Prospects for the Development of Functional Foods for Companion Cats and Dogs: A Review

Recently, as the number of family members has decreased, companion animals such as cats and dogs have been recognized as ‘family members.’ Therefore, the health and well-being of companion animals are important issues for their owners. In addition, companion animals positively affect human emotional and physical health. For these reasons, companion animal foods are recognized as important. Nevertheless, understanding companion-animal food labels is challenging. Therefore, it is necessary to provide various types of education to companion animal owners who use companion animal food and to promote companion animal food-containing functionalities. Above all, research on companion animal food with added functionality should be conducted more actively because the ultimate goal of functional companion animal food will be achieved by developing safe, biologically active ingredients that effectively reduce the risk of disease in companion animals and maintain their health. Therefore, future basic and applied nutritional research should focus on the roles and mechanisms of action of functional foods in companion animals.