Nutrition.

With so many brands of pet food for pet owners to choose from, commercial dog food makers pursue customers using crafted marketing strategies. By capitalizing on widespread perceptions, or misconceptions, owners have about pet nutritional needs, these companies have created a myriad of life-stage, lifestyle, and breed specific products to capture the market share. This proliferation of "specially formulated" foods only further solidifies a more widespread belief in the need for such products. Some of these nutritional strategies are supported by scientific data confirming their value. Most are not. The notion that geriatric pets need special nutrition is a case in point. Older pets have the ...

At first glance, feeding cats seems like it should be a relatively simple endeavor. An owner picks out the best cat food that offers balanced nutrition made from quality ingredients and places it in front of the cat. He or she promptly eats it and all is well. However, making sure that a cat's nutritional needs are met depends on three interconnected variables: the animal, the diet and the environment. RELATED: Pet Food Recalls And Safety If you own a healthy, adult cat, use the MyBowl tool to make sure that the diet you've selected is balanced and made from quality ingredients. If your cat has a medical condition, talk to your veterinarian about appropriate dietary options. Once you have ...

How much do you know about the ingredients your dog food contains? Would you still feed it to your dog if you knew some of the ingredients consisted of expired meat, diseased meat and even dead dogs and cats from animal shelters? That's exactly what's going into some commercial pet foods, according to a recent article on Slate.com. SHOCKING INGREDIENTS THAT MAY BE FOUND IN SOME PET FOOD: We already know that pet food contains a lot of animal products that we probably wouldn't eat ourselves, including meat that the ...

Today I want to talk about cats and water. Cats obviously need water to survive, but controversy surrounds exactly where it should come from and how much they should take in to thrive. I think the disagreements center around the fact that domestic cats evolved from desert-dwelling ancestors. You'll alternatingly hear this fact used as evidence that they don't need to drink as much as other species, and to support the idea of their "low thirst drive," indicating they need to get their water from food rather than a bowl. I'd like to take a look at this question in a couple of different ways. First, I used a well-regarded "calculator" to determine how much water a 10 pound, adult neutered dog ...