My vet recommends mainly wet food to Otis because we have to make sure that
he gets lots of fluid.  He has a tendency to develop interstitial cystitis
under stress and it is important to keep his urine dilute and moving in this
circumstance.  I'm not sure it really makes a difference.  When he eats lots
of wet, he drinks less.  Don't know if he gets as much fluid from the wet
food as he would have drunk if he was on only dry food.

My MIL's RB cat Snuffy had Purina cat chow every day for 19 years and died
peacefully of old age.  I'm sure its cat specific.

Susan M
Otis and Chester

"CatNipped" <lcrews@houston.rr.com> had some very interesting things
to say about Cat Food Discussion:

About all I've really been told about Felix's diet is to watch the
mineral content [he has a history of urinary problems]. He gets
Science Diet Light dry food [vet said a few years ago he saw no need
to switch Felix to Senior yet, and since the cat *is* quite sedentary,
I see no need to boost his calorie intake unnecessarily], plus
occasional canned [usually Sophistacat Special Diet]. He seems to be
doing fine.

When I was growing up, the cats got dry food, plus small doses of
people food, and did fine. Aside from Felix, the only times anyone was
on a special diet was due to illness or being a kitten or nursing mom
[the latter two categories usually got kitten formula food].

(snip excellent observations)

Persia used to only get a can of Fancy Feast on Saturday as a treat.
Otherwise she was getting Purina One dry low-fat formula (she was turning
into a butterball).  Then last spring she had to have that bladder stone
surgery and they found a cyst which they also removed.  The vet said she'd
have to eat Hill's x/d for prevention of formation of crystalline oxolates
in her bladder.  He told me it's up to me if she prefers the wet or dry.
He's neutral on this matter; we started her off on the wet because he said
if she was used to Fancy Feast as a "treat" she would probably take to it
easier.  This turned out not to be a concern.  She loves the stuff, wet or
dry.  And she's turning into a butterball again.  But this is what she has
to eat and she's been just fine ever since.

Jill

I feed Lynxie Hill's Science Diet regular adult dry food, which sits in
his bowl at all times (free feeding, he doesn't overeat so it's no problem).

Every evening I give him half of a packet of Whiskas Homestyle
Favorites, which is wet food that comes in these little packets. He
really seems to like this; it's a small quantity of wet food so that he
has a little variety in his life.

He's been healthy so far, and his coat is so shiny it blinds me when the
sun hits it at a certain angle. Okay, I'm exagerrating a bit... But this
arrangement works well.

-Z

I heard nothing from the vet about wet vs dry. A vet did recommend feeding
them special kitten food for the first year, to get them off to a good
start. And with Mandy's tendency to gobble and upchuck, I rarely feed her
wet which seems to make the problem worse. Her most recent vet has had  no
problem with that, and in fact suggested spreading her dry food over a
large area, or mixing it with small balls or large marbles to make her
work a bit for her food and slow down the intake. (I did this
inadvertently  by dropping a large pot on the catfood dish, breaking it
and spreading the contents hither and yon. Because there might have been
tiny bits of broken dish mixed in, I swept it up, pushing Mandy out of
the way, since once over the initial shock of nearly being brained
by a pot, she thought this was a tolerable arrangement. But I think the
TED had a large cookie sheet in mind, not the kitchen floor!)

A friend of mine was told by a vet to feed her male cat wet food to ward
off kidney problems; he got kidney problems anyway, and also developed
quite serious tooth problems which another vet said was partly due to
eating too much wet food. So that's not much help!

<snip>

I think you have answered your own question: you have perfectly
healthy cats and don't want to change food on the outside chance that
it will make them healthy.  I see no point in messing with what works.

I've not talked to my vet, but from what I've gathered through my own
investigation, dry is better for their teeth, wet is better for their
moisture content.

If you feed dry and are worried about their water intake (as in not enough),
make water more appealing to them, either by leaving a faucet running a thin
stream (we leave the tub faucet going a few hours at a time), or by buying a
pet fountain (I have three of the Drinkwell brand myself).

