Nutrition for puppies and kittens

Thank you so much for joining us for our next pet parent webinar in the pet shores paws and Learn series. I’m Dani Hoolahan, Chief Veterinary Officer at PetSure and I’m your host and moderator for tonight’s session. tonight’s webinar on nutrition for puppies and kittens is brought to you by pet shore and hills pet nutrition. 

The speakers for tonight’s webinar are doctors Bryony Senic and Jessica mills. Bryony graduated in 2007 from Murdoch University in Perth, she worked as a veterinarian in small animal animal practice, primarily treating dogs and cats for almost seven years before moving to an industry role with Hills pet nutrition in 2015. She works as a professional development veterinarian for South Australia and Western Australia and is passionate about nutrition impact.

Jessica graduated at the veterinarian from the University of Sydney in 1999. She spent 10 years working in small and mixed animal practice in Australia and the UK before moving into an industry role in 2009. She enjoys utilising her veterinary skills in the field of nutrition as the Professional Consulting veterinarian in New South Wales and ICT. Thank you Hills pet nutrition. So without any further delay, I’d like to hand you over to Bryony and Jessica.

Thanks so much, Dani. And hi everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. So over the next 30 minutes, we’re hoping to have a pretty informal discussion covering some of the common questions that you may have about feeding your puppy or kitten. As Dani said, please feel free to ask any questions via the chat function as we go along. And if we haven’t addressed them during the session, we’ll answer them at the end. I’ll hand over to Briony to start off with to look at the first common question is how do I know what to feed my puppy and kitten?

Thanks, Jess. Well, I guess there’s three main factors affecting your puppy or kitten’s health. And these are genetics environment and nutrition. And all of these nutritionist is the only factor that you can fully control. So you really want to try and choose a good puppy or kitten food that is complete and balanced and that means that it contains all the vitamins, vitamins, minerals and nutrients that you need in the required amounts. So compared to adults, puppies and kittens have higher requirements for things like fat, protein, calories, and some minerals as well.

So I’ll hand back over to Jess for the next question. And I guess the first the next thing we want to look at is well what should that pet what sorry What should you do as a pet parent when you’re looking for what diet to choose?

And I guess there’s a few things and we’re going to talk a little bit about what you can see on labels and how you can interpret those pet food bags.

But we know how confusing it is. There’s so many different pet foods available on the market. So one of the first things I recommend is that you find out a bit about your pet food brand, where it’s produced where it’s manufactured. Is the purse the brand, the pill pick the people are actually manufacturing the diet as well. What quality controls do they have in place?

Who’s responsible for the formulations? Do they have a bit of a nutritionist on board? Because just as with ourselves that we like to trust nutritionists dietitians to tell us what’s the best thing for us to a bit more nutritionists are going to be the best place to work out what’s the most appropriate for your puppy or your kitten? And is the company transparent with what’s in there?

Their diet, both ingredients but also the nutritional information. You can see some of that on the label, but you should be able to find more information either on the company’s website or by giving them a call or having a chat to them.

The next thing I guess is really looking at whether that dive is complete and balanced. And I’ll pass over to Brian and she’s going to talk a little bit about labelling guidelines. And how this fits in.

So AFTCO, which you can see on the slide there. That’s the Association of American Feed Control Officials. And it’s a US agency that establishes guidelines for the labelling of pet foods and sets a standard for nutritional adequacy. So these guidelines are accepted in many countries around the world including Australia. So it defines ingredients in terms it standardises things like your feeding trials and establishes minimums and maximums for the key nutrients and life stages. But our code doesn’t regulate test approval certified pet foods in any way. These functions are held by various state and national agencies depending on the market that you’re in.

