New cat food for a psycho cat

c-parrish

Well, I've noticed that many people here have cats, and plenty of breeds with sensitive stomachs, so I figured I could ask this question.

My cat, "Kitty", is an ordinary DSH with an exception to her mind. I admit that she wasn't raised in the best of ways and got really bored a lot. She was originally fed TERRIBLE meow mix and friskies dry for about 4 years before I began experimenting with premium foods. She never had much of a problem with the old foods except strong-smelling urine and poop.

I tried Nutro Natural Choice Indoor, but she didn't much like it. I tried Natural Ultramix, but she liked it so much that her once every couple weeks throwing up became almost every day bloating. She'd scarf and then throw it up in a couple minutes. Tried Organix after that, but there was little improvement. Now, she has been on Solid Gold Katznflocken since December. She had a drastic coat improvement with it, and her bloating has been cut down to once every 3-8 days so long as she has constant access to the food. If her dish should become empty or her access cut off for more than an hour, she acts as though she has been starved and scarfs too much again.

For the most part, I'm happy with this food, but Kitty has one other issue...she has Feline Psychogenic Alopecia that began with a flea allergy. She overgrooms to release seratonin and feel good. I know it's stress and boredom related, and it started to improve when I began letting her outside at our last place shortly before we moved, so I'm hoping to let her out here as well...but she won't have regular access to her food if we do that, and her bloating will get worse again.

So here I am asking about other people's experiences. I'm considering switching to a grainless or raw diet for her (not sure what brands/recipes), hoping that the food swells less or takes longer for her to eat it. She does not like canned food and will only ever eat a few slivers of tuna, so I don't know how raw will work out. Any input or suggestions is appreciated. I don't know where to start.

Oh, and Kitty is a petite cat. She weighs about 9 lbs and is about a pound overweight for her size, but that's not too concerning. She has controlled it well, even with years of free-feeding.

heidiann

What kinds of wet foods have you tried?

Personally, I'd try wet foods again...keeping it with chicken, beef, turkey, liver and loaf or pate kind.

I don't have any experience with the skin issues, but we have 4 cats and have switched them to a total canned food diet instead of free feeding the dry as we were before. We had tried some premium brands, but they all prefered the garbage foods...no wonder, it's like junk food.

They're all doing really well on the canned food.

gingersmom

Have you tried moistening the dry food? I'm just thinking that might help minimize bloating.

My cats transitioned more and more to moist food as they got older and lost a few teeth (my remaining cat is 17). I had to try several different brands and flavors to find one that she didn't urp up once a week. (I also ended up going for the one that doesn't stain the carpet if she does urp, since I figure that means the food has less additives/colorings!)

One of our cats who has passed on never did take to moist food though, so I understand the challenge.

I'll be curious to see if others can answer your questions about raw diet.

c-parrish

I see canned food being so expensive and, well, too much like junk food. In fact, at its cost I may as well feed raw.

As far as what I've tried...well, she liked the samples of friskies pouches I gave her years ago (uck!), but more recently I tried giving her Halo brand Spot's Stew and she simply licked up half a teaspoon of gravy and then left the real food sitting there.

Moist is a no. Moist and warm might be a yes (I have caught her re-eating the food she threw up many times), but I think she might waste a lot. Whatever I choose, some sort of kibble will be a back-up for when I'm out of town, whether it's the current solid gold or something like Evo (grainless).

poodleaddict

My cats only eat canned food, no dry. My one kitten has IBD and can't tolerate dry food in even the smallest amount. My two LOVE merricks, especially the cowboy cookout. It is expensive but canned, or raw, is actually the best for them.

Another favorite of probably many cats is fancy feast. It's about forty cents a can but I get the cases for like $10 at walmart when I can't afford to give them the merricks and they love the fancy feast too (especially the gourmet chicken).

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Criosphynx

Natural balance worked for my cat who yacked up everything. Raw also has worked for me.

Feliway spray will stop your cats stress.

Catnip on a post or toy on a daily basis will make your cat more active.

And may i suggest you stop letting your cat outside.


The risks far outwiegh the benefit.

c-parrish

Feliway is rediculously expensive.

