What's your cat's favorite canned food?

Please share what your cat's favorite canned food is.

My Bobby won't touch canned food. Could be because of a bad association with it (it took me 10 months to catch him for neutering and the little hooligan never did go in the trap, but that's another story) then 9 months later he became very ill with a urinary tract blockage and I had to syringe feed him. Maybe he just doesn't like canned food, but he really does need to eat it. Fortunately, he does drink a lot of water. 

I feel like we've tried every kind of canned food imaginable, but I'm open to and welcome all suggestions. Just to demonstrate my level of desperation I have even considered trying the home-made route. I don't even cook for the humans in my family, for which they are all very grateful! Please, for Bobby's sake, to spare him any attempt by me to make food for him, share with us your cat's favorite and we'll give it a try.

I thought this was going to be a "fun" thread... but sadly my answer isn't going to help you at all.

Because Jed has a soul of a pig and eats anything I put down.

HAve you tried the chunk/slices/gravy kind of canned food, instead of the pate one? Could be a texture thing.

Don't you love the non-picky eaters? Bobby is the only one I've got like this and it's driving me crazy! I did try some various textures of some kinds of canned food. There's been so many, I can't remember anymore. 

I don't feed my cats commercial food any longer, but when I did, the "go to" food was always Fancy Feast classic chicken.

Have you transitioned him to timed meals? That's really the first step. If he has access to dry food he loves all the time, he's got no motivation to eat anything else, and there's really no way to introduce a new type of food. Typical introduction methods for cats that don't like wet food are to include a really small amount in a dish next to the kibble (preferable in the same dish AS the kibble), coated in crushed kibble or some other favorite treat or freeze dried meat treat (these are really easy to powder, they're so dry) they like. But you can't really do this with a dish of dry food that's left out...

This might help: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264675/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals-and-new-food

IMO, cats' tastes are so individual, when it comes to the die-hard kibble addict, it almost doesn't matter what food you use. Pick the ones you want him to eat, and use those. Start with very, very small amounts, freeze the rest of the can into 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon sized portions so you don't waste the whole thing, and thaw as needed at meal times. Just "desensitize" them to it, and trick them into tasting it. Over time, they'll get used to it and slowly eat more and more of it.

I don't remember if I included this in the transition thread, but I think of it like a kid that's only ever eaten sugary cereal. After years, mom wants them to eat a salad. They're going to absolutely hate it. There's no salad dressing that's going to help over another... a little bit of lettuce is going to need to be buried under heaps of bacon and cheese, most likely. Over time, you can increase the greens and reduce the bacon and cheese... and eventually, that child is going to crave the salad.

Have you tried using crushed kibble or fortiflora as a topper.  You may have to use a lot of the crushed kibble so he is just getting maybe a little bit of the canned.

When my kitty was sick and didn't have a good appetite Friskies Oceanfish Pate worked. I could smell the stuff a couple rooms over.

My kitten isn't too picky as long as his food is chunky. He happily ate nothing but kitten pate for a few weeks, but his first taste of chunky food he had, that was it! He absolutely refuses to eat pate now.

His absolute favorite is Merrick's Cowboy Cookout. It's a really smelly beef stew with lots of gravy. He goes nuts for it!

When I finally got my cat to eat grain free wet canned cat food, I found two brands he likes. He'll only eat these in the slices, minced and cuts textures since he totally rejects and won't eat pate. The brands are Nutro Natural Choice and Seba.

With Nutro Natural Choice; the flavors he likes are: Chicken, Turkey, Cod, Chicken & Tuna. With Sheba; the flavors he likes are: Chicken, Tuna, Mix Grill.

Thank you all, so much, for your replies! I really appreciate it.

LDG, thank you for the link and info regarding timed meals. We do have meal times (3 per day) only because we've always had at least one geriatric cat that required/demanded multiple daily canned food feedings. That routine is loosely established so may not be too difficult to formalize, at least for the other cats. Bobby has only been an inside cat since his illness in Jan., so in a lot of ways he's still adjusting. He is a hit-and-run eater and totally avoids the meal time chaos, in fact will leave the area as soon as "Dinner time" is called. His canned food dish is quite a distance from everyone else's and we've tried feeding him by himself in a different room. All of that is really more a posting for the Behavior Board. After reading the info on your link, though, I'm sure you're right that as long as the kibble is down, I may be fighting a losing battle. 

Denice: I haven't tried putting kibble with the canned food at all, neither whole or crushed, so will try that today. 

Raintyger: I have added Friskies Oceanfish pate to my grocery list. Thank you for the suggestion.

Fluffybeard: Where do you usually buy the Merrick's? I know for sure that's one brand we haven't tried yet. 