If you feed wet and are worried about their teeth, get a bag of the 'oral
care' or 'dental' food (basically, it's bigger chunks and they have to bite
it into smaller in order to eat it) and give it to them for treats.  Even
Pounce makes a 'dental' version (although I've tried it, and the chunks the
same size as regular Pounce, which does no good for any of my cats as they
swallow the Pounce whole, once properly pounced and defeated LOL).

I've seen the flame wars that have started over the Dry VS Wet, and it all
seems to be about the nutition content of each.  Dry has more fillers so
they must eat more to get what their body says they need.  Wet has less
fillers (well, some of the more pricier brands do) so they eat less.

As for my crew, they LIKE the dry for the most part.  Tennessee & Smokey
will eat anything.  Weeble & Lizzie won't touch wet, just sniff at it.  Ping
eats dry, but begs for wet, and when he begs, Moe & Ernie come running cuz
they like it too (for them it's a treat) even though they love the dry.
Mimi will nibble at wet, but eats the dry.  Since Ping likes the wet, we
have been putting out one can (the small 5 oz sixe) daily in the evenings.
What's left the next morning goes out into MamaKat's dish with her kibble.
*Something* eats it every night - probably a raccoon or possum, or even a
skunk.  Whatever, it doesn't go to waste ;)

--?
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)? email me at
nalee1964 (at) insightbb (dot) com
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep

[snip]

Well, I posted this on h+b already, but I did see my vet last Friday, and with
the h+b discussions fresh in my mind, I asked her about wet food.  Oscar has
been eating Nutro dry for almost all of her life.  Other dry foods seem to
cause an incredibly smelly litterbox, which to me seems to suggest that her
body didn't use a lot of what I was feeding her.

Anyway, my vet said that she has come around to preferring wet food over dry.
She said that cat's stomachs don't work like ours; they don't get full when
their tummies distend.  Rather, they get full when they've had enough of
certain nutrients, like fat and I believe protein.  So dry food, with its
greater amount of carbs, actually causes them to eat more to feel full.

She also said that she's been able to take diabetic cats off of insulin after
changing them from dry to wet food.

She did say there's no problem with me reverting to freefed dry food for
vacations and such, but as a general rule, she said wet is better.  As for the
dental benefits of dry, she said that over the years, she's seen cats fed the
same food have drastically different teeth.  She's convinced it's genetics,
not food, that does them in.  (This meshes with my own experience with human
teeth; my teeth are awful despite diligent care.  My husband's teeth are great
despite routine neglect.)

I tried a few cans of Nutro, but now I'm doing Wellness.  If the claims by so
many owners of hairball reduction or elimination are true, it is well worth
the extra cost to me.  Also, the Nutro stuff seemed to have a lot of rice and
whatnot, which I thought was what I was trying to avoid by not feeding dry.
The ingredients list for Wellness pleases me, especially the cranberries and
such to discourage UTIs.

Okay, I used to feed Science Diet for years and years because the vets
suggested it was a good food.-- I had one cat  (Shetra RB)who would only eat
the SD dry until I happened to run into a Nutro rep at Petsmart, and for the
first time, actually looked at the ingredients that went into the cat food,
which I hadn't done before.  Don't know why I hadn't done it before then
because I've always read ingredients for people food.  To be honest, when I
saw how much corn and filler went into SD I began to doubt how great this
food was so I decided to try the dry as well as wet Nutro to see what my
cats thought of it.  Well Shetra and Frodo (also RB) absolutely loved the
Nutro dry so I switched.  I can say that I saw an improvement in both cats'
coats, esp. Shetra's.

