat over 10 years of age. Geriatric cats can remain active and comfortable, but they are prone to certain health conditions. Being aware of these problems, reacting right away to changes, and providing recommended preventive care can all help keep your cat well into her later years.

Pumpkin is an excellent source of potassium—a mineral that is important for a variety of physiologic functions.

On average, the grain-free diets were lower in carbohydrates than the diets that contained grain, but there was a wide range in carb content across all of the foods. This means that if your cat needs a diet with fewer carbs, choosing a grain-free diet does not guarantee that the carbohydrate content will be lower than the food you are currently feeding.