We're changing our cats' diets

Written on 2/17/2012
By: MichaelKnox

I have a confession to make.

As much as I talk about how bad dry cat food is for cats, our cats eat dry cat food. They get wet food as well, but for the most part, they just eat some of the juice off the canned food and then walk away. This is the expensive stuff, too. Wellness in the pouches and in the can, plus some of the other premium canned food.

Part of this is a holdover from the Pouncer and Abigail days. Abigail was so thin and so sick, that we really had no choice but to feed to her whatever she would eat. And Pouncer insisted on three things (in addition to his canned food), dry food for a snack, fresh shrimp with each meal, and a fingertip of whipped cream.

Since Pouncer and Abigail left, Madison picked up Pouncer's shrimp and whipped cream addiction (which is truly a story for another day) and Mia arrived expecting to eat dry food.

Madison eats her shrimp and very little else. She eats some dry food, and some of the Wellness, but she is VERY stubborn. Mia eats some of the Wellness, usually Madison's rejected Wellness and her dry food.

So this week, we finally decided to enforce the rule of putting down dry food only at meal times. Things are not working out so well.

The biggest problem we are having so far is sleeping. We lock both of the cats in the bedroom with us at night, partially to force interaction with Mia, who will sleep by herself otherwise, and partially to make sure that we always know where they are in the event of an emergency. The problem with this scenario, is that Mia knows how to push our buttons. When she is hungry, or wants to leave the room, she doesn't go to what she wants, or wake us up with a purr or gentle meow. Instead, she goes over to the window and bats around the window blinds, which make a lot of noise and leaves her just out of reach. Plus, she can run under the bed faster than I can get out of it.

So we've been awakened three times since we started this little experiment. But I'm convinced that we will succeed. I know that Mia will learn to adapt. I think Madison will be the bigger problem because she doesn't eat much to begin with.

Comments

Karen

2 months ago

Like quitting smoking, it's never too late! I came across this great research article recently : http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/02/17/dry-food-wrong-for-cats.aspx

Have you read Dr. Lisa's tips for switching to wet? http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Tips%20for%20Transitioning%20PDF%201-14-11.pdf

And, if it's any consolation, it took me 6 months to transition MY Mia from dry to wet!

Good luck!!!

Jamie

Good luck. They have you both so well trained, it will be hard to break old habits. Cats are a creatures of habit, and I hope they will eventually learn to play by your rules.

Boo insists on treats at dinner and won't let up until he get it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say. We keep to his pawful of treats each night, and stick to it (usually). Then when he realizes he's not getting anymore, he'll saunter over to the dry food or finish up the wet food that Kyle didn't eat.

Since we welcomed Kyle into our home, Zoe INSISTS on eating outside. In the beginning, Kyle was so famished that he'd eat his food plus her food, pushing her aside while she was eating. She's still feeling intimidated at food time and won't eat unless her plate outside.

At night time, Zoe was always a sleep-outside-kitty. We tried keeping her in the garage, but she'd throw herself against the door and cause quite a commotion. She'll climb the curtains, climb the blinds, throw herself against the wall, whine, howl. Aargh! So, we bought one of those litter box side table furniture things with a door. It looks like an end table. It's quite substantial, so we put a kitty cube bed inside that with two pet warmer cushions. We keep just outside our kitchen door and she LOVES IT. It's her own little apartment.

So, we are all pretty well trained in our house too.

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