So what I will get just to do is just go on to the next slide. So as I just mentioned before, what you really want to try and do is choose a diet that says that it’s complete and balanced. So instead of saying that’s intended for supplemental or complementary feeding, it will say that it is complete and balanced. So you can see on the slide there is an example of pet food a formulating so it says it’s formulated to meet nutritional net levels established by the AS PER cat food nutrient profiles for all life stages. Now when it says that it’s for all life stages, that means that it has to meet the most demanding phase of life which is your growth phase. So for puppies and kittens this would be okay. But we know that puppies and kittens have have slightly different nutritional needs in terms of proteins, calories and things like that then adults for example, so this may not be an ideal choice for for once they hit 12 months of age. You can see the second example there says animal feeding tests using aapko procedures substantiate that pet food the dog dog formula provides complete and balanced nutrition for maintenance. So that would be a diet that is complete and balanced and it’s intended for maintenance which would be your adult phase, if you’re looking for a specific copy or kitten diet, it might say provides complete and balanced nutrition for growth or provides complete and balanced nutrition for puppy or complete and balanced nutrition for maintenance. And that would be the one that you would be aiming to try and feed.

Just say thanks. And I guess you know, it’s really good for you guys to know where to look for some just general information and advice. And I’d recommend the West Sava guidelines. So with soccer, it’s a world small animal bit reassociation there are a global community of vets that work together to advance the health and welfare of pets around the world.

And they’ve got a subcommittee that’s based around global nutrition they provide a lot of information and guidelines both a bit but also pet owners. So if you have your phones you can actually scan those QR codes and all take you straight to their savvy pet owners guide to nutrition you know that this now comes from an unbiased source. It all talked about how you can look at finding the best information when you’re doing your own research on the internet. And it also provides some great links to reputable sources of information on the internet. So I highly recommend that you check those out.

So a really common question is how is it possible to tell from the food packaging what what you need to know what about the quality of the diet? And I guess whilst the label will tell you some important information we’ll go into next slide the ingredient list doesn’t always tell the full story.

So for example, pets have a requirement for certain nutrients and these nutrients can be provided by various types of ingredients and it can be tempting to look at what’s listed first when you’re looking at that ingredient list. But it’s important to remember that when you’re looking at that ingredient list is always listed in order by weight with the heaviest item first down to the down to the lightest item.

But with with regard to poultry and poultry meal, for example, they’re defined in the same way by iPhone and that just means a clean combination of flesh and skin with or without bone bones excluding the head, fake feathers and viscera. The difference however, is that poultry meal is dehydrated so the moisture contents been taken out of it a bit like you can get some dehydrated camping foods. Whereas if you’re using poultry or suppress meat, for example, then it’s got a lot more moisture content in it and therefore is a lot heavier. So it’s going to come further up and in terms of the ingredient list. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that one diet has more protein than the other because one’s a dehydrated form and one’s got the water content in there. But it’s a can it can be a bit misleading thinking that one’s higher in protein or one is better quality than the other. One thing a label can tell you though is the consistency of the ingredients. So if the ingredients are listed as something called seasonal, or if there is the term and slash or utilised in the formula that formula can actually change from bag to bag depending on the cost and availability of those ingredients. So this will commonly be read for example as the end or chicken and or lamb. And so the issue with that is that the ingredients can actually change from from batch to batch as I said depending on what’s cheapest at the time and what’s available. And so the nutrients can vary from bag to bag even though you’re still using the same brand of food so you can’t be 100% sure what you’re what you’re purchasing and that can make them a little bit more prone to things like upset tummies.

And I’ll get just to hand over now just to talk about some of the guidelines around the marketing stuff.

I think the other thing that you find on labels that can be quite confusing is there’s a lot of terminology on the label. And a lot of that is actually marketing claims and it can be sometimes quite hard to distinguish between what’s marketing language and what’s a term that actually has a defined meaning by labelling guidelines. So for example, something like natural is a very precise term is defined by the APA labelling guidelines. And it means that there’s no chemically synthesised ingredient in the pet food as a whole. It can have some added vitamins, minerals and trace nutrients, but nothing was actually synthesised within there as opposed to the term holistic, and term holistic can have a lot of connotations, I guess, for you as a pet owner. But actually, from a labelling point of view, there’s no regulation around it. There’s no Label Label definition for it. So it actually means that when you see that on the label, that’s a marketing term trying to entice you to buy a product rather than a term that’s actually telling you a lot about what’s within that product. In reality, any diet that’s complete and balanced could be confirmed as a holistic diet, because it’s providing everything you need.