My cat refuses to scratch anything but a cardboard box that she shouldn't scratch. I've tried catnip. She hates toys, except lasers.

My cat grew up living mostly in one room for the first 5 years of her life (my grandmother hates cats), and bound to an apartment for the next 2. She seriously has a complex from this, and I think mental health is more important than you might. I know the risks. I had a cat with my mom that had an eye removed when it was scratched in a feral cat fight. Kitty has all her claws. I live away from busy roads. She comes in before nightfall.

You have not seen my cat, and you do not understand how much outside means to her. If she were perfectly content inside, inside she would stay. Besides, you should have seen how proud she was of herself when she caught her first gopher last month. I think that is better than any Feliway or Prozac could ever be.

But thank you for your positive outlook on raw diets. I'll take that to heart.

Criosphynx

it is not. A $20 bottle of the spray, not the difuser(which is only $40 btw) , with four sprays a day has lasted me nearly 6 months. If you are consitering raw diet then you can most definetly afford this. If you cat is as mental as you claim i don't understand why you haven't.


You are humanizing your cat. Its a CAT, it doesn't remember the events you are describing.

If you know a cat that has lost an eye to being outside i really don't understand your rationalization.

proud? you are humanizing again.

Do you know the impact outdoor cats have on native wildlife? A single individual free-ranging cat may kill 100 or more birds and mammals per year.

Post this post on a cat forum and i guarantee you'll get the same response, if not worse.

Raw diet is awesome, i hope it has good affects for you.

Cheetah

They sell cardboard scratchers at the store. Get like 3 of them and put them around your house. I paid $125 for a carpeted cat tower, and my cat ONLY uses the cardboard scratchers to scratch on. Go figure.

What kinds of toys have you tried? Could you describe each kind in detail? They make a million different kinds of toys.

Personally, I will never let another cat outside. It's too dangerous for the cat (at least in my area), and outdoor domestic cats are a serious threat to the surrounding wildlife.

This belongs in a different section BTW... *moves*

Willowy

Yeah, my cats LOVE cardboard scratchers. They'll use their sisal rope post, too, but it's the cardboard pads that get the most attention. I've only met one cat who doesn't like cardboard scratchers, and he doesn't like sisal, either, which is very unusual. He only likes carpet scratching posts. Weird---most cats don't like them, which is why so many people think their cats can't be trained to use a scratching post, because most store-bought posts are carpeted. Even if you let her outside, you probably should still get the scratching pads......all cats should have something in the house that is THEIRS to scratch, even de-clawed cats need to pretend to scratch for their mental health. And most are too polite to "scratch" the furniture (this is very rude in cat language), which kind of makes you wonder why they were de-clawed in the first place .

From personal experience, it is extremely difficult to get a cat who is imprinted on kibble to accept a raw diet, or even canned (my mom has a cat that will not touch canned food). Cats WILL starve themselves---most dogs won't. If she ate that gopher she caught, she might be OK switching to raw, but a kibble-only cat can be very stubborn. It's worth a try, though. My cats eat Chicken Soup dry food (not Lite---they actually gained weight on that (?)), with an occasional can of Friskies or Fancy Feast (which are both junk foods...like kitty McDonalds). I offer them some raw meat whenever the dogs get some, but they won't touch it. I haven't tried homecooked, they might accept that better. A GOOD canned food is almost as good as a raw diet.

If you want to buy Feliway, you can look around online and find the spray for less then $20.00 and the diffuser for less then $35.00. I haven't had much success with the spray, but I haven't used the diffuser yet, so it may work better, I don't know.

If someone wants to make this a debate about indoor or outdoor for cats.....well, I'm kind of in the middle. I do think cats should be indoor only whenever possible. My own 7 cats never go outside. However, I also know that some cats are simply not happy indoors, and I don't know if I can justify making that cat's life miserable just to keep him safe. A safe life isn't worth much if you aren't happy.

