What to feed after dental cleaning?

I want to get my cats dental cleaning to remove excess tartar on their teeth to prevent any tooth issues in the future. I was inquiring about this and asked my vet how soon after can they eat and what to feed them. My vet said to feed them soft food. One of my cats loves canned food, the other hardly touches it.

Is there a semi-moist dry food I can buy that they both will eat? Any brand names would be helpful, as I have never seen soft dry food here before as far as I can remember.

If it's just a simple cleaning with no extractions, there shouldn't be too much discomfort. Some cats can eat dry food a couple hours after with no problems/pain whatsoever. Just depends on the cat. But, if you or your baby is uncomfortable about dry, try moistening his normal kibble with some warm water and letting it sit for a minute or to. That way it's his normal food, just a little warm and squishy. You shouldn't have to do this for more than a day or two. Think about it this way. When you get your teeth cleaned they may be a little sensitive for the first day, but your back to eating normally soon after.

Ok that's great to hear, I can try that. The way the vet was describing a normal teeth cleaning made it sound like the cat will be in severe pain and not able to chew at all. Mabye she thought I said tooth extraction?

We just had Kairi's teeth cleaned last month. She was groggy and unsteady on her feet when we picked her up, so we put her in the bedroom and shut the door. She was also very aggressive towards Namine, so we also wanted to keep them apart. For food, we waited till we got home a couple hours later to give her any food or water. She came right out of the bedroom and got some water, and we fed her wet food. The next morning she got her dry food, and she was fine chewing it. She didn't look like she had any pain or discomfort at all.

Cats don't normally "chew" food anyway unless the chunks are big, in which case they break the chunk with the tip of the tooth and swallow usually.

As for wetting dry food, please be careful. Moistened dry food will go nasty faster than the normal wet food so don't leave it down very long. If kitty doesn't eat it all up within a half hour, remove it.

Honestly, your cat shouldn't have a problem eating after a dental but to err on the side of caution go with the wet food. If you only put down wet food, chances are that even the kitty that doesn't like it much will eat if they are hungry.