Food

 If your cat is diabetic, pay extra attention to her diet. Management of feline diabetes involves more than providing insulin injections to control blood...

Merck Animal Health received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for an extended-duration topical solution that protects cats from fleas, ticks, and other parasites....

Weight loss can be tough to see because its so gradual. You should weigh your cat every week if possible. The sooner you recognize shes losing weight, the sooner you can address the problem.

A study in the May 15, 2019, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association looked at the nutritional adequacy of recipes provided by various sources for homemade diets for cats. The recipes evaluated were all for maintenance only, and no therapeutic diets were included.

A University of Guelph online survey of 3,673 pet owners found that 35 percent of the responders whose pets ate conventional diets were interested in switching to a vegan diet.

Diets must include nutrients that a cat cannot get elsewhere

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.