So let’s take a look at what the advantages of feeding a more premium diet are Briony?

Yeah, so I guess some of the advantages of fading a premium diet like hills are things like the digestibility. So because it’s really highly digestible, it means that more of those nutrients are going to be absorbed. And it also means that there’s less mess to clean up in the backyard or in the litter tray. It’s also got a consistent formula or a fixed formula. That means that the ingredients won’t change from batch to batch and it will provide a guaranteed analysis of the nutrients in the diet. It also has really stringent quality control. And also as just said earlier when we when you are investigating the types of foods that you might want to to use, hills are very transparent in terms of the nutrition of the diets and we also have a huge helpline available so that if you do have any questions about any of the diets, that you as a pet owner can can call us you can contact us and ask any questions and that’s also available for for veterinarians and veterinary nurses as well. And I’ll now hand over to Jess just to talk a little bit more about hills as a company.

Because I guess the thing is, as a pet owner, you may or may not have heard about hills as a company so I guess after this we want to talk a little bit more about you know, the common questions you might have in general with regards to feeding your puppy and kitten. But it might be interesting for you to know who it is with your that’s talking to you tonight and where do we come from? hills as actually was started back in the 1930s by a veterinarian in the USA called Dr. Bob Morris. And it all started because he had a client who had a guide dog who had kidney disease. And he actually started at that point with developing the first nutritional diet. We kept that going today. There’s a lot of science behind what we do. For example for puppies and kittens we know that, for example, DHA is a really important essential fatty acid that’s been shown by science to really help brain and vision development and similarly high levels of antioxidants. It’s really important it’s been shown to help with immune function which can help when your puppies and kittens are undergoing vaccinations and soft to really boost their immune response. But they’re not the only people who are important for us. We’ve got our pet partners so we’ve got over 450 dogs and finally with the cats that are global pet nutrition Centre in Topeka, Kansas. And these guys are really important to us. They’re actually our tastes partners. Their role in life is to test our taste our food, and make sure it tastes delicious really, and they get lots of loving God picture here that’s a huge area they get lots of stimulation. The staff love to go and interact with these guys. They’ve got their own teams, they’ve got their own names. There’s a bit clinic on site, so they really get a lot of love and attention just as your own pet does. So that’s passing on to quickly Briony to tell you a little bit about our sustainability, and then we’ll move on to a little bit more about some of the questions you may have sorry, Till’s mission to transform the lives of pets everywhere, especially those in need and we’re really proud of our food shelter love partnership that helps transform the lives of dogs and cats in shelter locations, through a number of shelters across Australia. So today, we’ve provided over a million kilos of pet food to dogs and cats in these shelters and there’s 49 shelter locations that we support, and we’ve helped over 60,000 Pets find their forever homes. Another thing Hills is really passionate about is its sustainability and the environment and we really strive to reduce waste and be an energy efficient company so 100% of our plants that produce our dry kibble Zero Waste certified under the true zero waste programme. And part of our sustainability and caring for our planning inclusive responsible sourcing of ingredients. And to that end, we’ve been awarded multiple globally recognised certifications. I’ll now have now hand over to Jess to talk about some more questions such as How much should I be feeding my puppy and kitten?

Sangs Briony, so I guess that’s really this gets to the crux of what you guys really want to know and hopefully why you logged in tonight. So I’m actually gonna be feeding your puppy or kitten. Obviously that’s gonna depend on their body weight. So the feeding guide on the pack is a great place. To start. Be aware it’s only a guide. Obviously this is based on the sort of average animal and all our animals are individually unique. So you may need to tweak that slightly up or down to suit their individual needs.

