Palatability and Impact on Food and Water Intake of Nutribound®, a New Liquid Nutritional Supplement for Dogs and Cats

Nutritional support is vital to the recovery process for critically-ill patients, due to the frequent decrease of voluntary food intake, putting these patients at a major risk for malnutrition, which can result in a catabolic state [1,2]. As such, nausea, pain, some administered drugs and anxiety over hospitalisation can reduce appetite [3]. However many patients in the recovery phase do not receive enteral nutritional support specifically adapted for their critical state. In fact, solid nutrition cannot be given to some patients because of recurrent vomiting or asthenia, or the food is simply not accepted by the anorectic patient [4]. There is great interest in providing small volumes of liquid nutrition that are highly digestible and palatable for critical patients, because this could potentially increase the willingness to eat in sick animals and facilitate the first intake of food. Unfortunately liquid supplements containing useful nutrients are not always practically available or are not sufficiently palatable. One of the challenges of early, spontaneous re-feeding is to awaken interest in food in the patient in order to decrease the probability of nutritional failure. Voluntary uptake from the animal facilitates compliance whereas forced and repetitive administrations may induce aggressive responses and even nutritional aversion, especially in cats