Native Pet brings its dog supplement playbook to cats, four years behind a rival

For years, cat owners kept asking a dog supplement company the same thing. When are you making something for us? According to the company, the question arrived in comments and messages from its earliest days, and on September 30th, 2026, Native Pet finally answered it with five daily cat chews.

The more useful detail for operators is the format. The brand is walking into a cat aisle where a dog-first rival has sold the same style of chew since 2022.

The cat line borrows the dog line's clean-label pitch

The line covers hairball, multivitamin, probiotic, immune and calming support, all in a dual-texture chicken chew that is crunchy outside with a creamy center. It went live on nativepet.com September 30th, 2026 and launches nationwide at Petco on October 19th, 2026. The St. Louis company, founded in 2017, says its products are in more than 13,000 retail locations, including pet specialty, natural grocery and mass, a company-reported figure.

Every formula was developed by in-house formulator Dr. Dan Su, whom the company's site lists as a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. Each one, the company says, either carries the NASC Quality Seal, which requires an independent quality audit and random lab testing against label claims, or meets AAFCO nutritional standards. The release does not say which products fall in which group.

"We've heard from cat parents since day one asking when we'd make something for them," CEO and co-founder Dan Schaefer said in the release. The company ties the cat line to The Daily, its flagship dog supplement, which earned Clean Label Project certification in 2025 after testing against more than 150 contaminants, per the company. That program screens for heavy metals, pesticides and plasticizers that never appear on a label. The release does not claim that certification for the cat chews themselves.

Native Pet is entering a format a rival has sold since 2022

The crunchy shell with a creamy center is not new to cats. In October 2022, Pet Honesty, another dog-first supplement brand, launched three chicken-flavored pillow chews including hairball support and calming with the same crunchy shell and creamy filling. It reported acceptance above 90% in independent palatability testing, a company-reported result, and its research chief called anything above 70% pretty good for a cat supplement. It slated Petco stores for the following month.

That rival has kept building. In July 2026 it added eight lickable purée supplements sold as Cat Squeezables on top of its dual-texture range. By the time Native Pet's chews reach Petco, Pet Honesty will have had roughly four years in the same shape, and in our view that head start in reviews and repeat buyers is the harder thing to copy.

The demand case was growing, though the newest public figures are four years old. The American Pet Products Association's National Pet Owners Survey shows 32% of cat owners gave their cats vitamins or supplements in 2022, up from 20% in 2018, while dog-owner use rose from 34% to 48%. By our math, the share of cat owners using supplements rose 60% in relative terms over those four years, against 41% for dogs. Cat owners in 2022 still sat below where dog owners were in 2018.

The timing has an internal logic too. In April 2026 the company added three senior leaders, a VP of Supply Chain, a Director of R&D and a Director of Pet Specialty. A shelf-ready line five months later suggests the cat work began before those hires arrived, though that is our interpretation and not something the company has said.

Petco reorders will show whether four years late matters

Native Pet's edge is distribution, not novelty. Petco is the only retailer named so far, but in our view a shopper who already trusts the dog line is cheaper to convert than a cold cat owner.

If we had to guess, the first two quarters at Petco will turn on palatability reviews more than on clean-label claims. A cat that refuses the chew ends the repeat order no matter what the label says. If reorders hold, expect more cat SKUs in the next retail pitch.

Cats get the final vote.

Source: Native Pet via PR Newswire