One thing that you may notice when you look at feeding guides on packet is that actually as they grow as they get older, they need less food relative to their body weight. So you know, when they’re in that zero to four months time period and they’re growing really rapidly, then they’ll need relatively more food for their body weight so a two kilo dog would be more at that age than it would if it was two kilos and it was a little bit older. So weigh your pet regularly. Look at the feeding guide regularly and see how you know it goes obviously chat to your vets on nurses. If you at your local veterinary clinic if you need a little bit of advice on that. And one thing I highly recommend is that you should weigh that food ideally to measure it. Or at least make sure that you measure it on the cup quite accurately I think is a growing it can be quite high but it’s very easy to overfeed them once they become an adult and you know how much they need to eat. I actually even recommend cutting off that cup so that you can’t overfill it.

Oh one other thing with regards to the cup is to make sure you use a cup that’s been provided by the manufacturer because cups can really vary in size and shapes are our cup recommendation has been validated based on the cup size that we use.

Bryony how can they tell if they’re feeding enough food?

Yeah, that’s a really common question. So the best way is by looking at your puppy or kitten, so you can see on the screen there that there’s a body fat index risk chart and where you see that green area that’s an ideal body condition. So when you view your puppy from above, you want to have a nice, you know, waistline present there. And when you view from the side that there is an abdominal tap present. So you want to be able to feel the ribs but you don’t want to be able to see them and you really want to be doing regular assessment of your puppies body condition and making adjustments to the feeding if required, depending on that body condition and obviously don’t hesitate to contact your veterinarian if you concerned at all about your puppies weight. You can see on that body about risk chart that as those pets gain more and more weight that they tend to lose that waistline and they lose that abdominal tuck. So we really want them within that sort of that 20% is like an ideal body fat for pets.

So Jess, I’ll hand over to you now how often should I be feeding my puppy or kitten?

This very much depends on the age of your puppy or kitten. Younger pets tend to be need to be fed more frequently. Because they’ve got smaller stomach size. So under that three months of age, we usually recommend feeding about four times a day, from three to six months. Usually three meals a day works quite well and then cutting down to two meals a day between six and 12 months. After that it’s very much personal preference. I feel that twice a day feeding tends to work well for most people and fits into a natural routine for both dogs and cats. Cats you can graze feed as well so you can put out dry food and let them come and go to it as they please. It’s important that you measure it so that they you’re not over feeding them though. So just make sure if you’re doing that you measure out your daily quantity or your half daily quantity if you’re doing it twice. And you then don’t top up if you find that that falls empty.

All right. I tracked and Briony feeding wet or dry food is there something that’s a preference?

What isn’t a little bit personal preference, but when can kittens and puppies are very small, then I’d recommend feeding more of the wet food as they can sometimes find the kibble a bit hard to chew when they’re very little once they’re over a few months of age then we recommend feeding a combination of both wet and dry just for a bit of variety.

But you need to make sure that if you are feeding both wet and dry that you make adjustments to the amount you’re feeding so when you’re calculating that amount you may need to reduce the amount down to incorporate both the wet and the dry. But it is it is a bit of a personal preference as well as what you want to feed. Obviously make sure there’s plenty of water on hand especially for kittens, because we don’t want them to become dehydrated or anything like that.

So this is a really common question which I’ll hand over to Jess, do I need to supplement with calcium?

It is a really common question, isn’t it Brian and I think is one of those things that we know that they you know puppies and kittens need good levels of calcium for growth.

