Choosing a pet’s food is one of the decisions with the greatest impact on the health and longevity of dogs and cats. However, faced with crowded shelves and different commercial appeals, many owners end up basing their purchase solely on the price or the aesthetics of the packaging. For veterinary medicine, defining the correct diet moves away from marketing and focuses exclusively on the physical needs of each patient.
To detail the criteria that should guide this choice, the report heard veterinarian Vanessa Mesquita. The expert advises that there is no single food that suits all animals. The decision must combine four basic pieces of information: the pet’s age, size, lifestyle and health history.
Life stage is the first cut-off criterion. “Puppies need a diet rich in nutrients and vitamins important for development. Adult pets need a balanced diet for maintenance, and elderly pets need a diet rich in antioxidants and that offers support for their joints”, explains the veterinarian.
The size of the animal also dictates the type of product. The industry formulates grains of different sizes precisely to facilitate chewing and avoid choking. They also have specific diets, developed based on scientific studies that map the most common diseases of that lineage, using nutrition as a form of prevention.
In cases where the animal already has a health problem, food becomes part of the medical treatment. The market offers so-called medicated feed, prescribed exclusively by veterinarians to help control kidney disease, heart problems or severe dermatitis.
The difference between feed categories
One of the biggest doubts faced by owners concerns the classification of dry food into standard, premium and super premium. The veterinarian explains that the main difference between them is the quality of the ingredients and digestibility, that is, the ability of the animal’s body to use the nutrients ingested.
The standard food is the most basic line. Produced with cheaper ingredients, it has lower digestibility. “The pet’s body does not use nutrients in the same way. The pet needs to eat more and the volume of feces is greater”, explains Vanessa. The premium category represents an advance, offering greater amounts of protein, better quality ingredients and a more rigorous nutritional balance.
Super premium food is the line with the highest nutritional quality. It uses high-value proteins and generally includes extra components in its formulation, such as . The main advantage of this category is its excellent digestibility. As the animal’s body absorbs almost everything it consumes, the daily portion required is smaller, which also results in a significant reduction in the volume of feces.
To identify the quality of what is being purchased, reading the label is essential. The expert’s advice is to check the list of ingredients to avoid formulas that have corn or soy as the main base, in addition to checking the nutritional composition, expiration date and daily amount recommended by the manufacturer.
Dry, wet or natural food
The presentation of the food must also adapt to the animal’s routine and needs. Dry food is the most practical option, it is affordable and the friction of the grains helps to mechanically clean the teeth during chewing.
Wet diets, sold in sachets or cans, stand out for their palatability and high water content. The veterinarian highlights that this type of food is extremely beneficial for maintaining hydration, being an especially interesting strategy for cats, who tend to drink little water spontaneously. The care required with a wet diet is extra attention to the pet’s oral health, as soft foods facilitate the accumulation of bacterial plaque.
The product, made up of fresh ingredients, has gained popularity and is generally well accepted by animals. However, the veterinarian issues a serious warning about this practice. The natural food offered to the pet is not synonymous with leftovers from the owners’ meals. This type of diet requires rigorous formulation and supplementation prescribed by a veterinarian specialized in nutrition, to ensure that the animal does not suffer from a lack of essential vitamins.
The most common mistakes and changing feed
The habit of sharing your own food with your pet is one of the most dangerous mistakes in pet nutrition. Offering human food can cause severe poisoning. “If there were to be a ranking of errors, the first place would be to give people food, such as chocolate, barbecued meat with lots of seasoning and French bread, among other foods that can cause toxicity, pancreatitis and lead to the death of the pet”, warns the specialist.
Another frequent failure is the abrupt change in the brand or type of food. The digestive system of dogs and cats needs time to adapt to a new formulation. To avoid diarrhea, the transition must be made over a week. In the first two days, the owner must mix 75% of the old food with 25% of the new food. On the third and fourth days, the proportion becomes 50% for each. From the fifth to the sixth day, it inverts to 25% of the old food and 75% of the new food, until, on the seventh day, the animal starts to consume exclusively the new food.
According to the specialist, the signs of it manifest themselves clearly in the body and behavior. The coat loses its shine, sheds heavily and the skin may peel. There is a change in weight, apathy and the emergence of digestive problems, such as vomiting and excess gas.
The feces lose their consistency, becoming pasty, with excessive volume and a stronger odor than usual. Physiologically, observation must be even more rigorous with felines, as cats are biologically and scientifically classified as strict carnivores, essentially depending on animal protein for the proper functioning of their organism.
