Can Cats eat Dog food? Will Dog food hurt my Cat?

This may seem like a slightly silly question to a lot of people, but you may be very surprised to learn exactly how many people are routinely feeding their Cats Dog food.

Over the past few decades, the quality of pet food has increased dramatically. When once, our beloved pets only food options at the pet store were tins of whale meat or what could only at best be described as derivative based mush is now a vast range of natural, wholesome, organic & hypoallergenic foods. Which quite simply would put most of our dinners to shame. So you could be forgiven for thinking that their is no harm in feeding your Cat a dog food diet. There are, however, many potential health problems associated with feeding a cat a lifetime diet of dog food.

Here are a couple of the key points:

1. Taurine - Taurine is an amino acid that is vitally essential to the health and well being of your cat. A lack of/deficiency in taurine can have major health repercussions and can result in heart failure, tooth decay and sight loss.
Dog food may be deficient in taurine (as dogs can synthesize their own) which means feeding your Cat a dog food low in taurine for a long period of time can cause major health problems for your cat.

2. Vitamin A - Vitamin A is essential in a Cats diet as it helps with their night vision, skin and also helps support the cats immune system! Although this is essential for a Cats diet, it isn't always available in a Dogs food as they can create Vitamin A from Beta Carotene (which a Cat cannot do.). Even if there is Vitamin A in the Dog food, a lot of the time it isn't a high enough/ optimum level for a Cat.

These are just a few of the reasons why a Cat cannot be fed on a Dog food diet. If you would like to find out more or learn about the different Cat foods available please contact us on (01273) 738016 where a member of our happy team will happily point you in the direction of a healthy, nutritious and delicious (for your cat anyways) Cat food.