Nutrition for your pets.

Proper dietary nutrition is one of the keys to good health and longevity for our pets. In this article, you’ll learn about the nutritional requirements for both dogs and cats. Then, we’ll discuss how to provide your pet with a balanced diet, including how to choose the right type of food, if you should feed them homemade food, and what not to feed your pet.

Another factor to consider in choosing the right diet for your pet is the ingredients that go into a pet food. Ingredients should be chosen based on their nutritional content and their digestibility–which is how much of that nutritional content is actually absorbed by the animal’s body. For example, the graph below shows the percentage of starch in various grain flours that is digestible by dogs.

Source: Murray SM, Fahey GC, Merchen RN, et al. Evaluation of selected high-starch fl ours as ingredients in canine diets. J Anim Sci. 1999;77:2180-2186.

Cats are carnivores and require a high amount of protein in their diet. In fact, kittens need about 50% more protein in their diet than puppies, and adult cats need 200% more protein in their diet than adult dogs.

Cats require a three essential amino acids: taurine, arginine, and methionine. Taurine is required to have a healthy heart, good vision, and functioning reproductive systems. Arginine is required for a cat’s liver to function properly and filter out harmful byproducts from their body. In fact, eating a single meal deficient in arginine can make a cat ill from ammonia toxicity. Methionine plays a role in many different proteins in a cat’s body and deficiencies can affect a cat’s coat, skin, eyes, and heart health. All of these amino acid are only found in meat, so all cats need meat-based diets to maintain their health.

That being said, cats do have enzymes in their digestive tract that can digest carbohydrates, so the starches found in many cat foods can be digested for energy. For growing and active animals, this can be an effective source of energy. But these starches should only make up a small portion of the cat’s food, about 35% max.

For a cat, vegetarian diets are absolutely out of the question. Not even nutritional supplements can allow a cat to eat vegetarian or vegan, because some of their essential nutrients are only obtainable from animal products. For example, sources of Vitamin A can come from plants, as carotene, or from animal livers, as retinyl palmitate. Cats lack the enzymes to convert carotene to Vitamin A–they can only convert retinyl palmitate from animal livers to Vitamin A. So, they necessarily need to consume animal products to survive.

Finally, we’ll discuss the most important nutrient for cats: water. Keeping your cat well-hydrated is vital in preventing diseases associated with the urinary tract. Wild cats receive most of their hydration from the prey they eat, so sometimes it can be a little tricky to keep your house cat hydrated. Here are a few tips:

• Cats with sensitive whiskers might prefer to drink from a wide, shallow bowl.
• Some cats prefer a source of running water, so investing in a cat fountain might encourage your cat to drink more water.
• Change your cat’s water supply frequently, wiping away any residue on the bowl.
• Aim to keep your cat’s bowl as clean as your own glassware, even occasionally running it through the dishwasher.
• Some cats will not drink water that is placed next to their food source or litter box, so try moving their water bowl to another area.
• Milk is not a replacement for water, and can actually give your cat serious digestive issues.
• Wet food can help supplement your cat’s hydration, but only giving your cat wet food can lead to dental health issues.

Dogs are omnivores, which may come as a surprise to some dog owners. Although wolves are primarily carnivores, during the process of domestication, dogs gained the ability to effectively digest starches. In fact, dogs have about four to thirty copies of a gene that produces an enzyme for digesting starches in their bodies. In contrast, wolves only have two copies.

This provides evidence that a raw meat diet is not the best choice for our canine companions, because their bodies have adapted to digesting starches and using them for energy. In fact, a raw meat diet can have harmful effects, because it contains too much protein, not enough carbohydrates, and can be difficult on a dog’s kidneys. It’s interesting to note that even wolves will graze on grasses and eat the stomach contents of herbivorous prey to supplement their primarily meat-based diet with carbohydrates.

Think of it this way: if a raw meat diet isn’t nutritionally complete enough for a wolf, it will definitely pose problems for a dog, whose species has over many generations adapted to eat grains and vegetables while coexisting with human society.

On the other hand, dogs do require some proteins that are only available in animal products, so switching your dog to a vegetarian diet can pose issues as well. Although it is possible for dogs to survive on both of these specialized diets with the right supplementation and guidance from a veterinary nutritionist, a dog will only thrive when it eats as an omnivore, because its body is adapted to an omnivorous diet.

Let’s not forget the most important nutrient for dogs: water! Make sure that your dog always has access to clean, fresh water, especially after work or exercise. Change the water in your dog’s bowl at least once a day and be sure to wipe away any build-up on the inside of the bowl when you do this. Aim to keep your dog’s water bowl as clean as your other glassware to keep your dog healthy and happy.

When choosing what type of pet food to buy your pet, there are a few questions to consider:

• “What is the current life stage of my pet?” Depending on whether your pet is growing, an adult, a senior, or pregnant, they will require different formulations of food.
• “Does my pet have any health factors that I need to consider?” If your pet has a health condition, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, or is overweight, they may require a special formulation of food. Consult your veterinarian to find the right type of food for your pet’s medical status.
• “Should I feed my pet wet food or dry food?” While dry food is better for dental health, wet food has added hydration, which can benefit pets that are predisposed to kidney problems, like senior cats, or pets who are diabetic. Most pets will be fine eating either food.

And finally, how can we be sure that a manufacturer’s pet food is high quality? One of the best ways is by making sure they have an AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) Nutritional Adequacy Statement on the packaging. If a pet food does not have an AAFCO statement on its packaging, there is no way to ensure that its claims of being “complete and balanced” are true.

There are two different ways that AAFCO verifies that food is nutritionally complete and balanced.

AAFCO has a set of nutritional profiles for dogs and cats in every age group that include what quantities of nutrients should be present in a particular type of pet food. Pet food manufacturers can use these profiles as guidelines to formulate their pet food and then use a laboratory analysis to substantiate their nutritional content. This method is less expensive for pet food manufacturers and can be done more quickly than the feeding trial method. However, because this method means the food has not been tested on animals, there is no guarantee that the food will effectively supply nutrients to the pet, due to factors like digestibility.

An AAFCO statement that guarantees nutritional completeness using the formulation method would look like this:

“ABC Brand Cat Food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles for Maintenance.”

Pet food formulated using this method also follows AAFCO nutritional profiles and undergoes laboratory analysis. Additionally, the pet food will undergo a feeding trial, which means that the food will be given to a group of pets for a minimum of twenty six weeks in order to ensure that they can use it as a sole source of nutrition, per AAFCO feeding trial protocols. This method is more expensive and takes more time to complete, but it ensures that pets can use the food as their only source of nutrition. The feeding trial method is preferred, because it guarantees palatability and digestibility.

An AAFCO statement that guarantees nutritional completeness using the feeding trial method would look like this:

“Animal feeding trials using AAFCO procedures substantiate that XYZ Brand Dog Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for adult dogs.”