Dogs are from Mars ~ Cats are from Venus

Are they really different? 

Part III

 To summarize from the last to articles, dogs are Omnivore and cats are true Carnivores.  Some of the nutrition cats and dogs get, they can make themselves or they have to borrow from other animals or must be supplemented back into their food. 

Felinine An amino acid in the urine of cats

Cats –are the only creatures to manufacture the Felinine chemical. Felinine’s role in the overall function of the chemical of cats is unknown but is usually offensive. 

Dogs – Don’t know and don’t care what this stuff is.

Dietary Protein

Cats – If fed a perfectly balanced and 100% digestible protein in a diet, the cat will use 20% of that protein for growth metabolism and 12% for maintenance.

Dogs – If fed a perfectly balanced and 100% digestible protein in a diet, the dog will use 12% of that protein for growth metabolism and only 4% of that protein for maintenance.

…. In other words . . . cats need more protein in their diets than dogs do.

Arachidonic Acid - An essential fatty acid that plays a vital role in fat utilization and energy production.
 

Cats – Cannot make their own Arachidonic Acid even in the presence of adequate linoleic acid. The reason cats can’t make Arachidonic Acid from linoleic acid is because they do not have the right enzyme to convert linoleic to Arachidonic.

Dogs – Can make their own Arachidonic Acid if they consume enough linoleic acid by eating proper fats.   It is found in the lipids of cell membranes. It is abundant in many vegetable oils, especially safflower and sunflower oils.  Therefore, we can say that Arachidonic Acid is not an essential fatty acid for dogs.

Fasting and Starvation.

Cats – Do not mobilize fat reserves for energy very efficiently and, in fact, break down non-fatty body tissues for energy. This upsets the internal chemical factory and can lead to a very dangerous feline disorder called hepatic lipidosis. Never put a fat cat on a starvation diet, it could have detrimental affects.

Dogs – Can tolerate prolonged fasts and utilize fat reserves for energy.  It is healthy for a dog to miss a meal now and them.  For a healthy dog of a healthy weight, it shouldn’t hurt them to fast once a week.   

In answer to the questions, can the dog eat my cat food and can the cat eat the dog food, you now know the reasons they each have their own formulations.  You now know  that cats should eat a meat based diet and it is impetrative to their wellness.  THERE ARE NOT VEGEATARIAN DIETS FOR CATS.   Although I would not put a dog on a vegetarian diet, they can handle and get some good nutrition from fruits, vegetables and nuts.  Even though they are not a true carnivore, they are predominately meat eaters.

Vitamin A  Vitamin A actually refers to a family of similarly shaped molecules: the retinoids.  Its important part is the retinyl group, which can be found in several forms. In foods of animal origin, the major form of vitamin A is an ester, primarily retinyl palmitate, which is converted to an alcohol (retinol) in the small intestine. Vitamin A can also exist as an aldehyde (retinal), or as an acid (retinoic acid). Precursors to the vitamin (provitamins) are present in foods of plant origin as some of the members of the carotenoid family of compounds.

Carotenoids: are organic pigments that are naturally occurring in chromoplasts of plants and some other photosynthetic organisms like algae, some types of fungus and some bacteria. There are over 600 known carotenoids; they are split into two classes, xanthophylls and carotenes. They absorb blue light. Carotenoids serve two key roles in plants and algae: they absorb light energy for use in photosynthesis, and they protect chlorophyll from photodamage.^[1] In humans, carotenoids such as beta-carotene are a precursor to vitamin A, a pigment essential for good vision, and carotenoids can also act as antioxidants.