But the other thing I guess we know is that excess of vitamins, minerals, you know any nutrient within the diet can actually cause as much problems as a deficiency can. So if you’re choosing a diet that’s complete and balanced for growth, or for puppies or kittens, then you’re absolutely covered. They’ve already got the right amount of calcium and phosphorus and all the right balance of minerals in there to allow them to grow at their correct rate. If you start supplementing them on top of that, you can actually end up giving them too much. You can end up with an excess of calcium. And that can cause a problem particularly in the larger breed dogs. We’ll come back to larger breed dogs in a little while. Five minutes or so because they’ve got some specific nutrient requirements which are quite different. And they can be really prone to joint abnormalities.

And over nutrition in those early, early mass can really be one of the things that can can be a causative factor. So I wouldn’t recommend supplementing at all.

And what about other treats?

Yeah, we all love to spoil our pets, but we often overlook the calories in treats. So for example, giving an average size cat four kilo cat 14 grammes of cheese is actually the equivalent of us as humans eating a hamburger and chips so it is a lot of calories and a 15 kilo dog giving two pieces of salami is actually the equivalent of four chocolate chip cookies. So it’s it’s considerable the amount of calories that are present in treats. So as a general rule, we don’t want treats to make up any more than five to 10% of the diet. So a really good trick is to actually have your daily allowance measured out at the start of the day. And then just take some of that kibble or that wet food aside from that daily allowance and use that as your as your daily treats. I really like that kind of idea. Another really common thing is table scraps. So can you give table scraps and I guess there’s there again, there’s a risk of overcome calories and things like that. And we really need to be careful with certain things particularly things like bones cooked bones are a really big no, no, they can they can splinter and perforate the bow or the or the pet can become obstructed by them. So we really need to avoid them. And then I guess there’s the risk of developing fussy eating as well. I think giving a lot of of your table scraps to your pet.

And then the other common question, I guess, coming around sort of treats is using cow’s milk. You know, can I give cow’s milk and I guess once puppies and kittens have been weaned they lose the ability to digest milk and they can often become lactose intolerant. So I would recommend avoid giving them cow’s milk because it can lead to a bit of an upset tummy like some diarrhoea and things like that.

So this leads into another really common question which what foods are toxic? And I guess this is by no means an exhaustive list of foods, but onions and garlic are toxic to pit as grapes and raisins. Chocolate is also you know, the darker the chocolate, the more dangerous it is and suddenly that you probably haven’t heard of or maybe not aware of is Xylitol so that’s an artificial sweetener that you might find in some baked goods is also present in certain chewing gums as well and that can be really dangerous for our pets. So you want to make sure that you are avoiding all of those types of things.

Yeah, and I believe it’s also in some types of peanut butter. I know we sometimes use peanut butter to help with giving medications and things. So make sure they’d be using that but it’s all a toll free

and then I guess another common question that we often get asked is well what my puppy or kitten get bored of eating the same food every day.

And I guess says family not when you think of sorry, you think about it from a human perspective. Because for us variety is the spice of life. We like to try lots of different things and new things. However for up hit actually consistency is really key.

We want to make sure they’ve got a complete and balanced diet. But if we swap things around a lot, they tend to be more prone to getting upset tummies particularly if we don’t transition them. So which means sort of switching them over slowly from one to another. So there are definitely points where we would recommend switching. So when they’re going from puppy to adulthood, when they’re going from adulthood to senior, or if they require a special diet for any reason. So ubit might recommend a special diet for an underlying condition.

But other than that, absolutely fine to pay them the same thing. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t give them variety. So you can obviously feed them dry or wet as we discussed and we can give a mix and you’ll find that there’s often different forms of wet foods so for example, we have ones that looked much more like a skew formation. So he’s got you know, lots of sort of bits of vegetables and meat quite obviously within it. We’ve got things that are more like chunks and gravy and we’ve also got low forms. We’ve also got different flavour varieties as well so you can change of flavour. You can change up the form within the same diet range without causing any issues. Still knowing you’re getting the nutrition you want the right nutrition that you’ve chosen for them and still providing a complete and balanced diet. Without really sort of switching and swapping between brands and stuff where you miss the more upset tummies.

