I remember quite well thank you.  The only credibility I lost was with
you, a troll in this newsgroup who never had any credibility to begin
with.  You just hate the fact that my previous cats did so poorly on
HIll's Science Die food.  Why don't you just admit that you are
unnaturally obsessed with me.  I've told you in the past that I'm
happily married but yet you keep pursuing me like a dog humping my leg,
as has been pointed out several times in this newsgroup.  I don't think
there is one person here who likes you.  You never help anyone with cat
problems.  All you do is troll the groups waiting for any thread that
mentions Hill's food so you can get in there and defend it, like a dog
with a bone.  It really does make one wonder what exactly your agenda
is, hmmm??? You are a sad, pathetic person, who in RL I guarantee has
no friends.  As has been stated here before, you really do need
therapy, and probably medication.

I checked back into the archives and this is certainly a hot-button dialogue
that has been going on for a while and I doubt will ever stop, and I don't
have a dog or (a cat) in this fight so I'm not inclined to get involved in
any flame wars or pissing matches.

And I regret that things have gone so far out into the ozone from my
original topic.

I will offer my .02, though, probably worth about .02, and leave it.
Personally, I have no great feelings pro or con against Hill's. I first used
their products with a dog more than a decade ago and got good results,
especially when the dog developed liver problems and we used one of the
Prescription diets that did exactly what it was supposed to.

When our cats were younger, we attempted to put them on Hill's products. We
thought they did well on them, but it got to the point where it was obvious
that they simply did not like them ... tipping the bowl over and dumping the
food into the floor and walking away tends to indicate displeasure ... and
we were wasting about as much as we were using.

Somehow, through the grace of God I guess, we got Moses to eat the Hill's
i/d for six whole weeks during this crisis with the IBD, and again the i/d
did exactly what it was supposed to do. But again, Moses got to the point,
as I knew he would, where he simply stopped eating it. He would be begging
for food, and I'd put the i/d down and he'd stop in his tracks and give me a
mournful look and walk away.

So I took what i/d we had left back to the vet and traded it in on some
regular Science Diet ... and he still turned his nose up at it. So did our
other healthy, non-IBD cat. They just refused to eat it. That doesn't mean
it was bad stuff. It means my cats didn't like it and I think Phil P. said
something in a recent post about it not mattering whether a cat food was
good or not if the cat won't eat it.

Not being inclined to go back to "regular" cat food with Moses, I looked at
all the "premium," "organic," "holistic," "natural," etc., cat foods on the
market and chose Wellness strictly on the basis of anecdotal recommendations
from people with IBD cats who say it has helped their cats. I wasn't
expecting it to be "miracle food," I tend to be rather jaundiced and cynical
when people start blathering on about that, I just figured I'd give it a try
and see what happened. I did check the nutritional info and thought that it
was OK other than the phosphorous, and I've already discussed why I'm
willing to take the gamble there. The fact that it has "human-grade" meats,
cranberries, blueberries, sweet potatoes, etc., in it was really irrelevant
to me. Quite honestly, when you open the can it looks and smells like plain
old cat food to me.

But as I've said, the results we've gotten in a short period of time with
Moses have been remarkable, and it has to be the food because that's the
only variable that has changed. So I would certainly give a testimonial for
Wellness food based on that. But I would also gladly give a testimonial for
Hill's i/d, because again it did what it was supposed to do, in that it
stabilized the situation. Based only on our situation, though, the edge I'd
give to Wellness is that since Moses has been on it, his diarrhea has ended.
Period. While we were on the i/d, he did still have occasional diarrhea and
his BMs while much better than they were before, were still inconsistent as
far as color and consistency, I think I discussed that with Phil P. a few
times. In the week he's been on the Wellness, however, he has not had one
"bad" BM. Zero. And I've been paying particular attention to the litter box
to find out.

All that being said, I'm sorry this is such a hot button issue, but IMHO,
it's certainly plausible that one cat could thrive and another cat not do
well on a specific brand of food. It doesn't mean the food's bad, it means
that all cats didn't come out of the same cookie cutter. My wife had a cat
before we married who thrived and lived a long life eating nothing ... and I
mean NOTHING, she says he'd go days without food in protest if she tried
something else ... but 9 Lives Super Supper canned, which is about as rank a
mess as you'll ever encounter. And I had another cat years ago who ate
pretty much nothing but Alley Cat dry, which is about the cheapest, budget
dry food you can get, but she thrived on it and was healthy as a horse
during her lifespan, which was shortened only because she slipped out of the
house one day and got hit by a car.

I doubt that any cat food company out there is intentionally trying to make
bad food that will injure animals. They're all probably trying to make what
is, in their opinion, the best possible product they can make. And again
IMHO, the companies can have differing views over what formulation of food
is "best" for cats, but since as I said cats weren't made from the same
cookie cutter and what works for one may not work for the other, can there
really even be a "best" food?

Again from the archives, there's appears to be somewhat of a sentiment
against Hill's because it's too corporate and because of its vet network.
Well, last I heard this was still a capitalistic country with a free-market,
profit-driven economy, so that really doesn't raise any red flags with me. I
could care less if the cat food we use was made by a megacorporation or a
Mom and Pop operation from a shed in the backyard, as long as it works for
our cats and their specific situations.

As far as Steve Crane posting here, I don't have any problem with someone
from a company posting in a setting like this and defending his company,
it's rather admirable IMHO to have someone step up to the plate and stick
his chin out like that. And he was very nice to me in his response about the
Castor and Pollux dry food that I'd asked about. He didn't try to sell me on
his product ... he really can't, because as I said, my cats simply will not
eat it ... he just offered his opinion which I appreciated.

But the thing is ... and I'll end this epistle, which got rather lengthy for
someone who indicated that he didn't have a dog (or cat) in this fight,
LOL!, sorry ... people need to learn what I have over the years, that you
shouldn't take the word of any kind of company rep or "expert," or when you
get right down to it any doctor, any vet, etc., as absolute gospel truth,
without question, on its face value. Glean what information you can in
settings like this and elsewhere, from as many different sources as you can
find, and use it as input to come up with the direction you want to go.
That's not foolproof by any means, but it's usually worked pretty well for
me.