How to keep dry food fresh smelling for senior cat with limited sense of smell?

Hello all,

I'm seeking some advice. Sssy, my 15-year old furbaby, has, as happens with age, begun to lose her sense of smell, which makes it really difficult to give her dry cat food. I give her canned food but when I'm at work, she needs to have food available due to a health condition. I was just giving her lots of treats as a kibble replacement and that worked until I got worried that she was missing out certain nutrition requirements, particularly fiber. When I first reintroduce her to kibble or a new bag of treats, she's enthusiastic and gobbles it up. Now, though, she turns her nose up at it because it doesn't smell fresh to her.

Here's what I've tried so far:

- Kept in plastic container with lid

- Separate the food into one-serving portions and put into ziplock in the freezer

- Spray salmon oil or put tuna flakes on it 

- Mix new and old or kibble and treats (she picks out the stuff that smells fresh)

I'm not sure what else to do and hate buying food and then returning it two weeks later. Can anyone give me advice on how to keep her kibble kitty-approved fresh or give me an alternative to treats that are full of the nutrition she needs and easy to keep fresh-smelling? 

Thanks,

Angela

Have you tried any of the toppings like Fortiflora on the kibble?

I haven't tried Fortiflora but I have tried Japanese tuna flakes which has worked with canned food. For dry though, she just licks it off or just eats the few that have it on.

kountry001 said:

 
Hello all,

I'm seeking some advice. Sssy, my 15-year old furbaby, has, as happens with age, begun to lose her sense of smell, which makes it really difficult to give her dry cat food. I give her canned food but when I'm at work, she needs to have food available due to a health condition.

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Have you tried using a programmable timed feeder work to give your cat meals when you are not at home? You can put canned food into these and there are ways to keep the food from spoiling. I like the Petsafe 5 compartment feeder. I've used this feeder to give my diabetic cat meals when I was at work. The feeder worked great.

You can try freeze dried raw instead of regular dryfood. Freeze dried raw has a stinkier smell than dry food and your cat may be able to smell that better. You can feed freeze dried raw food dry insead of the usual package instructions of rehdyrating it in water first. Stella and Chewy's is a good brand to try and the foods are super stinky.

I do have an automatic feeder. How do you keep canned food from going bad for 8-10hours? 

Does it have chill compartments underneath?   The one I used to have had space for 2 little chill blocks so the food would stay cool if you wanted to use them.   If it doesn't have that, is there some way you could arrange it so there was something like that under the food compartments?