a male Ferrette eating Alpo Dog food

Question
Our Ferret likes to eat our dogs Alpo food and is hardly eating his own food bought for him. Sidney is 2 years old an has been eating dog food for the last 6 to 8 months. Will this food be harm full for him to eat or can he still continue to eat it. He appears to enjoy it and is lively and well but is not a huge ferret as he only weighs around two pounds. Your assistance would be appreciated.

Answer
While I am not a ferret expert (they are illegal in California so we don't see them often) I know that their phsyiology is closer to a cat's is than a dog.

Alpo is junk food made with garbage ingredients. Your dog shouldn't even be eating it. You should be feeding the ferret food made for ferrets but they do quite well on GOOD quality CAT food, not dog food.

I believe they need more protein as cats do, so dog food will make them smaller and less healthy in the long run, plus they will be missing essential nutrients such as taurine.

You need to get the dog on a better food also. As a Small Animal Nutritionist, I have fed and recommended Science Diet for over 29 yrs.

So if you want a healthy and not obese dog, get him on Science Diet adult or light formula and get the Ferret on some Feline Maintenance.
Pick up the dog food which shouldn't be there anyway (this leads to obese dogs) and make sure Sidney's food is out of reach of the dog.

The dog should be meal fed once or twice a day according to the weight he should be, not what he is. Alpo won't get him there either- if he needs to lose weight he needs Science Diet light.

I have seen ferrets treated for anemia from fleas too so be sure your house is flea free. Ferrets get anemic fast from flea bites.