hello and how to feed my picky toothless older kitty?

kittumscattums

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Hello everyone! I am new here and this is my first post!
About a year ago we adopted a 13(ish) year old cat from a friend's relative who could no longer take care of her. After having her a little while we found out that she has all if 3 teeth.
Of course, to complicate matters she flatly refuses to eat anything but kibble. We, and her previous owners, have offered her all kinds of wet food and cooked meat and she won't even taste it. We are going to keep trying but in the meantime she has to eat!
She seems to have some trouble eating her kibble, some days more than others, and we would love to find a way to make it easier for her to eat. I was thinking of soaking it but it looks like that is actually dangerous? What can we do? Has anyone solved this problem in the past?
 

2cats4me

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Hello everyone! I am new here and this is my first post!
About a year ago we adopted a 13(ish) year old cat from a friend's relative who could no longer take care of her. After having her a little while we found out that she has all if 3 teeth.
Of course, to complicate matters she flatly refuses to eat anything but kibble. We, and her previous owners, have offered her all kinds of wet food and cooked meat and she won't even taste it. We are going to keep trying but in the meantime she has to eat!
She seems to have some trouble eating her kibble, some days more than others, and we would love to find a way to make it easier for her to eat. I was thinking of soaking it but it looks like that is actually dangerous? What can we do? Has anyone solved this problem in the past?
Have you tried Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers ? It has lots of gravy and very tiny food pieces .. 
 
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kittumscattums

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We haven't tried that one yet, I will! We tried a couple other fancy feast that she wasn't into,but it's worth a shot!
 

2cats4me

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We haven't tried that one yet, I will! We tried a couple other fancy feast that she wasn't into,but it's worth a shot!
Yeah , she may like it ..  Although  NOT a complete diet , you could also try the Fancy Feast Broths . If she likes those you could supplement with something else ..
 
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kittumscattums

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Thanks! We will try those! If she still refuses all soft foods does anyone have any suggestions? We tried chopping her food in a blender today so we'll see how that goes. She just went to the vet a couple weeks ago for weight loss and ears and her blood work and physical were all fine and the vet didn't seem to see anything alarming in her mouth so I dunno what to do exactly. Going to the vet is harder for her old self every time so bringing her back so soon is something we'd like to avoid.
 

2cats4me

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Thanks! We will try those! If she still refuses all soft foods does anyone have any suggestions? We tried chopping her food in a blender today so we'll see how that goes. She just went to the vet a couple weeks ago for weight loss and ears and her blood work and physical were all fine and the vet didn't seem to see anything alarming in her mouth so I dunno what to do exactly. Going to the vet is harder for her old self every time so bringing her back so soon is something we'd like to avoid.
If she does not like either of those , try Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf . It has a really smooth consistency . Mix a little warm water with it to make it pasty . 
 

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You may have already tried these ideas but I thought I would mention them in case you haven't. I too am struggling to get kibble addicts to eat wet food.

1. Sprinkle the wet food with the pulverized kibble or forti-flora (which has the same animal digest that makes kibble addictive), parmesan cheese, or crumbled treats they like. This did not work very well with my kitties. They showed interest in the topper, until I put it on the wet food and then they lost interest. Some people say it works.

2. Dribble tuna water over the food if the cat loves fish.

3. Try to divide the food into timed meals, then offer the wet food instead of dry at a meal when they should be hungry. Try to keep track of their total calories eaten so that you aren't cutting their total calories much, but still creating some hunger. This seems to be the only thing that will get some cats to try the wet foods... is if they are pretty hungry.

4. Some like my Peanut just seem to be very slow with wet food. She will come to eat dry food right away and just hunker down over the bowl and eat a fair amount. But, with the wet food she will take a nibble then leave for like 20 minutes, come back and circle the food a few times, then eat a little more. It is like she is waiting to see if something else turns up. When she circles it, it almost looks like she is treating it like a animal and making sure it is really dead or something before she eats.

There are a bunch of guides online with tips for getting kibble addicts to eat other foods. It is very frustrating for a lot of people. That is why many of us can't believe when some people are complaining about the exact opposite problem and want to get their cats onto kibble!
 

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We have a very old feral that comes to our feeding station.  I have never gotten close to him, but I have seen him eat and I do not think he has any teeth.  He really likes a refrigerated raw kibble, its soft enough for him, but still in a kibble form.  I put it in his dish and he eats it all.  The other cats will not touch it though. He is a true feral though and probably ate garbage before he started coming to the feeding station so I do not think he is that picky.
 

betsygee

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We have an 11-12 year old cat we took in a couple of years ago.  She was a kibble addict, too.  Hubby hit on the idea to put out a small amount of wet food and stick dry bits in it.  The pieces are about half in and half out, so she could see and smell the kibble but really had to bite at the wet to get at them.  It worked.  She ate more and more of the wet as time went on.  We still add 2-3 dry pieces into her food as a 'topper', mostly out of habit
 but 95% of her food is wet now.

(And I have to tell you it was very cute to see hubby carefully arranging the dry bits in the bowl of wet food for her.)  
 
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kittumscattums

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That is very cute! We've tried that with her and she just sniffs at it and decides not to eat. If she were a younger kitty I might let her get hungry for a day and see if she'd eat it but I really don't want to deny her food for long at this stage of the game. I have tried putting it down next to her dry food, picking up the dry food for a couple hours, putting wet under the dry, even smearing some wet on her paw so shed have to taste it... She certainly knows what she likes!
 

betsygee

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Have you tried other kinds of toppers?  The other thing this kitty liked was freeze-dried chicken cat treats.  We crumbled it on top of the wet food.
 
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kittumscattums

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We have tried some different treats and will continue to try more. Freeze dried chicken wasn't a hit bit maybe something will be!
 
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