Received: 08-10-2021 / Accepted: 21-01-2022
Dogs and cats are two types of domesticated animals that have been close to humans since ancient times. They are kept for house keeping, hunting, and entertainment (racing) purposes and are increasingly popular as pets. Viet Nam currently has more than 5 million families raising more than 7.5 million cats and dogs, equal to the number of largeruminants in the country. As pets, so their owners pay more attention to optimize nutrients to ensure good health (ideal body condition, neither obese nor rather thin) rather than maximize nutrients. The objective of this paper was to review the basic nutrient requirements of cats and dogs based on recommendations of NRC (2006), AAFCO (2014) and FEDIAF (2017) and some other studies.Dogs and cats are both carnivores, their energy requirements are higher than that of other livestock (4,000 kcal metabolizable energy/kg feed).The crudeprotein requirements of dogs are lower (18-23%) than those of cats (20-33%), but these are also higher than those of cattle and pigsor poultry, and the requirement for some nutrients is also very different from that of traditional livestock.