While corn is often vilified as a pet food ingredient, it is nutritious and easily digested by both dogs and cats and rarely causes allergies. As such, it is not an ingredient that most pets need to avoid in their diet.
We know that many pet owners are desperate for accurate, trustworthy information about how to feed their pets, whether they’re healthy or if they have a medical condition. However, even knowing who to talk to about your pet’s nutrition can be confusing! Learn more about Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists and an easier way to find one.
A new FDA update provides more information on diet-associated dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). While the specific cause is not yet known, the problem hasn’t gone away
Anyone who has lived with a cat or dog with medical issues knows that maintaining a good appetite can be challenging and that weight and muscle loss can occur as a result. Reduced food intake is not only distressing to owners but also has negative effects for the pet. When healthy pets lose weight, they mostly lose fat. However, elderly pets or pets with medical issues that lose weight mostly lose muscle. Muscle loss is bad for pets (as it is for people) because it can reduce strength, immune function, and wound healing, and can even shorten a pet’s lifespan. Many things affect pets’ appetite and food intake, such as sense of smell and taste, food properties (nutrient levels, aroma, flavor, texture), medical issues, dental disease, pain, competition between animals, and medications. Many chronic diseases, such as heart or kidney disease, can affect appetite. But even healthy older animals can have reduced appetite. Older people’s less sensitive taste and smell perception can reduce appetite; while we suspect this also occurs in dogs and cats as they age, this has not been well studied. One approach to helping animals’ appetite is to adjust the temperature of the food. An interesting study was published recently in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior.1 Researchers studied older cats’ preferences for wet foods at different temperatures. Thirty-two healthy older cats took part in the study. All cats were over 8 years of age (up to 14 years, with an average age of 11 years). This was a carefully-designed study using a single “chunks in gravy” style commercial canned food. The temperatures tested were 43°F (the temperature of food coming out of the refrigerator), 70°F (room temperature), and 99°F (warmed). Cats were tested in a two-bowl test where they could select the food they preferred in two…
The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) recently released the latest version of some dramatic proposed changes to pet food labels and held a short period of public comment. We review some of the biggest proposed changes and provide our commentary.
Preservatives are essential ingredients in some forms of pet foods but they are surrounded by a great deal of misinformation.
Many pet owners can become concerned when they see „ash“ listed as a percentage on the label of their pet’s food. We explain what is meant by ash and why it is not very useful, but also nothing to fear.
Although food allergies are quite uncommon, they can sometimes occur in dogs and cats that have year-round skin issues (not seasonal) or chronic gastrointestinal problems. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to diagnosis them. Blood or saliva tests may be appealing as an easy way to diagnose food allergy, but they are highly inaccurate so don’t waste your money on them! The only way to diagnose a food allergy is with elimination diet trial. To do an elimination diet trial, you must feed your pet ONLY a veterinary diet specifically designed for elimination diet trials for the prescribed period of time. Before you consider doing an elimination diet trial to diagnose food allergy, you should know up front that they are not easy (you’ll see why as you read on), so you don’t want to go through it more than once. Most veterinary specialists recommend an elimination diet trial of at least 8-12 weeks for pets with skin issues and 3-4 weeks for those with digestive issues. Therefore, my philosophy is to make sure that the trial is carefully done with the right diet, for the right length of time, and without making common mistakes. That way, if your pet’s symptoms improve, then your pet may have a food allergy (there are more steps to take), but if your pet doesn’t get significantly better during an elimination diet trial, food allergy is even less likely to be the cause of your pet’s problem and you can move on to other, more likely causes of skin or digestive issues. Elimination diet options There are two main approaches to the diet used for an elimination diet trial: Novel ingredient diets A novel ingredient diet is one that contains ingredients your pet has never eaten before. They aren’t inherently less allergenic – they’re just…
Growing puppies have very specific nutritional requirements that are different from those of adult dogs. Feeding puppies correctly reduces their risk for obesity and orthopedic diseases, and increases their chances for a healthy life. Puppies are very sensitive to nutritional imbalances which can include too much or too little of a nutrient or even improper balance between different nutrients. Nutritional imbalances that might have minimal negative effects – especially in the short term – in an adult dog can have disastrous results in a growing puppy, such as malformed or fractured bones, anemia, poor growth, skin problems, or even heart disease. One of the reasons puppies have such specialized nutritional requirements is that they have to be able to grow from tiny puppies at birth to full-sized adults within approximately one year and stay healthy. Nowhere are the unique requirements more evident than in large or giant breed puppies. For example, a Great Dane puppy that weighs 1 or 2 pounds at birth grows well over 100 pounds within one year (and even more by the time they’re full-grown at 18 months)! But even small breed puppies need careful nutrition while growing to optimize their health. Too many calories from puppy food, treats, and other foods during growth can cause puppies to become overweight. However, even before those extra calories cause a puppy to become overweight, they cause puppies to grow too quickly which – especially in large breed puppies – can increase their risk for bone and joint problems that can affect them for their entire lives. Keeping your puppy at a perfect body condition score of 4 to 5 (on a 9-point scale) is critical (and it’s better to err on the side of your puppy having a body condition score of 4 or even a little lower,…
Pet owners do not always have an accurate perception of the human risk of foodborne illness from raw meat diets. A recent study highlights the gap between pet owner’s perceptions of their risk and their food safety practices