Night Wing: Sheba in all of it's various textures is now on my grocery list, thank you. And I'll pick up some of the Nutro Natural on my next run to Petsmart.

Again, thank you all for the suggestions. Please keep them coming.

l don't use any Mars foods for the cats. l second LDG's advice about the Fancy Feast Classic chicken pate. l've never met a cat that didn't like it.

Even my old fella Thai   couldn't resist it, and he was a hard-core kibble addict when he came to me. lf you freeze it in one of those ice cube trays that makes the little spheres, you can use/waste very little at each meal, and they take no time to thaw.

Good luck with your kitty.

I made the transition to wet food recently (although they do still get a small mid-day portion of dry.) I tried various brands (although I am limited due to several with protein allergies.) So far my crew has settled in on PetSmart's "Simply Nourish" line of Chicken Stew, Nature's Variety Chicken and their Cat's Pride line of Champ's Chicken. The also will eat Wellness CORE on occasion. They also like the Natural Choice but I have to monitor that one as my eldest is allergic to pork products.

They didn't like any of the Merrick or the othet Wellness foods and for some reason Sheba made them sick. =\

Just like you I went through multiple brands/flavors...pâté, chunky, minced...

Ours love Merrick, it was in heavy rotation but also has carrageenan in it so I gave up on that one.  

It really is difficult finding a decent food without this ingredient.  So many of them still depend on it to hold the food together.

I'll throw my voice in about the Fancy Feast Classic line - I buy the chicken, turkey and beef varieties.  Both of mime love it, so I added this one to our rotation after taking out the Merrick.  

As for other toppers, you can also try bonito flakes or freeze dried chicken treats crushed up on top of it.  This has worked for us to transition to new flavor wet foods that at first they aren't so interested in.

I just won the canned food battle against a stubborn kitten who did not like any of the brands I gave her until I tried Nutro Natural Choice (chicken flavor, soft loaf, for kittens). She has inhaled every can I've given her over the past couple of days. Note however that some flavors contain carrageenan, so check the ingredients carefully.

Susank521 said:

Fluffybeard: Where do you usually buy the Merrick's? I know for sure that's one brand we haven't tried yet. 

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PetCo has it. I've never seen it at PetsMart. I don't know if it's worth it to worry about carrageenan any more than the other non cat friendly additives in canned food like starches, preservatives, and small bits of other vegetables or fruit. Ideally I'd like to get him eating mostly whole prey. I just have to learn to stomach the sight of it!

My kitten also loves Weruva, but he won't dive into it like the Merrick's. Weruva looks and smells good enough to me to eat! It doesn't have that smelly cat food smell.

Susank521,

Both Nutro Natural Choice and Sheba can be bought at Petsmart.

Andrya said:

 
l  second LDG's advice about the Fancy Feast Classic chicken pate. l've never met a cat that didn't like it.

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Since my cat likes chicken, Fancy Feast Classic chicken pate was the first wet canned cat food I tried on my kibble addicted cat. He took one bite and walked off. He never touched it again.

Every cat is different. Just like human beings.

Night Wing said:

 
Since my cat likes chicken, Fancy Feast Classic chicken pate was the first wet canned cat food I tried on my kibble addicted cat. He took one bite and walked off. He never touched it again.

Every cat is different. Just like human beings.

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Same with the Nutro. Tried it once, got a meh! To each their own experience, hence the OP's question on the forum.

You could also try the Friskies pates.  My two are also kibble addicts but I've got them up to about half of their food being wet now.  They do better with the grocery store brands than they do with the better quality brands.  I think it's kind of like people liking fast food but even the grocery store brands of wet are better for them then the best dry food.
 

Friskies, but Spencer has food allergies and I've very recently switched all 3 to d/d hypo allergenic food from the vet's.  Venisen flavour.  They eat it, but I can't say that they eat it with as much "enjoyment" as they seemed to eat the Friskies.  The important thing is that I've had to refill their dish with dry, and the plate of wet is empty every morning so far, and I see all 3 eating both wet and dry.

When I had MacLeod I first fed him 9 Lives, and he was good with it until I decided to give him a can of Fancy Feast as a treat. After that he wouldn't touch the 9 Lives any longer it didn't matter what flavor I tried, so he won and I just started buying him Fancy Feast.

With Pirate I didn't even bother to try anything but Fancy Feast, he would eat whatever flavor I fed him but his favorite was turkey, he'd get so excited when it was that flavors turn in the rotation.

So far Cat, alright I admit I've been calling him Kit Cat since he seems to like that better then Cat, doesn't have a favorite brand. I've been feeding him Friskies, Sheba, and Fancy Feast and he seems to love each of them.