To understand how to keep your pets’ hearts healthy, it’s important to know how their hearts work, and how problems develop. From there, you can understand what is needed to give them the best support possible.

Cats’ and dogs’ hearts are divided into four functional parts. Those parts are the:

• Heart muscle, which pumps blood throughout the body.
• Heart valves, which direct blood flow in the proper direction.
• Pericardium, it's a tough membrane that envelops and protects the heart.
• The heart conducting system directs the electrical impulses that keep the heart beating in a coordinated manner.

Various heart conditions, either inherited or acquired, can affect any or all of these components.

Common heart concerns that can affect cats and dogs include:

• Enlargement or thickening of the heart (this is the most common heart condition seen in cats).
• Weakening of the heart muscle.
• A buildup of scar tissue on the inner lining and muscle of the heart.
• Deterioration of the valves (heart murmur), allowing blood to leak backwards and increase the load on the heart. This can be genetic or acquired.
• Circulatory or blood flow issues (a common condition in dogs).

Many of the changes develop slowly, over months and years, with few outward signs of declining heart function.

While some heart concerns may be preventable, some aren’t.

But, by supporting your pet’s heart health with smart lifestyle choices, you may be able to help slow the progression of changes and limit their long-term effects.

Because cats are such masters at concealing health issues, a heart concern often remains hidden until it becomes a crisis. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. In the wild, any type of weakness makes an animal stand out from its predators.

On the outside, your cats may appear healthy.

If a heart issue is brewing, you’re unlikely to know until they begin to show more advanced signs. All you may notice at first is a decreased appetite, or maybe your cats sleeping or hiding more. Issues often arise around middle age.

So, what can you do to support your cats' heart health and function?

Most importantly, feed your cats a human-grade, meat-based diet, without grains and unnecessary carbohydrates, like Furchild Meals.

While there are a multitude of reasons to feed meat and avoid carbs, one of the most important reasons lies in an essential amino acid that is crucial for heart health…

Taurine. Critical not only for heart health, it also supports brain health, eye function, digestive health and nerve growth.

While most mammals are able to make their own taurine from other amino acids, cats’ ability to do this is limited, so your cats require large amounts of it in their diets. Fresh food diets rich in organ and muscle meats contain abundant, naturally occurring taurine.

While taurine is routinely added to commercial cat food, it’s not always in sufficient quantity to meet the needs of cats. Cats can easily become taurine deficient if they don’t get enough in their diets.

There are some types of cat food that, while they meet AAFCO nutritional requirements, are nonetheless low in taurine. These include dry cat food (kibble and biscuits) and semi-moist pouched food.

Dr Becker strongly recommends that you avoid feeding your cats these types of foods. She also recommends providing extra taurine if your cats may be at risk for heart concerns.

All of Furchild Meals for cats include additional taurine in their formulations to ensure your cats are consuming optimal levels for their best heart health. 

Researchers have made an interesting discovery in recent years – a dog's cardiovascular system is very similar to the human cardiovascular system.

One area in which they are strikingly similar is the significant role diet plays in heart health.

For humans, processed junk food with excessive carbohydrates is a known factor for heart concern risk.

For dogs and cats, it’s not much different…

Biologically inappropriate, highly processed pet food (kibble and biscuits) with too many unnecessary carbs is the equivalent of junk food for your pets – and it may also raise their risk for heart issues.

The sad truth is that far too many dogs and cats are eating a junk food diet their entire lives.

Most dry pet food, or kibble, is a blend of poor-quality meats, byproducts and feed-grade vitamins and minerals. In addition, most kibble contains high-glycemic, genetically engineered (GE) corn, wheat, rice or potato.

The pet food industry wants you to believe that carbohydrates are not only good for your pet but also that they’re an “essential nutrient.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Grains and carbohydrates have no place in a carnivore’s diet – our pets weren’t designed to digest them, and they can cause unhealthy spikes in your pet’s insulin, glucagon and cortisol throughout the day.

Plus, if your pets are getting a significant amount of calories from carbs instead of from meat, it can further lower their intake of taurine.

Because carnivores like your dogs or cats have no dietary need for grains, and their digestive system can’t even handle them properly, it would be a better choice to feed them a grain-free diet, right?

Well, here’s what we’ve learned about commercial grain-free diets.

Twenty years ago, this option emerged as an alternative to the corn, rice and wheat that are widely used in pet foods.

Initially, some veterinarians thought the switch to grain-free might be a good thing. However, within a few years, they started noticing some troubling changes in their patients’ health.

Many pet owners don’t realise it, but grain-free processed food isn’t carbohydrate-free or starch-free. In fact, grain-free pet foods are high in starch and some contain even more carbs than regular grain-based pet food.

Not only are veterinarians seeing weight gain and rising insulin levels in their patients consuming alternative grain-free diets, but they are also seeing a rise in cardiac issues.

Whether they’re connected hasn’t been established. However, there is the potential that some of the ingredients in grain-free kibble and biscuits may be creating dietary deficiencies – specifically in taurine and carnitine, two amino acids found primarily in muscle tissue.

Some researchers think the high carbs in grain-free pet food may deplete taurine levels, or possibly make the nutrient less bioavailable or useable.

Plus, the high-heat extrusion process used to make kibble and biscuits creates byproducts that can cause a chemical reaction between the amino acids and carbs in the food. This may degrade the taurine and alter your pet’s microbiome, or gut bacteria.

Up until 20 years ago, pet food included primarily rice, wheat or corn. With the advent of grain-free food, manufacturers started replacing grains with peas, lentils, tapioca, garbanzos (chickpeas) other beans, and white potatoes.

In essence, pet food became even more biologically inappropriate.

Not only are legumes and similar starches very high in carbohydrates but they’re also added to pet food in place of meat to boost protein levels. However, peas, beans, lentils and white potatoes are not acceptable substitutes for meat.

They are missing the amino acids your pets need for their cardiovascular health, putting their heart at risk.

That’s not the only problem… Grain-free foods contain anti-nutrients, such as lectins and phytates, that can interfere with the absorption of taurine and other important nutrients.

Another ingredient that shouldn’t be in your pet’s food is beet pulp. This unnecessary filler binds with bile acids in the small intestine, increasing their excretion. Because bile acids are needed to recycle taurine, beet pulp can lower your pet’s total body taurine levels.

In summary, there are three factors that make commercial grain-free diets inappropriate for your pets, and potentially put their heart health at risk:

• The high levels of starchy carbohydrates.
• The low levels of high-quality protein.
• The extremely high-heat processing methods used to create kibble and other commercial pet foods.

The best food you can provide your pet is a fresh, nutritionally balanced, grain-free, species-appropriate diet, like Furchild Meals. Fresh, living foods have an abundance of enzymes, fragile fatty acids, phytonutrients and amino acids that are lost with any type of processing.

Because taurine is so important for cats’ and dogs’ overall health, Dr Becker recommends supplementing all pets with high-taurine foods or extra taurine, no matter what type of food you feed your pets.