You may want to buy your pet a special holiday treat as a present or give them some of the holiday meal, but it’s important to think carefully about what you offer them. To help keep your dogs and cats safe as we enter the holiday season, follow these guidelines to keep the holidays healthy and happy!
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…
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