Taurine is found in quality dog food, but some brands have insufficient amounts. For example, dogs with liver disease and kidney failure should not eat too much protein.

However, even this needs to be eaten in the right amount, especially if they have other health issues. No dog should have a high-salt diet, but all require relatively high levels of protein to provide the appropriate diet for dogs. Although some dogs will need medication to treat their heart issue, all will need a suitable diet to prevent heart problems.įor humans, well-known foods that are good for heart conditions include those low in salt and which are relatively high in protein.

Giving the correct food to a dog with heart problems greatly reduces their discomfort and can help maintain heart health. This includes providing a diet of foods rich in taurine for dogs with heart problems. Some dogs may not require pharmacological treatment, but will need a change in diet to prevent future health issues. This can include taurine supplements, where necessary. They will prescribe the correct treatment, some of which will require medication if the problem is sufficiently acute. For this reason, it is vital we take the dog to the veterinarian for a diagnosis. Many of the symptoms of heart failure in dogs are nonspecific, meaning they are shared with other health problems. It can be difficult to know if a dog has problems with their heart. A healthy dog will need taurine for their heart to function and dogs with heart problems may need more to compensate for heart defects such as arrhythmias or heart murmurs in dogs. While scientists struggle to understand the biology of it all, grain-free pet food formulations may benefit from a taurine boost as a cover-your-tail measure.Taurine is essential for a dog's body to function and one of its most important functions is pumping blood around the body. Now, no one is 100% sure why some dogs seem to have problems with the metabolic pathway involving taurine, or if that is even the actual case. Scientists thought dogs were capable of synthesizing taurine, although a few breeds such as Golden Retrievers are prone to DCM. Cats can’t synthesize their own taurine, so cat food has to provide it, just as prey used to for the felines. A similar strategy keeps DCM at bay in cats. Taurine supplementation may reduce the risk of dogs developing DCM. Taurine supplementation of dog food to avoid DCMĭespite the confusion, at least there’s a straightforward, if stopgap, solution. Similarly, researchers don’t know why the cases of DCM started appearing in the past few years, although the grain-free trend is a decade old. Why do thousands of dogs with similar breeds and lifestyles have no heart problems on grain-free diets heavy in legumes or potatoes, while their conspecifics suffer heart problems? The panel had no more answer to that question than the federal government does. Although grain-free dog diets correlated to these DCM reports, many more dogs who ate the same foods for years never suffered any ill effects. Food and Drug Administration agents have recorded 290 cases of DCM in dogs in the country as of November 11, 2018. “Yes…yes…yes,” they said, chuckling at their repetition of a simple answer to a complex question.ĭCM is indeed a complex question, and scientists have few solid explanations. In response to that audience question, all three members of the Petfood Forum 2019 panel discussion on DCM agreed one after the other. “Should pet food formulators supplement dog foods with taurine to avoid concerns over dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)?”

Taurine in dog food