Then I also used to free feed dry food but then had a couple of rounds with
Omar, Midnight, and Tucker with uninary tract infections and learned that
the greater moisture in wet food could be more helpful in combatting this so
I began switching over to more canned and less dry and also stopped the free
feeding (from which I deduced Midnight had become somewhat zaftig).  I now
feed canned at 6 am and 5 pm and use a small amount of dry food as "treats."
During this time, I kept reading ingredients on cat food labels both wet and
dry and have now moved to more premium grade canned (Wellness, Pro Pac, the
Sardines and Tuna flavor of Pro Plan) and dry (Innova and California
Natural).  I spend more but I think the quality of food is worth it.

hope this helps,
Christine

As anyone who has read rpca for any length of time knows, I'm a wet-food
proponent. It's really hard to find any real research results on this;
it would seem that it's not an attractive field (or maybe it's hard to
get funding for this kind of research - except perhaps from catfood
producers, which would probably bias the research). Some reasons why I
prefer wet over dry:

1. Think of a cat's natural diet: small rodents and birds. Look at the
first ingredient listed in dry food: some kind of cereal. Sometimes up
to the three top ingredients are cereals or other vegetable products.
Now, cats are not herbivores. They aren't even omnivores. They are
purely carnivores. They don't need any cereals. They are even often
allergic to cereals. I've heard the argument that in the wild, they eat
what's in their prey's stomachs, but e.g. a mouse's stomach can't
contain very much grains or other plants. Besides, in my experience (and
all our cats when I was growing up were indoor/outdoor cats, and Nikki
is a huntress supreme), cats often leave the stomach. They always leave
the gall bladder, and most times other parts of the stomach.

2. Bad experiences: when my sister started giving her Panther dry food,
he immediately got kidney stones. Apparently, this often happens to
neutered boycats (so not a direct worry for you, CN, because your cats
are all girls). When I had some sort of epiphany and started giving my
cats dry food instead of wet, Nikki ballooned out and developed a kidney
problem. I switched back to wet, and she is fine now, though she hasn't
lost the weight she gained during that 'experiment'. Now I can only hope
she doesn't develop diabetes because of me.

3. The tooth-cleaning argument. But dry food doesn't clean the teeth.
It's hard, so it cracks when they bite down on it, so it's only the tip
of the tooth that really comes into contact with the kibble. Raw meat is
much more effective, as their teeth sink into it and it effectively
cleans the whole area of the tooth. This is why cats in the wild don't
get tooth problems. Nikki is a great hunter, she eats lots of voles each
summer, and she never had her teeth cleaned until she was ten years old.
Even then, they weren't very bad. Frank is not a great hunter, and he
has always had problems with his teeth. He can't eat the tooth kibble,
either, because the effective ingredient in them gives him the runs.

Hm, I suppose I could go on and on, but maybe this is enough for now. Of
course, the best thing would be if our cats could have their natural
food. Oh, on more thing. Someone on the Finnish cat newsgroup mentioned
that a vet had told her that there never used to be any problems with
CRF among cats until dry food came on the market.

Just my .02 Euros.

I wish I had never started my cats on dry food. Grant developed intertitial
cystitis, but since I've finally found a wet food he will eat, we have had
NO reoccurances in two years. This is a condition that usually happens with
frequency.  It seems to me that dry food is just too caloric, too full of
carbs that are not part of a cats diet. I can't say it is all bad and high
quality is better than store bought even by dry food standards, but I think
the notion that dry food helps teeth is not proven. Grant had very bad teeth
and gums, but my vet has been to several feline dentistry forums and the
prevailing thought now is that bad teeth are from genetics and immunity
problems. Cats become allergic to their own plaque. Food does not have a
bearing on it is what is becoming more and more accepted in the feline vet
world. It is true that as SOON as Grant had his back teeth pulled (where
plaque is worst because of the pocket between cheek and gum that their rough
tongue does not clean) he has not had any problems. I don'tknow, it is a lot
of anecdotal evidence, but I'm inclined to believe a completely dry diet
isn't good, especially for boys. YMMV.

When I took Nanki-Poo to the vet the first time, she asked what I was
feeding her.  I told her that he wouldn't eat canned food, only dry.
(That turns out not to be true, since he recovered from his illness)
She said that was fine, and that the dry food was probably better for
him, but that a little wet food occasionally for a treat would be fine.
Currently he eats huge amounts of dry food and about a quarter can of
canned food per day.  He's thriving.  Lindy eats both also.

