No brand names, no feeding charts. What this page gives you is the small number of things you can actually judge yourself — the label, the portion, the storage and the water bowl.
Choosing food for cats — and for dogs — is less about finding the one correct bag than about reading what is printed on it and watching what the animal does next. Two cats of identical weight can need noticeably different portions, depending on age, neutering and how much of the day is spent moving rather than asleep. The panel on the packet is a starting figure, and it is easily mistaken for an instruction.
We name no brands here and publish no feeding tables, because the useful part is measurement rather than opinion. At a wellness exam your pet is weighed and given a body condition score, and that score repeated over months is the only feeding chart written about your animal. Read alongside it: parasite burden, which is why deworming belongs in the same conversation, and age, since senior pets often lose muscle while the scale holds still.
The rest of this page is the part that nutrition advice written for cooler climates leaves out. Dubai changes three things: how fast an opened bag goes stale, how much water an animal needs, and what is genuinely on a shelf here. Storage and portion size change what a bag delivers, whatever it cost.
Photographs of meat and words like premium are marketing. The nutritional adequacy statement, the life stage it names and the first few ingredients are the parts that carry information.
You should be able to feel ribs under a thin layer, and see a waist from above. When the chart and the body disagree, the body is right and the chart is a printed average.
Rotating between bags chased through reviews makes it impossible to say which food caused what. A single food, fed steadily and reviewed a month later, is how an answer appears.
Free feeding hides how much actually goes in, and wet food left out in this climate is spoiling while it waits. Meals taken from a weighed daily amount keep the arithmetic honest.
Reviews from our public Google profile — not written by us.
I highly recommend this veterinary clinic! They truly care about pets as if they were their own babies. Every time my cats have been sick, the team has always followed up to check on their recovery & see if they needed anything else. That level of care & compassion means so much to me 🤍
I had a wonderful experience at Petbook Veterinary Clinic in Al Quoz with my 9-month-old male Turkish Angora cat, Meiko. A special thank you to Dr. Emad and Miss Charrie for their excellent care, kindness, patience, and professionalism.
I had all three of my cats vaccinated at this clinic, and I couldn't be happier with the service. The veterinarians and staff were very professional, gentle, and caring with my cats, making the entire experience smooth and stress-free.
A feeding review happens inside the standard consultation at AED 120 — the pet is weighed, scored for body condition, and the label you are already buying is read against that. If a change is worth making we say so, and if the current food is doing its job we say that instead. Where a weight problem turns out to have a medical cause behind it, any tests are quoted before they are run, and you can ask for the figure on WhatsApp first. Everything the clinic publishes sits on the vet prices page.
Bring the bag, or a clear photo of the label and the feeding panel.
120 AED
None of this is complicated. It is the arithmetic that is hard to do at home, done with the animal on the scale.
The feeding panel, the adequacy statement and the ingredient list are what we need. Recipes within one brand — kitten, adult, indoor, light — differ in calories per gram more than brands do.
A neutered indoor cat can hold one weight for a year while trading muscle for fat. Only hands on the ribs show it.
Treats, chews, table scraps and a second person feeding the same cat are where portion maths falls apart. We add them up first.
Neutering, age, pregnancy, dental disease and past urinary or kidney trouble all change what the right food looks like. A cat who cannot chew dry food comfortably may be telling you about his mouth rather than his taste.
Portions go by weight, not by cup: two kibbles of different density fill one cup with different amounts. The review is four to six weeks out.
A new food is mixed into the old over several days. Loose stools persisting past that are a reason to call.
Real patients at our Al Quoz 3 clinic — where weights and body condition scores are taken.
From about May to September the water bowl matters more than the choice of bag. Dogs lose water panting, cats on dry food start from a deficit, and both drink less than they need when the water has been standing warm since morning. This is also the season when a mild dehydration and an early heat problem look similar from across the room — so if your dog is panting hard, unsteady or refusing water after time outside, treat it as urgent rather than dietary and call us. Our emergency line is answered 24/7.
