Switching from Dry to Canned

One of my cats is getting to be quite pudgy and has no known medical conditions. (Unless laziness is a medical condition! ) I'd like to switch her to canned food to help her lose weight, but also because it's better for her. What kind do you suggest and how do I know how much to feed her? She's approx. 18 mos old and can be fairly active when she wants to be. Getting another cat is out of the question for now because we have a 10 yo cat who didn't adjust well when we got this cat last year.

Thanks for your help!

Stephanie

I was under the impression that dry food is better then canned. Dry is better for their teeth and not as fattenng as canned. If you want her to loose weight just keep her on dry and feed her twice a day, dont free feed or she wont loose weight.

If you feed just canned she might gain weight and her teeth could go bad. They need the hard crunchy food to keep their teeth healthy. Also on just canned food the poop might smell worse and may not be as firm. I heard canned food has a lot of water in it.

This is just what I've heard. Others might have better advice.
I did work at an animal hospital, so i do know that all the overweight cats that came in were on diets of just dry food, fed once or twice a day to help them loose weight.Animal hospitals also have special food with calorie control, maybe you can ask your vet about it and he can give you the best advice!

I also recommend playing with her a lot, get her running around chasing toys, she should loose weight in no time with some increased fun exercise.

I'm using a high grade dry food and my cat lost one pound while eating it (Nature's Logic Rabbit dinner.)

Lots of folks will say a cat has to eat wet food to stay healthy and hydrated, but Gizmo drinks a lot of water when she wants it, and she's not dehydrated and is in very good health. There is also enough fat in this food so that I can see the grease in her dish when I wash it daily...

a good high quality dry like Nature's Logic is much better than a cheapie canned food.

But I'd like to have Gizmo eating canned...trouble is she won't eat anything but fish. I just found out that mackerel and salmon are okay--it's tuna and shrimp that you have to keep away from them. I think her previous owners fed her nothing but tuna fish and pizza!

at any rate, here are some good dry AND canned foods from the same companies. I'd recommend alternating dry and wet to get the benefits of both.

Nature's Logic
California Natural
Wysong
Evanger's
Evo
and there are probably lots more.

I use to think dry was better too but everything I've read here and elsewhere say wet in long run is actually better. Canned does contain alot of water which is vital to your cats health. Most cats don't drink nearly enough water on their own so alot of people add wet food to the diet to make up for the lack of water. I feed wet in the am and pm and dry during the day. Dry has alot more calories so switching to a wet food diet will probably help with your cats weight. As far as how much to feed someone else may better answer for that. I feed half in the morning and half at night but if you start feeding an all wet diet obviously you would feed more.

Here's a few high quality canned foods.

-Innova
-Innova EVO
-California Natural
-Wellness
-Solid Gold
-Natural Balance
-Felidae
-Chicken Soup For The Pet Lover's Soul
-Pinnacle
-by Nature
-Nature's Variety

Originally Posted by Sydney

I was under the impression that dry food is better then canned. Dry is better for their teeth and not as fattenng as canned. If you want her to loose weight just keep her on dry and feed her twice a day, dont free feed or she wont loose weight.

If you feed just canned she might gain weight and her teeth could go bad. They need the hard crunchy food to keep their teeth healthy. Also on just canned food the poop might smell worse and may not be as firm. I heard canned food has a lot of water in it.

This is just what I've heard. Others might have better advice.
I did work at an animal hospital, so i do know that all the overweight cats that came in were on diets of just dry food, fed once or twice a day to help them loose weight.Animal hospitals also have special food with calorie control, maybe you can ask your vet about it and he can give you the best advice!.

Click to expand...

California Natural seems to be fairly low in calories and although it is being discontinued, The Innova Lite is a good food. Others that make a Lite formula in canned is:
Felidae
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul
I think Nutro

I know there are others, but can't think of any names right now.

A quality wet food is definitely better for weight loss. The cat probably should have scheduled meal times.

Dry has no advantages over wet for a cat. It is only a convenience for the humans. It does nothing to promote healthy teeth and there are always more calories in dry as they need carbohydrate fillers to hold the dry food together.

If you have been free feeding then I'd start with her daily quantity of food broken into 3 meals a day(if possible), rather than two to keep kitty from feeling like she is being starved.

Originally Posted by Sydney

I also recommend playing with her a lot, get her running around chasing toys, she should loose weight in no time with some increased fun exercise.

Click to expand...

Definitely give her exercise with interactive play to help burn up the calories.

here are a few readily avail wets that are good

nutro
natural balence
solid gold
meow mix
authority
pet gold

Wet is far better than dry but if feeding dry make sure it is made by a good company and has no by products and chemical preservatives ...( I prefer no grd corn , no soy , no wheat ... at the most 1 meat for every1.5 grains)

Your ten yr old is a senior and senior food s have less calories and would be safe for your younger one

Well...she's already on a high quality dry food (Natural Balance lite & Royal Canin indoor lite) and she's not losing weight. She's been on this for 9 months. She also gets some SD r/d thrown in for good measure. (My 10 yo is on that and the vet told me to do 1/2 of her allotted food serving r/d and 1/2 something lite food for my 18 mo.)

She's not allowed to free feed and has set eating times with controlled portions. I've already cut her back to 1/3 C of dry food and increased her exercise. She loves any kind of wet food, so I'm thinking that is the way to go.

Thanks for all the input. I'll have to find a feeding guide and go shopping!

Stephanie

You might find these articles useful:
http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.ph...needcannedfood
http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.ph...dcleantheteeth

Tips for transitioning:http://www.catinfo.org/#Transitionin...o_Canned_Food_

Jamie, thank you for those great links!

Stephanie