Bad Vet?

My mom took her cat, Simba, to the vet this weekend...well he is 19.9 pounds! I have tried to talk to her about food, but she feeds Simba store brand dry food and either Fancy Feast or store brand wet food. Well, the vet told her that he wants to see Simba down to about 15 pounds in the next 12-18 months. He told her to eliminate the wet food, and to continue feeding the same dry food, but to slowly decrease the amount. This sounds like bad advice to me , but of course my mom will not listen to me over the vet.

Unfortunately a lot of people believe their vets know more about nutrition than they usually do.

Bijou was getting heavy so I cut down considerably on his dry food and gave him a quality wet food - he slowly lost some weight which is the only way for cats to lose weight - slowly.

The only thing I can suggest is to try to get her to read some of the threads here on good nutrition - i.e., wet is better than dry, good quality is best and the kitty actually eats less if the quality is better which offsets any price difference.

Good luck.

once you get some good replies here then I would show ehr the thread. Or do a little research online.

Vets are not nutritionists. Many also do not stay up to date on new developments and studies in the vet world. It really bugs me when people blindly just simply do whatever their vet tells them to do because they are the vet and they must know it all. Well unfortunately when it comes to food, that is completely untrue. I have had a few different vets tell me the completely wrong thing about food. I also know a lot of vets will promote Iams and Purina as the best because that is what they personally sell. We all know those foods are nothing but junk. If your mom is feeding Fancy Feast and other store brand cheapo foods, that is even worse then Purina and Iams.

The cat is not going to get any thinner on that crap dry food he is being fed. Wet food is the best, it has less carbs and fillers and it also increases a cats water intake since many don't drink quite enough water as it is. Plus a higher quality food leads to less trips to the vet in the long run. Obesity and such low grade food can lead to many problems like diabetes. You want to avoid these things and in the case of this vet, do not listen to that awful advice.

I agree - vets aren't generally too good re nutrition and many, mistakenly, favour dry food. I think wet food is best not just for general health, but for weight loss. I know booktigger on here has had success getting a cat to lose weight by switching to wet food - you might want to pm her. When I switched Jaffa from predominantly dry to predominantly wet he lost a little bit of weight at first. He doesnt need to lose weight so I had to increase the amount of food to stop him losing.

Dry food is very carby and can very easily lead to weight gain in cats as they aren't designed for a high carb diet and dont seem to metabolise carbs efficiently. I would definitely go for wet if I was trying to get a cat to lose weight.

This article is good at explaining why wet food is good. If you scroll down towards the end it talks about wet food and weight loss, dry food and it's link to obesity, diabetes etc.

http://www.littlebigcat.com/?action=...needcannedfood

Thanks for the replies! I will try to print out some information and show it to her, but I don't know if she will actually read it or follow the advice. She's always very busy because she teaches high school and takes care of my younger brothers. I don't even get to talk to her very much. It's worth a try though.

Vets are generally not experts at different brands. I believe they are taught very general about cats nutrition.

A great deal of their completing education is by seminars sponsored by the producents... And during these seminars they talks of course about - say - dry food, example Iams and Purina.
This is why they still think dry foods ARE the best...

I know human doctors have such completing educations-seminars sponsored by drug producents. This is why they are often better at some drugs marks then others. They dont get payed to prescribe them, but they are informed about them. Of course they do prescribe something they know instead of something they have no or very little knowledge of...

The advice to reduce the weight very slowly was a good one - fat cats cant stand to be starved.
So this vet perhaps is no good at cat nutrition - but he isnt no bad vet.

Just FYI students have a whole year of animal nutrition. The use of corn and grain based products is all based on OPPINION not fact. Vets don't see a problem feeding corn, and there really is no problem, other than the fact that a cat would not be eating corn in the wild. There again, cats don't live in the wild either. It's a whole other arguement in itself. Until anyone actually GOES to vet school, no one really will know what education a vet has. You are all so eager to say a vet doesn't know what they are talking about, when neither do you.
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That being said, feeding less dry WOULD help a cat lose weight. Free feeding is what causes weight problems in cats. The cat eats a whole bowl, the owner fills it up. If your mom measured the cats food, like gave the cat 1.5cups a day, she would see a weight difference rather than free feeding.

However, I am more of a wet food fan. My cat who is a 9lb cat was on Fancy Feast for a while [it's all he could eat] he was eating roughly 3 cans a day, sometimes only 2 and he maintained his weight. So overall your mom shouldn't be feeding tons of wet food, and if she isn't over feeding the cat should no be overweight on a wet diet.

I know that the advice he gave to decrease the amount of food very gradually was good advice. I was just surprised that he told her that the store brand food was fine and that he told her to eliminate the wet food. I thought that dry food typically had more carbs and made it harder for cats to lose weight.

the carb therory
is just a theroy ...


This is what my vet explained to me ... SOME animals will be chubby no matter what you do ... but YES a small decrease in food is a great idea provided kitty will not keep screaming... Of course MY VET has a NUTRITION degree in animals( yup there is such a thing) and she recommends RAW

With my cats yes wet food is a wt loose aid and it makes sence ... JUST remember all kitties like humans are different ...

If the vet went to school over ten years ago it is likely they just werent taught about wet... THE AMOUNT of Nutrition training varies by school ... The vet school nearest me feeds INNOVA and teaches alot about Nutrition ... BUT MOST still have only a semester

I recommend reading up on feline nutrition at www.catinfo.org. Print out some of the main points, like the health problems brought on by dry foods which are filled with fillers like corn, which cats DO NOT use like other species. This may help your mom AND her vet to see why canned foods are so much better than dry.

ETA: My Smeagol was very overweight eating dry. In about 4 months of eating canned only, about 250 calories a day, Smeagol is slim and sleek and feels wonderful!

Originally Posted by TrixtersMomma

I recommend reading up on feline nutrition at www.catinfo.org. Print out some of the main points, like the health problems brought on by dry foods which are filled with fillers like corn, which cats DO NOT use like other species. This may help your mom AND her vet to see why canned foods are so much better than dry.

ETA: My Smeagol was very overweight eating dry. In about 4 months of eating canned only, about 250 calories a day, Smeagol is slim and sleek and feels wonderful!

Click to expand...

I do like that website- I've found it very helpful for me in the past. Thanks!

I am not an expert at what we should feed our "cats", but I do know you are what you eat. If us people only ate very poor quality foods, then we will not feel "GOOD". In the long run it is better to feed our fur-babies a healthy proper diet then to spend a whole lot of money running tests to correct the damage done by the poor quality foods. Also, it can shorten an animals lifespan when they only eat "crap".

I go by the idea that my boy is like my child and if I did not feel that the dr. was educated enough to care for my child properly, then I would find a new dr. I know that I DEPEND on my vet for guidance on how to care for my boy because after all she is the one with the DMV after her name. I went through 3 vets before I found my current one and WE LOVE HER!

Good Luck with the kitty diet.

Just another testimony on how vets don't understand nutrician:

I'm familiar with a lot of vets (volunteering at the Humane Society) and every vet has their pet peeve that they focus on with their clients. This one vet blaimed nearly every health problem on their diet (which probably has some truth to it), but she sold therefore recommended Purina products. OK, so diet is critical to the health of the animal, but PLEASE study up on what are the right foods to use to keep an animal healthy!!

Well I wish I lived with my mom, because if I did I would be the one feeding her cat and it would be getting something much healthier.