Joy

Years ago my vet recommended Science diet but my cats won't eat it at
all. But I have noticed the last couple years the vet mostly has
Purina food at his office. When Sheba turned diabetic, the vet put her
on Purina DM canned; and after a few months she stabilized and went
off insulin. Since then I have done a lot of reading of the food
charts on the diabetic message board and found out dry food has a lot
more carbohydrates than canned. Cats don't need many carbs.

Sheba now eats low carb canned and a bit of the lowest carb dry. But
carbs don't bother Robin. He lives on dry, as does Djoser. Djoser
won't touch canned of any sort and very little people food; with the
notable exception of roast turkey and chicken! Robin is much the same.
They are both healthy and glossy. Of course, Robin is only 2; but
Djoser has been on a dry diet by his own choice for 12 years. He is
never ill. I feed them Nutro Natural Choice and Nutro Max, both weight
management. This is a bit higher in protein and lower in carbs than
regular dry food.

I think the wet/dry choice is cat specific. As for your cats, I say,
if it works, why change? A dry diet means they need plenty of water to
drink. And if they are healthy, they are getting the exercise they
need to burn off the calories from the carbs in the dry food. However,
as they age, this may change.

--
CATherine

Hi,

I feed my cats both foods.  I think there are benefits that each type of
food provides.

The canned food contains lots of moisture which helps to prevent urinary
problems.  Fuga had a urinary infection about 5 years ago.  The vet
recommended that he be place on canned food to ensure no re-ocurrence which
has truly been the case.

My cats prefer the dry food.  It is good for their teeth if they chew their
food.  To be honest I think some cats are more genetically pre-disposed to
having dental problems.  The best thing for handling dental care is brushing
their teeth.

Fuga

I think it was cheap dry catfood that brought me mealworms. Lost a whole
bunch of dry food from my pantry. Nothing like having box after box of stuff
thrown in the trash cause it's got meal worms.

OK, I'm hoping that on this group we can have this discussion without
starting a flame war (as happened on H+B).  I'd really like to get some
feedback (pardon the pun) on what you guys have experienced regarding wet
food vs. dry.

To start, I have fed my cats Science Diet dry (Senior Advanced Formula and
Kitten Formula at the moment) since Bandit came to live with us.  All of the
various vets I've used have highly recommended it, the rescue group I work
with uses it, and most importantly of all my cats have never been sick a day
in their lives while eating it.  Bandit is almost 15, Demi is 6, Jessie is
5, and Sammy is 8 months.  You've all been witness to how Sammy has
"flourished" on it.  I never have a problem with stinky litter boxes, and
the girls have never even had an upset tummy (besides that once when we had
5 d*gs in the house, and the quickly went away so I think it was stress
related).  Their coats and eyes are glossy and shiny (although Bandit's coat
is getting a little dull with age), they've never had a problem with weight,
and again, most importantly *THEY'VE NEVER, EVER BEEN SICK* - not a sniffle,
not a barf (besides a rare hairball), *NOTHING*.

I've read some discussions on H+B that says that there are benefits to wet
food over dry, but it all seems to be just opinion and propaganda.  I don't
want to chance the perfect health my girls have enjoyed just because someone
has a horn to toot.  Yes, there are sites on the web, advocating wet food,
that look very professional (but that doesn't impress me, I'm a web
architect and I can make bullsh*t look professional), but there are also web
sites that advocate dry.  If it isn't a legitimate research study done by
*real* professionals (not just people who *think* they know everything),
then I don't want to chance a change.

What do your vets have to say about it?  What have they recommended to you
and have they said why?

Hugs,

CatNipped

Cats are carnivores and thus, have no dietary requirements for carbs at
all. Look at the ingredients list, if meat does not compose the top 5
ingredients, chances are there are better foods out there. Why feed corn
to a carnivore in the first place?
Having said that, Fez and Rufous always prefer kibble to wet food. We
feed wet food twice a day and free-feed dry food. Works for us.