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The Cat Has Defeated Me
Well,
I come to you today to ask for suggestions. My local pet store stopped carrying California Natural Chicken & Rice for Cats after the last salmonella scare. It was something like the fourth since Proctor & Gamble took over the food line. I understood that this was probably not a good idea for my kitty's kibble. But I was uneasy, because Merlyn is 18 years old. He's a spry 18 (88 in human years) but change is not always good.
He is hypothyroid and in the very earliest stages of kidney distress. So I can't feed him grain-free. He liked a mix of CN Ch & rice dry and Science Diet K/D dry. So I went in search of a new mixer food.
My pet store has offered suggestions and even lets me return the $%%^## bags, but we have gone through SIX, yes SIX dried foods since I found out about the recall in August. The seventh is sitting, ignored, in a bowl next to the Science Diet crunchies. Thank the universe for the Science Diet crunchies, because he won't eat ANY of the premium dry chicken ^ rice I've tried him on, having lost a half pound (and he only weighted 8 pounds to begin with.)
I've tried Nulo, Wellness, Felidae, Nutri-Source and three others. Nada. I'm feeding him SD crunchies, and meat twice a day, but more than a heaping teaspoon is not good for him. At this point, I would let him just eat the SD crunchies alone except that it's only because he's hungry--he could stand to gain back that half pound. We have little enthusiasm here.
Anyone have a suggestion? I hesitate to go back to California Natural, for his sake and mine. One of these was even lamb & rice, but apparently too weird.
I come to you today to ask for suggestions. My local pet store stopped carrying California Natural Chicken & Rice for Cats after the last salmonella scare. It was something like the fourth since Proctor & Gamble took over the food line. I understood that this was probably not a good idea for my kitty's kibble. But I was uneasy, because Merlyn is 18 years old. He's a spry 18 (88 in human years) but change is not always good.
He is hypothyroid and in the very earliest stages of kidney distress. So I can't feed him grain-free. He liked a mix of CN Ch & rice dry and Science Diet K/D dry. So I went in search of a new mixer food.
My pet store has offered suggestions and even lets me return the $%%^## bags, but we have gone through SIX, yes SIX dried foods since I found out about the recall in August. The seventh is sitting, ignored, in a bowl next to the Science Diet crunchies. Thank the universe for the Science Diet crunchies, because he won't eat ANY of the premium dry chicken ^ rice I've tried him on, having lost a half pound (and he only weighted 8 pounds to begin with.)
I've tried Nulo, Wellness, Felidae, Nutri-Source and three others. Nada. I'm feeding him SD crunchies, and meat twice a day, but more than a heaping teaspoon is not good for him. At this point, I would let him just eat the SD crunchies alone except that it's only because he's hungry--he could stand to gain back that half pound. We have little enthusiasm here.
Anyone have a suggestion? I hesitate to go back to California Natural, for his sake and mine. One of these was even lamb & rice, but apparently too weird.
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I avoid the superfancy pet foods because they all have so many recalls. Loyall has never been recalled that I know of.
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Cat food recommendation
Re: Cat food recommendation
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Try this - buy some of the old brand and start with a day or two of 10% new stuff mixed in. Then 20%. And so on.
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For my next cat, I will mix up a minimum of three foods, in case any brands or flavors leave the market. And then immediately add in another third one!
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The thing is, kibble is not optimal for any cat, not even the very best of it--not just because of the carbs, but because of the hydration issues it creates. Next best to raw is a really fine canned food. And raw food isn't the problem for kidney cats that the kibble and prescription kitty food folks would have you believe, but I can't dig up and reproduce all that info in one post--besides which, it would be obnoxious of me! Let me just say I have a friend who's kept her kidney cat alive for years longer than expected (along with sub-Q fluids) on a meat diet. Lots of good info on Dr. Karen Becker's Mercola-based site, also.
This link has some really sensible things to say. Not as much in my raw food camp as I personally would like it to be, but there are some good resources here: http://www.felinecrf.org/which_foods.htm
Starting with the fact that the best food is the one the cat will eat--! The cat who lives here fiercely resisted the switch to raw (Darwin winners have nothing on this cat), so I totally sympathize. (It did, in the end, save her life.)
*scritches to kitty!*
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