Now the thing that we find is that some people find that their pets seem to finish a food really quickly and I guess if you think about it when pets particularly tats, you know more sort of in their ancestry, they had to work for their food and so they get a very easy now where they just go down to a bowl and they get it um, but that can lead them to kind of eat it then they look at you go well, that’s gone with the rest.

What we can do is we can do different things to really try and help slow down that eating process for them. It can really help with mental stimulation as well as just providing food as nourishment.

And so there were these things like puzzle feed as you can see a couple here on line they see for both dogs and cats. And they really have to work and use their brain to work out how to get the food to actually be able to enjoy their meal. They get a lot of enjoyment out of these. It helps stimulate them, particularly you know, as things get back to normal when leaving the house or going out to work more. It makes them take a bit more time over their food.

And yeah, it’s a really nice way of actually helping nourish them physically, but also stimulate their brain.

Probably what about tracking their dive after they’ve been desexed?

This is another really common question. Yes. And I guess there’s no need to change to a different diet. I ask desexing because they’re still technically in that growth phase of life. We do know, however, that once dogs and cats have been desex that there. They do need a reduction in the amount their food due to a variety of reasons. So we recommend reducing the amount that you’re feeding by that 20% As a general rule, but the best way again, of determining the ideal amount to be feeding is regular weighing. So making sure that they’re staying a nice healthy weight. They’re saying a nice healthy body condition and make adjust to the feeding adjustments as required.

We mentioned before about large breed puppy so when we’re talking about calcium, we mentioned that laughing puppies have different needs.

So what we know about love and giant breed dogs in and when we talk about large breed puppies what I’m actually talking about is any dog that when it’s an adult is going to weigh 25 kilos or more at a healthy body weight.

And we know that these guys are much more prone to developing Bone and Joint abnormalities such as diseases such as hip dysplasia, you may well have heard about, you know, and that one of the things that can predispose that so that could be due to genetics and various other factors. But nutrition really does play a role in this. And what we find is if they’re fed a standard puppy breeder or they said they’re fed up to this high energy high in calcium, then essentially their bones grow quite quickly or grow fairly quickly and faster than their muscle mass can actually keep up within. You know, keep those joints nice and sturdy. So the key is really about reducing the overall level of energy and calcium so we have got slightly less calcium, slightly less fat, still ample for energy for them to grow, ample for them to develop their bones, but it just controls a growth rate, they’re still going to reach this same optimal size is just going to be in a much more slow controlled rather than the most rapid growth rate possible, which really allows these to develop in sync so they get much better joint healthy joint development that way.

So another really common thing is knowing when to transition that your pet onto an adult food. And so for for small breed dogs and medium breed dogs and for kittens. We recommend transitioning slowly onto an adult through that 12 months of age. However, for our our large braid and as just mentioned, these are these are types of dogs that are going to be over 25 kilos of adult size and huge giant breed dogs. They take a little bit longer to reach their full growth potential and so we recommend transitioning them onto an adult food once they’re 18 months of age. So just that little bit longer.

Also, so that kind of brings us to the end of our sort of presentation session if you like we’ll open up for questions after this. But I thought it might be nice for you guys. So just in summary, get a few of our top tips. So my key top tips for feeding puppies and kittens is make sure you choose a complete and balanced diet. This aim for them during growth.

I would measure or weigh their food amount so that we know that we’re feeding them the right amount and really keeping an eye on their body condition so we’re not overwhelmed the feeding.

And because you’re choosing complete and balanced diets, avoid things like cow’s milk, avoid supplements. They’re not needed, and they can potentially cause upset cow’s milk could cause upset bellies and we said with supplements, we can end up moving that nutritional balance and providing them with more than they need. Brian are your top tips? Yeah, monitor their weight and their body condition as we mentioned before and make adjustments to the feeding of required so as just mentioned the feeding guide is just a guide so that’s based on the average just the same as people metabolic rate does differ between you know different pets. So it does that amount of your required and then at 12 months of age transition gradually on to an adult food that’s for kittens and small and medium breed dogs. 18 months of age be large breed dogs.