My parents have a cat that is completely miserable indoors, he only comes inside willingly if it's raining, snowing, or too hot outside. No such thing as too cold for him---he's a Maine Coon mix. My dad won't make any effort to keep a cat inside---if he wants out, he goes out---so there's really no debate. I do worry about him...there are coyotes, cars, and cruel people. But he's happy. And even if his life is tragically cut short, it was a happy life. Yes, he does kill rabbits and gophers.....but so do the neighbors. And at least the cat eats his prey, the neighbors just throw the body away. He's neutered, UTD on shots, is de-wormed regularly, and has all of his (sharp!) claws, so I guess that's all we can do. If they did try to make him stay inside, he'd duck out of the door first chance, and never come back. He's proven that he can take care of himself if he needs to. He lived wild when he was younger.

I remember there was a debate about outdoor cats and them shedding toxoplasmosis in their feces. I did more research, and found that, if a cat contracts toxoplasmosis (almost all cats do at some point), it only sheds the virus for 2 weeks, and then never sheds the virus again in its life. So that's not a huge threat. As long as a cat is fully vaccinated, spayed or neutered (please, NEVER allow a pet cat to reproduce! Please!), has all of its claws, and the owner is willing to accept the risks (and possible vet bills), I guess that's the best you can do in some cases.

Yvette

To the orginal question? Have you tried Max Cat? My boy loves it. He has a
4lb self feeder that I fill almost every week & he is not over weight.

JenTN

My two indoor cats are on Innova EVO grain free and have done wonderfully on it. They had dry skin/ hairball issues like I had never seen before until the switch. They eat less on it too, and their coats look like they have been waxed.

I understand about the outside thing, I have two cats that were left with me and allowed to be outside until they lived here. There is no making them indoor cats- we tried. They were feral cats before they were rescued, and then a few years later left with us. MY OPINION, it's just an opinion, like everyone else's is that there are some cats that by temperment, environment, former lifestyle, whatever are just miserable indoors. I hate having outdoor cats, I think it's very unsafe, but for these boys to have a home they are outside and are extremely happy. They don't even attempt to come inside. I won't get a cat and make it an outside cat, but things happen and sometimes it's unavoidable for the average pet owner in certain circumstances.

alphadoginthehouse

My cat is an indoor/outdoor cat...emphasis on the indoor. He uses the doggie door and rarely is outside the backyard. He used to have a hole he could get through, but when I plugged it up, he just stays put. Every so often, he is at the front door (because he hasn't figured out how to get back in and I haven't figured where is getting out). Someone will say how do I know he doesn't go out...trust me, I know.

He will lay at the gate with Butch, in the garage, or most of the time, somewhere in the house. He's an ole fuddy duddy at the ripe old age of 4 and doesn't do much of anything anymore but shed!

c-parrish

She won't use cardboard cat scratchers I've tried and she just rubbed on it for two days because of the catnip and then left it alone. She rarely scratches furniture, she prefers any cardboard box that is technically off limits. And now I can't even leave a box just for her because my puppy has learned to mimic us. We always told the cat to stop scratching stuff, so now when the dog sees her scratching ANYTHING, she charges or barks at Kitty.

The only toy she ever loved was this thing called a Knob Goblin. It's a stuffed animal that hangs on a door knob, and no other door toys have satisfied her. I just found the Knob Goblin online, but it's only available from Australia and costs like $15 with shipping: http://www.ozpetshop.com.au/product_...roducts_id/580
Might order a couple later when I have a job again, but not currently when I'm relying on my boyfriend.

Max Cat...like...eww. I'm pretty sure there is wheat and/or corn in there. And byproducts.

Here's the deal on the outside thing. So far we have been at this new house for 3 weeks and she has not been outside. She was confined to our room at first to emphasize that it was her home territory, but after allowing her to roam the rest of the house, she will dart out of our room every chance she gets (this is only allowed when we are home and she can't get outside right now). There is a chance she could stay indoors...but it's getting difficult to keep her in our room and our roommate leaves the garage door open a lot. Essentially, it might not be avoidable in the long run, even if she is happy with the size of this particular house.

As for the food thing, I've found some local raw support groups. I'm going to do some more research through them and start testing things with the cat. Tomorrow I'm picking up some small amounts of ground, bone/organ-in chicken and lamb, some small fish (herring, sardine or anchovy), and liver to see if she might be interested. I have over a month of her dry food left, so there's plenty of time to experiment. And if she doesn't like anything, there's two dogs in the house that'd love to eat her leftovers.

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