The gut microbiome of companion animals plays a significant role in their health and wellbeing. Understanding emerging research helps owners support their animals better.
Companion animal gut health represents an emerging and genuinely important welfare domain. The connection between gut microbiome composition and behavioral states — including anxiety and stress responses — suggests that poor gut health may contribute to both physical and psychological welfare problems. Highly processed pet foods with limited ingredient diversity may reduce microbial diversity in ways that affect long-term health. Unnecessary or prolonged antibiotic use has welfare costs that extend beyond the illness being treated through microbiome disruption. The emerging probiotic and prebiotic literature suggests that dietary support for gut health is becoming a practical welfare intervention — though the evidence base is still developing relative to human microbiome research.