Nothing below is exotic. It is what behaves differently here than where nutrition articles come from.
The fats carrying flavour and fat-soluble vitamins oxidise faster in warmth and damp, and every opening lets humid air in. A bag that keeps well in a temperate kitchen is on a shorter clock once opened here.
Garages, balconies, utility rooms and car boots run far hotter than the flat in summer. Air-conditioned storage, out of the sun, keeps quality longer.
The price per kilo drops, and so does the quality of the last third, eaten weeks after opening. A size finished in a few weeks costs less.
Dry food carries very little water; fresh prey carries a great deal. In a summer that pulls water out constantly, an animal on kibble alone has much to make up at the bowl — and cats are poor at noticing.
Indoor cats, and dogs whose summer walks shrink to minutes, need less energy than they did in January. Portions do not always follow, and the weight arrives unnoticed.
Rankings written elsewhere name recipes no Dubai shop stocks. Judge the bag in front of you by the label printed on it, not by a list written for another market.
It is easy to change food only when something goes wrong. In practice it should change at a few predictable moments, and getting those right avoids problems that are harder to undo afterwards.
The four below are worth diarising. Everything in between is best left alone.
Appetite is one of the earliest things illness touches, which makes a change in it information rather than fussiness. Each line below is a reason to book.
We deliberately do not publish a brand ranking, because the honest answer changes with the individual cat and with what is actually on a shelf in the UAE this month. What does not change are the things worth checking on any bag: a nutritional adequacy statement that names a life stage, a named animal protein rather than a vague meat derivative near the top of the ingredient list, and a manufacturer that employs qualified nutritionists and runs feeding trials. Where a cat has a history of urinary, kidney or weight trouble, a therapeutic diet may be the appropriate choice, and that is decided at a consultation rather than off a general shelf — that is the point at which a recommendation becomes specific enough to be useful.
Start with the range printed on the bag for your cat's ideal weight rather than his current weight, then treat that figure as a hypothesis. Weigh the daily amount in grams instead of measuring by scoop, split it across meals, and include every treat in the total — they add up faster than expected. Four to six weeks later, feel for the ribs and look for a waist from above; if the shape has moved in the wrong direction, adjust in a small step and check again. That loop is what our <strong>AED 120</strong> consultation sets up, and it is far more reliable than any number we could print here.
The feeding panel on the bag is calculated for a healthy dog at his ideal weight, so a dog carrying extra weight should be fed for the dog he ought to be, not the dog on the scale today. From there, adjust for reality: a neutered dog whose summer walks have shrunk to ten air-conditioned minutes needs less than the chart assumes, and a young working-line dog may need more. Adjust in small steps rather than by halving, and re-weigh before adjusting again. If the weight will not move despite honest portions, that is a reason to have him examined rather than to cut further.
Keep the food in its original bag — the liner is designed to hold fats and block light — then put that bag, rolled and clipped, inside an airtight container. Decanting kibble loose into a bin strips away the barrier and the batch information at once. Store it indoors in the air-conditioned part of the home, never in a garage, on a balcony or in a car, and keep the scoop dry, since a damp scoop returned to the bag is how mould starts. Buy a size your household finishes within a few weeks, and open wet food only when it is being served: in Dubai heat an uneaten portion left down should be considered spoiled after a short time rather than saved.
Yes — dogs cool themselves largely by panting, which costs water continuously, and a Dubai summer keeps that running even on short walks. Give more than one bowl, change the water rather than topping it up, and keep bowls out of direct sun so it is not unpleasantly warm by midday. Wet food is a legitimate way to raise intake for a dog who drinks reluctantly. What matters more than the exact volume is the trend: a dog suddenly drinking far more, or far less, than usual is telling you something medical.
Tell us what your pet needs — we confirm on WhatsApp right away. Emergencies are answered 24/7 on +971 54 888 3686.
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