Awesome. And with that, we’ll open up for any questions that you guys might have.

A big thank you so much to Brian and Jess. So a few questions that have come through. The first one is my puppy doesn’t seem interested in dry food but loves wet food and cooked chicken. Can they just feed that and no dry food

do you want me to take that one Brian need in anything that I made this

just wet food is fine. Um you know wet food if you using a quality brand, then the nutrition of wet food is actually the same as dry food. So from our point of view if you went Hills wet one of our puppy tempers versus our puppy driver you’re gonna get the exact same quality nutrition. You often find you end up feeding a little bit more volume life because wet foods got more water but there’s no problems at all with that. With regards to the chicken, consider that chicken as a little bit of a treat.

You know the occasional bit of cooked chicken or something is okay. You don’t need to add that as a base of the diet because you’re getting all the protein and things that you need within the wet food that you’re feeding. So really I would have that in that little five to 10% you know calorie intake as my treats at a portion and you can use your wet food as your base food and there’s no problems at all with that.

One thing I guess, proviso as I get bigger It depends how old your puppy is. Often when they’re smaller they’re going to like wet food more than you may get more used to dry food he or she may get more used to dry food as they get older. But one thing we may find is that they’re not working their teeth as hard.

So you know, getting dental checkups, in fact to get proper dental effect from food you need to use specific dental diets and that would be something as I get older, but if they want to fully wet through diet, then I would definitely talk to your vet about things that you can do to help with dental health.

Yeah, I would just echo the same as just because you’re not getting any sort of mechanical cleaning action. On your teeth when you’ve just got a a wet formulation. Then it would be important to chat to your veterinarian about some homecare options with with dental care because we do know that that is one of the biggest problems that dogs and cats face is dental disease as they get older. So that’s something to I guess, yeah, just be aware of with.

Hey, thanks, lady. Then another question as well. We’ve got a listener who cat is on the hills microbiome diet and they’re having trouble finding that because it’s out of stock so they’re wondering if there’s another diet that they could use in the hills range.

Yeah, I have to check as to when we hopefully have some more stock of the microbiome diet, I guess within our prescription range.

There’s nothing quite the same. So it’s probably best to speak to your local veterinarian about what they might recommend because it depends on why they have popped you on to the microbiome diet. I think the the stock should be in pretty soon. Have you heard just when exactly. It’s going to be available? I haven’t heard the exact date but not I would echo you your sentiments. I think it should be back soon. But if you’re not if you need it now, then chat to your vet. Some of our other diets within our intestinal range may well be suitable but it does depend on what the underlying diseases that they’re trying to manage with that as to which they would recommend as the next best option.

Perfect. Thanks, lady. And the next question is overhead. I assume so sorry, Danny. The other option is to contact the hills helpline as well. So yeah, contact your vet and then, you know, you can also contact the hills helpline as well and with any questions about that.

Hey, thank you. And then the next question is we’ve got a listener who had a three year old pin child Cavalier and he’s been de sacs he’s about 12 kilos and they’re trying to get into lose some weight. But they’re struggling, even though they’re measuring the food. Any tips for this three year old Cavalier?

Yeah.

Sorry, you’re good. Did you want to see him come in?

My feeling, it really depends on what you’re feeding at the moment if you’re feeding your standard die, who you’re just trying to measure and cut down with your standard diet, you’ll find that it’s much harder to lose weight that way, because if you start cutting down the amount of your regular diet, you just end up with hungry animals. So you’re not getting the same level of calories. You’re not getting anything to promote satiety. There’s a number of specific weight loss diets that are available. Some are sort of just low calorie, high fibre type diet. And then we also do produce a diet which really works on the pets own metabolism. It really works to to get the pet metabolism working more like that of a lean pet and really working for an optimal body weight. So again, you know, chat to your vet, and they can help you with that.

