The pet food industry is enormous – as you look at all the varieties of food on the shelf it can sometimes be mind boggling. In general we recommend feeding an age appropriate balanced diet to your pet and there are countless good quality brands out there. But what about foods for specific conditions? – again, there are a whole range of cat and dog foods out there for animals with specific medical needs.

Here are some of the more common conditions that we prescribe specific diets for: Kidney (renal) issues, Liver (hepatic) issues, bladder (urinary) issues, allergies, inflammatory bowel issues, diabetes, thyroid issues – and that is just a basic list off the top of my head.

To give you an example of what these diets do – urinary diets are designed to dissolve bladder crystals and prevent them reforming. An-allergenic diets (for example used in pets with certain skin or gut allergies) contained protein that is chopped up so small (at a molecular level) that it cannot stimulate an allergic response. Kidney diets will have altered protein and phosphate levels too slow kidney deterioration. The science behind these diets is impressive and I will not bore you with too much detail.

Traditionally these diets, whilst good for your pets, have not always been the most tasty; but pet food manufacturers are aware of this and are increasingly trying to make these diets tasty as well as effective.

So if your vet talks about a diet change as well as medication do listen to their advice – getting your pet to eat the right food can definitely improve their response to treatment.