horizon complete? Other suggestions?

I'm having a heck of a time finding a decent dry food for the kitties, wet is fine (combo of 'eek bad' friskies chunks thingers and merrick wet canned food), but for dry...

It seems nowhere has anything that I see get recommended. So since the SO was always determined to keep them on purina, I tried to find some suggestions. (he had Floyd on meowmix but I nixed that idea for the slightly better lines. also on clay litter, but I just managed to switch them to corn based. His general view on it is his mom always had cats on meowmix or purina cat chow and they were okay so why spend the extra if its not needed... sigh) I've pretty much completely taken over all pet-related expenses since we moved in together. So its just me paying for all this... which is rather difficult at times.

the list I had was about 6 different kinds, but the only one i could find by me (I live near a vet wholesale place) was horizon complete (I had been looking for horizon legacy)

So picked up a small bag since we're almost out of the purina stuff and I needed food anyways.

Most of the stuff they sold there were purina foods, science diet, a couple of holistic lables I had never heard of, ect. I looked for orijjen but they only had it for dogs.

Any suggestions or different things to look for? I need the full brand and kind... I think maybe there were other foods off my list there, but the guy I asked didn't think they carried them.

the kinds that were suggested to me are these:

-weruva (said didn't have)
-wellness core line (only had wet in small cans and price is a bit more than we can afford.. is like 2.50 for one small can)
-merricks (only had wet food, but its going to be tried. I like the grain free bit. is about 1.60 a can which is do able in small doses)
-horizon legacy (they only had horizon complete kibble which I decided to try at least in the meantime)
-tikicat (said didn't have)
-avoderm (said didn't have)
-orijjen cat (only had dog food.)


I would just ask the vet, but they sell meow mix so I'm leery. Wondering about science diet? I think I've seen that in every vets office I've been in. So wondering also how that does.

Any help would be appreciated... Still trying to figure out all this diet stuff. Both cats drink a lot of water (they play hard then go guzzle) even more now that I switched from the boyfriends plastic dish to metal dishes. They get wet food for one meal every 2 days min (usually if we have wet food its their evening meal and they graze during the day on kibble)

My experience with vets is that either they don't know anything about nutrition or they do but they still just pimp whoever endorses them be it Purina or Science Diet, etc.

Cats should be getting the majority of their calories from quality protein sources and fat, and so IMO that narrows you down to quality grain free low carb foods.

The best dry foods like that in my opinion include Blue Wilderness, Wellness Core, Innova Evo, and Nature's Variety Raw Instinct. Evo and Nature's variety are only 7% and 8% carb respectively for example, lower than even quality canned wet foods like Wellness Chicken and Lobster wet or Blue Savory Salmon or Innova Chicken & Brown Rice. And while it may seem expensive compared to other kibble, take into account that you don't have to feed as much of the good stuff with less fillers.

Are you able to get to either of the Global Pet Food stores in Edmonton? The addresses are 6655- 178th Street Unit 228 and Heritage Village 2027 A -111 Street. You can find the hours and contact info here: http://www.globalpetfoods.ca/locatio...ns_results.php

I know that all of the Global's here sell Horizon food, but not sure if it differs out west. They are a pet health food store so they should carry most, if not all, of the brands that have been recommended to you.

Here's a list of stores that are supposed to carry Orijen, but you should definitely call ahead and see for sure, some might only carry the dog formula:

All Care Vet & Pet Supplies
13008 - 82 Street
Edmonton, AB T5E 2T5
Phone: (780) 472-7759

Barkers Dog Club
6844 82 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T6B 0E7
Phone: (780) 469-3101

Barkers Dog Club West End
15015 111 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5M 2P8
Phone: (780) 486-3647

Companions & Friends
5537 - 97 Street
Edmonton, AB T6E 3H8
Phone: (780) 989-8844

The nice thing about Global, at least around here anyways, is that if you ask them they will special order in foods for you. We do that with our cat food.

BTW, I would recommend increasing their wet food intake to everyday, even if you have to buy a wet food thats 50% the price of what you're feeding. Its just good hydration insurance.

And wet food has a shelf life canned of... well, forever pretty much. So personally, I just buy whatever happens to be on sale thats decent quality, and if its a great sale price and I have a good coupon like 10% off an order, I buy a bunch.


Was almost entirely full of good nomnoms before, and yeah, naturally he goes straight for the junk food...

I had no idea those stores even existed :S thanks for the links!

The wet food intake I do try to give every day for one meal, its just sometimes it has to be crappy wet food (the purina canned chunk stuff, not the paste) due to the whole wet-food-being-so-expensive but I try for at least 2 meals a week to be the high quality wet food. And some days there's a case of 'ah shoot, didn't realize we were running low'

I have yet to find sales on wet food *sigh*

But. Many thanks! I now have some more avenues to check out for finding what I'm looking for!

Its amazing the positive change in Floyd since I came around/since we got Zoe. (I couldn't really change things until 'we' got a cat rather than 'he' had a cat)