Tips for a Beautiful Coat for Cats and Dogs

1 Tips for a Beautiful Coat for Cats and Dogs

Currently, the fixed ways people use for coat beauty are mainly dietary supplements, roughly split into lecithin and oils; no real principle, but a beautiful coat is the proof.

Next, let’s talk about the basics of pet coat beauty — how to eat for both a beautiful coat and good health.

Lecithin supplementation

Lecithin supplements, hugely popular in recent years, have swept the pet coat world; in short, all kinds of good.

Almost all merchants heavily promote lecithin’s wonders — besides coat beauty, it regulates heart and brain blood vessels, delays aging, boosts immunity, and so on. But is lecithin really that magical?

What exactly is lecithin?

Most pet lecithin on the market is a magical little pill, mainly extracted from egg yolk, animal liver, sunflower seeds, and various meats, also from soybeans and grains.

Soy lecithin blends water and oil well and is usually used as an additive.

Many human foods also add soy lecithin to better blend cream and water; it is added to various desserts, ice cream, etc. — looks really nutritious.

Lecithin and coat beauty

Appropriate lecithin supplementation does promote vitamin absorption and contains fatty acids essential to pets,

which is also one of the main bases for products to claim lecithin benefits cardiovascular health, especially helpful for senior dogs;

it can promote memory and learning ability and has certain benefits for skin and coat.

However, the above lecithin benefits are not scientifically proven.

But it must be stressed that whether these effects are real or not, they have basically nothing to do with soy- or grain-extracted lecithin.

Let’s not discuss soy’s GMO issues and the pesticide spraying required in its cultivation, which are undoubtedly harmful to your pet;

and soy lecithin extraction requires dehydrating, extracting, and chemically treating soybean oil,

finally made into a magical coat-beauty pill. As for its efficacy and nutrition, I think by now every owner has a measure in mind.

Of course, the currently recognized pet-beneficial lecithin is mainly from egg yolk and sunflower; egg yolk’s coat benefits need no elaboration — you’ve surely heard.

Rather than searching for the best lecithin for your master and obsessing over ingredient comparison, just one egg: it eats the yolk, you eat the white. Considering food safety, cook the egg.

Sunflower-extracted lecithin has a more complex process than soy lecithin and avoids the pet-harmful acetone and ethane chemical extraction, with higher production cost;

mostly processed and extracted by cold pressing, like olive oil and other oils, which also means a higher price.

Side effects of lecithin

Excess lecithin causes certain adverse reactions, such as:

vomiting, diarrhea, low mood, rapid weight gain, reduced appetite, itching, etc. Also, some pets are allergic to lecithin, and severe cases cause anaphylactic shock.

Pet fish oil

Besides lecithin, fish oil is also a coat-beauty product many owners firmly believe in, with many benefits — not only coat beauty but also immune boost and cardiovascular support.

For cats and dogs, omega-3 fatty acids are an essential supplement; they need a certain dose of DHA and EPA, obtainable from fish oil.

But fish oil is also thought to somewhat offset its own benefits due to oxidation damage and deep-sea radiation.

Fish oil oxidizes somewhat when exposed to oxygen, causing a reverse effect like worsening the pet’s own inflammation; some cats and dogs may be allergic to deep-sea fish oil.

Drawbacks of fish oil:

1. Fish oil loses potency from oxidation, damaging the pet’s own protein, DNA, and other important cell tissues,

with potential to cause disease and premature aging. So after opening fish oil, using it up and discarding it shortly matters a lot.

2. Fish oil may carry some toxins from heavy-metal pollution in deep seas.

3. Due to radiation etc., some deep-sea fish oil sources may be radioactive.

4. Excess fish oil production puts certain damage and pressure on the ocean.

Simply put, whether for coat beauty or immunity, the main reason to choose fish oil is to get its omega-3 fatty acids,

and the omega-3 content on the market often differs greatly from the claimed effect. Using oils, given fish oil’s drawbacks, there are more oil choices.

Coconut oil, phytoplankton supplementation

Considering pet health and the drawbacks of many supplements, there are many choices to get pets’ essential fatty acids, like phytoplankton and coconut oil.

Phytoplankton (algae powder, oils)

Phytoplankton is one of Earth’s most precious nutrient sources, broadly an ancient and magical algae,

as single-celled organisms, after extraction it provides pets various trace minerals and essential amino acids; related studies show phytoplankton extraction also has some anti-cancer effect.

Phytoplankton oil contains twice the omega-3 of fish oil, also helping skin, heart, and joint health,

while reducing inflammation and chronic disease occurrence.

Generally, pets must first break down food then convert it to energy to absorb supplements, but phytoplankton is made of tiny tissues pets absorb better.

Current research shows phytoplankton oil has these benefits for pets:

1. Improves dogs’ indigestion.

2. Supplements trace elements, very important to cats and dogs — not just about not eating wall plaster or poop.

Essential trace elements like manganese: lacking manganese makes cats and dogs prone to joint disease.

3. Helps fight cancer and prevent related chronic disease; tests and studies by the US National Cancer Institute show phytoplankton has anti-cancer potential.

4. Delays aging and supports liver health; phytoplankton provides substances beneficial to pet liver health.

Coconut oil

Coconut oil’s biggest benefit for pets is its fatty acid content; over 90% of coconut oil is saturated fatty acids.

Coconut oil’s MCT (medium-chain triglycerides) greatly benefits digestion, immune system, and metabolism, helping pets control weight, beautify coat, and prevent thyroid-related disease.

Besides feeding, research also mentions ‘coconut oil therapy’: once a week external coconut oil improves cats’ and dogs’ coat and nail shine.

Method: apply coconut oil to the coat during bathing, wait 5 minutes, then rinse thoroughly; if afraid of residue, follow with pet shampoo.

Excess coconut oil causes varying diarrhea and oily stools in pets; first feeding, try a small amount.

Likewise, compared to fish oil, coconut oil’s pollution and radiation issues are much better.