Questions on Best Food URI Cat

My vet has always recommended dry food only. I have lost two cats, one with and one without urinary issues, to renal failure. I have two cats remaining, one female, no urinary problems. She eats some wet mixed with dry and l-lysine for her eye. My male cat has history of urinary blockages and the vet has him on W/D dry only, the same food Speedboat was eating.
Speedboat was 14 and put to sleep yesterday with kidney failure. I want some good advice for my remaining cats, especially the male. My vet says the dry is better for the teeth. All input appreciated.

FWIW, my boy was diagnosed with struvite crystals....my vet loved that I already had a water fountain, and we went with Hills CD (not WD), both dry and wet. My guy just isn't a huge fan of wet, and I decided it just wasn't worth stressing him out, as long as the CD worked. Knock wood, so far so good with follow-up urine samples.

So, I'm not saying dry food necessarily needs to be tossed out, if kitty likes it - but I'd definitely want to talk with the vet and at least ask about introducing wet into the diet and see how it goes. It seems the usual protocol is to try and get cats with urinary tract health issues onto wet, as possible.

On the other hand, how are your boy's urinalyses coming out? - if they're good, maybe I wouldn't rock the boat.

w/d is the wrong food for a cat with urinary tract problems. he needs to be on the c/d, which controls the acidity of the urine and promotes urine output.

w/d is for diabetic cats, and cats prone to weight gain, and some stomach problems

Canned food is better than dry for so many reasons, the main one being fluid intake.

That being said my FLUTD kitty is on the Hills prescription c/d multicare kibble. She hates the c/d canned. My other two cats are on canned diets, with kibble for snacks.

I would like Mazy to be on canned too, but she has to be on prescription food or the crystals come back, so it is a lesser of two evils situation.

I brush their teeth with c.e.t. veterinary enzymatic toothpaste every night

Dry food does not have any bearing on dental health, that is pure fallacy. Most cats don't even chew the food (their teeth are not designed for chewing) They take at the most, one crunch, and then swallow.

In addition, if the cat does bite the kibble particles of dry are more likely to stick to the teeth than wet food. So I have read, not sure why this would be so. Perhaps because wet more closely resembles a species appropriate diet.

Dental health is mostly genetic. home care can help keep teeth healthy, and reduce tartar build up.

I know it must seem odd to hear things that directly oppose what you vet has told you.

I recommend you take the thoughts and ideas you have heard here and discuss them with your vet.

Make a list of questions, write them down, and leave spaces to write down the answers. Does your vet have email? You could e mail your questions that way.

Or voice mail? I LOVE my vet's voice mail. I call and leave my questions, and after she gathers the answers she calls me back.

Originally Posted by otto

I recommend you take the thoughts and ideas you have heard here and discuss them with your vet.

Make a list of questions, write them down, and leave spaces to write down the answers. Does your vet have email? You could e mail your questions that way.

Or voice mail? I LOVE my vet's voice mail. I call and leave my questions, and after she gathers the answers she calls me back.

Click to expand...

excellent ... I also text my vet , for her easier than email or voicemail

My Speedboat was put to sleep this week. He has always eaten dry food because of urinary issues. He did very well once he started with the prescription food. Our cat Muffin, another male, has been blocked several times. The vet gave them R/D to begin with because they both needed some weight off. He tried the C/D and Muffin would not have it. For convenience he put them both on W/D and their urinary issues stopped,. My concern is that I am reading more and more that a diet consisting of only dry food promotes kidney failure. Max, male, died with kidney failure five years ago. He didn't eat prescription food, but only at dry because my vet had told me it is better for their teeth. Speedboat progressed from third to fourth state renal failure in two weeks time. He did have some other health issues, low white blood count, low blood platelets and finally anemia. I am just concerned that both these cats ate only dry and they both had kidney failure. I want to address this because of Muffin eating only dry. My female eats wet/dry combination of Meow Mix and Friskies