Cat Feeding Mistakes

Cat feeding is essential to providing a healthy, quality diet for your cat. However, some owners can make mistakes in feeding their cat without even realizing that what they are doing is not in the best interest of their cat. Being informed about feeding mistakes that can prove harmful to your cat is one way to ensure that your cat remains strong and healthy.

Feeding Table Scraps

Feeding your cat table scraps occasionally is not a problem. However, feeding exclusively table scraps, or a majority of their meals from table scraps, is harmful to your cat's health. One of the problems with feeding table scraps is that they are often overloaded with fat and grease. Your cat does require a certain amount of fat in his diet. But chances are that your cat is not active enough to burn off what he eats in a meal from the table. This can lead to obesity issues and, eventually, health conditions related to obesity.

Not only can feeding table scraps be harmful to your cat's health, but it can also promote the inappropriate behavior of begging and climbing onto the table to eat. These are behaviors that you certainly do not want to encourage in your cat. If you allow it to happen even once, your cat will learn that the behavior is acceptable.

In addition, feeding table scraps can turn your cat into a very picky eater. Table scraps are okay on the occasion, but feeding table scraps routinely can cause your cat to have an aversion to his cat food. The problem is that there are essential nutrients in your cat's kibble that he needs to maintain a strong and healthy lifestyle. If he becomes turned off by his normal kibble, you may run into some nutritional issues.

Feeding Dog Food

Feeding dog food to your cat is a habit that you should never get into. Cat food, no matter the quality, is specially formulated to fit the nutritional requirements of cats; and likewise dog food is meant to fulfill the nutritional needs of dogs. Cats require much more Vitamin B and protein in their diets than dogs, and your cat cannot get all of the nutrition he needs from eating dog food. 

Additionally, because cats do not have the ability to convert their nutritional intake into water soluble vitamins, there can be a real problem when they attempt to digest dog food. Cat food is specifically made to combat this issue in a way that is digestion-friendly for cats. This is another reason why you should never feed dog food to your cat.

Feeding Toxic Foods

Another one of the mistakes that you want to try to avoid when feeding your cat is feeding him foods that can be dangerous and toxic to him. Many cat owners may not be aware of exactly which human foods are dangerous to cats; in essence feeding them without meaning any harm. But cat owners need to be aware of exactly what type of foods can present harm to their cat.

Among some of the most dangerous food to cats are chocolate, raisins, grapes and onions. Chocolate contains ingredients which are extremely toxic to cats. Your cat's system cannot tolerate the substances of chocolate and can put your cat into a state of toxic shock. Likewise, raisins and grapes are known to cause damage to the kidneys or complete kidney failure, and onions can induce an anemic condition.

The best way to avoid cat feeding mistakes is to be informed of what is harmful to your cat and to continue feeding regular cat that is specifically made to maintain the health of your cat.

 

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