returning to wet/dry diet, suggestions?

Hi folks. 

First, I am dead set on having both my cats on a wet/dry diet (if possible).  Please do not spend time trying to convince me they should only eat wet food.  Thanks. 

So, I have two cats, Lord Wilson and Lady Harriet.  Lord Wilson eats dry food, generally whenever he feels (brand: taste of the wild...it's a similar quality to Blue buffalo) and he usually gets wet food twice a day as a supplement, with added lysine.  He is content if he doesn't get the wet food, but happier when he does. 

Lady Harriet came to me a few weeks ago having had both wet and dry food.  However, things grew complicated when she had a bad blockage and wasn't eating anything.  After she was in the hospital we progressed from not eating, to eating cooked chicken, to eating chicken baby food, to eating GI friendly wet food, to eating Hill's beef flavored wet food, to eating Hill's wet food with some dry food tossed in there.  (it's been busy two weeks lol)  

And now we are sort of stuck.  I would really like her to get back to eating dry food if she is hungry and doesn't have access to wet food.  Should I just keep doing the mixture tactic?  Or is there something else I should try?  Should I stop giving her wet food for a couple of days until she gets hungry enough to eat the dry?  

Today I caught her drinking tons of water, so I think she will be okay for hydration (when she was sick I kept adding in extra water because she wouldn't drink anything).  

Hi Belle8bete!

Our cats occasionally get a little dry food as a treat, and we've never had a problem getting them to snarf it down so I'm sorry I don't have any advice for you there. But I can answer your question about not giving Lady Harriet food for a couple of days so she gets hungry. Cats are prone to getting hepatic lipidosis if they go for long without eating and so it's not recommended to let them go for many hours without food.

Dr. Pierson has a document on her catinfo.org website that explains it better than I could (the doc is about getting kibble addicts to eat wet food, which I know is not your goal but you might find some tips in there that are useful to you):

On the other hand, do not attempt to withhold food for long periods of time (greater than 24 hours) with the hope that your cat will choose the new food. You need to ‘convince’ them that a high quality canned food really is good for them, rather than to try starving them into it - which does not work anyway. Allowing a cat to go without food - especially an overweight cat - for a long period of time (greater than 48 hours) can be quite dangerous and may result in hepatic lipidosis(fatty liver disease).

Hepatic lipidosis can also develop when a cat consumes ~50% or less of his daily caloric requirements over a period of many days. The definition of "many" varies from cat-to-cat. For this reason it is important to understand that you need to have some idea of the calories from canned food combined with the calories from dry food that your cat is consuming on a daily basis while you are implementing the transition to canned food. Or, if you have a multiple-cat household that makes it difficult to know how much each cat is consuming, I suggest weighing the transitioning cat daily.

I have never seen a cat develop hepatic lipidosis when consuming at least 15 calories per pound per day. This number is figured on lean body weight, not fat weight.

Click to expand...

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info.  My instinct was that withholding the food might not be the answer.

Before she got sick she would nibble at the dry food I currently have out.  I also picked up some Blue Buffalo in case she preferred the flavor, but no luck with that.  

I know she really loves beef flavor in treats and in wet food.  So I guess I am wondering if anyone has a beef-loving cat.  If so, is there a dry food that they particularly enjoy.

My problem fixed itself.  She just went over and ate some dry food, and followed it up with some water.  :-)