And then, you know, doing exactly the kind of things you’re doing as far as measuring. And yeah, anything else you want to add Friday? Yeah, I was gonna say, we do know that the metabolism of obese pets really differs than that of a normal weight kit. And they, they can’t metabolise fats and things like that quite as well as a normal white cat can so you know, sometimes we need just restricts the diet, the normal diet that you’re feeling the body can just hold on to those fat stores even more on the metabolism. Slows even more. So. Sometimes choosing things that help to speed up metabolism can be a really good option, but your vet will be the best one to tell about that. The other thing to consider is sort of calories in versus calories out what’s the energy expenditure as well. So what type of exercise are you doing with your pet? Are you doing regular walks you know, I you know, coming can be a good thing as well. Getting them to work for their food, you know, as just mentioned earlier, the food puzzle toys having multiple different areas around the house where you you’ve got the feed, doing if they’re constantly hungry and begging to food, doing smaller meals more frequently. There are all sorts of things that you can try and do to to help with with the weight loss.

I think thank you. And then the next question that has come through is this Lester has a toy poodle cross Maltese that’s 15 months old and this dog super energetic and gets lots of exercise every day, and they’re wondering if they need to feed more to compensate for all of that activity.

So again, probably the best way is by having a look at that body condition. Score and, and making sure that those ribs are visible. We want them to be palpable. We want to have that nice of dominance. How can we want to have see the waistline when viewed from a bar? If those ribs are really visible or if they’re in fact losing weight compared to the last time you’ve had them them checks then yes, absolutely increase the amount that you are feeding of the diet. But again, you know, as I said that those feeding guidelines are just a guide. So the best way is by looking at you know your body conditions so and making adjustments as needed.

Yep, I concur with everything now. I don’t think I’ve got anything much more I can add to that. That’s yeah, absolutely. Looking at them and weighing them regularly to make sure they’re not losing weight.

Awesome. And then we’ve got a very spicy food so this week becomes interested in food easily. So this pet owner is rotating through various different dry foods, which sometimes causes a tummy upset because of the amount of rotating foods. Any suggestions on how we get pets to eat the same diet consistently?

Yeah, that’s a really common one and unfortunately, what we Yeah is happening at the moment is dogs and puppies and kittens can be very good at training us. So they basically have learned that if I turn my nose up at these, I’ll get something different. And actually, sometimes what we need to do to break their habit is actually just persevere a little bit. So put down the food. Often I say put it down for a short period of time rather than leaving it out. Make it a valued resource if you like so if you don’t eat it in 1015 minutes, I’m gonna take it away. And then when it gets to the next mealtime, or if he hasn’t eaten a lot, you know in an hour or twos time, put the food down again. So he the puppy starts to realise that that’s the food I’m going to get this is what it is it’s going to be and you know, then they can actually you know, they tend to get more used to it and stop turning their nose off as much. You can use sometimes things like low salt stock as a flavour enhancer, and that can also pour a little bit over date warms the food it releases the aromas that can sometimes help as well, but I think sometimes he just being a little consistent can really help them just realise that that’s the food that they’re getting.

Yeah, I would just echo the slight warming of the food. So I think many people aren’t aware that pets actually rely on their sense of smell for their sense of taste. So a lot of their taste comes through their sense of smell, and I’m sure if you’ve had a cold before you’ve realised that you know, through doesn’t taste the same, it doesn’t taste as good. So sometimes, heating the food up a little bit helps to release those aromas. And that can help with the with the taste and the palatability of diets as well. So that’s another little trick that you can can try.

Perfect. Thank you so much, ladies, and thank you everyone for those questions. Thankful again for attending the webinar. We hope you’ve enjoyed this session. A very special thanks to Brian and Jess for pulling together today’s presentation and for giving up their time to share their knowledge and experience with us. Good evening, everyone.