cat not eating dry food anymore

My first post here. I am watching ten year old brother cats in my home on behalf of a friend who has health problems. It's kind of a long story, but they've been staying with me for the last six months. I had cats all through my childhood, but never looked after them as an adult until now.

One of these cats had to get his top canine teeth removed in May, and he healed up just fine without infection or anything. His teeth were in bad shape, and its good they came out. He's a very large framed cat (think Maine coon sized frame) who weighs 15 pounds, and he loves food.

When I first received the cats from her, he ate dry food. He continued to eat dry food for a couple weeks, but I noticed he wasn't eating as much and seemed lethargic. I supplemented (with her permission) some wet food, and noticed that he perked up a lot. This was while he still had the painful teeth.

After the extraction, I gave him only wet food for I think two weeks while his gums healed, and he was happy as a clam because he loves the wet food.

But I've noticed over the last months that he rarely eats the dry. He will take one bite of dry here and there when he's hungry, but he doesn't really chew it, just seems like he's choking it down.

I keep dry food out for them overnight, and get up to feed them wet at 7:15am, usually. If I'm late, and if I don't pay attention, this cat will frantically scarf down his wet food, and then vomit, and appear shaky and frantic wanting more food. When this has happened, I take some time sitting on the floor petting him, and feeding him a bit at a time, making him wait. And this does the trick. He doesn't vomit the new food.

He has also vomited in the morning before being fed when I went at 8 something to feed him. It was like a brown liquid one time that he vomited. Another time, it was like a yellowish stringy mucus.

We were out of town for 2.5 days, and left out lots of dry food. We had a friend come over to feed wet food (slowly) and check on them one time halfway through. I was upset to see that this cat does not appear to have eaten much dry food at all while we were gone, and he has eaten twice as much wet food since we've returned as he would normally eat, and he's still begging for more. He did not commit at all while we were gone.

My husband thinks maybe I have "ruined" this cat or spoiled him and now he's high maintenance.

Does anyone have insight into this situation? Any advice? Understand what might be going on? Is it because he hasn't figured out how to eat dry food after his teeth were extracted?

(His brother is smaller framed, and around 10-11 pounds, has all his teeth, eats both dry and wet food, and has no drama.)

That should read that he did not vomit at all while we were gone, not commit. Haha.

It sounds to me like the cat just has a strong preference for wet food! I think it's better for cats than dry food anyway -- it generally has more meat and protein and less fillers and carbs than dry foods -- so I'd say you're lucky he prefers wet food over dry! Cats are carnivores so need meat, plus there's far more moisture in wet food.

The liquidy morning vomiting may be because he got hungry during the night and didn't want to eat the dry food. If you feed that cat only wet foods, you might be able to avoid the morning vomiting (either the "empty" yellow kind and the scarf and barf," too) by feeding a good bedtime snack. One of our cats used to have similar vomiting (both types) and half a can of caloric food late in the evening has taken care of it.

Have you tried giving him dry food soaked in a little water? You can also get cat gravy/yoghurty stuff and mixing that with dry might work.

If dry food is uncomfortable to eat the first option might work as it'll make it nice and soft. If he's just being picky the second might be a good way to trick him into thinking it's wet food

Thanks so much for your suggestions!

I thought I replied to this, but I guess I left it as a draft.

I gave him some dry food with a little water on it, and he ate some of it, but he looked despondent. And I tried mixing dry in with his wet, and he would eat some of it, too. He is a first class actor. Great manipulation skills.

I agree that he loves wet food! I agree that it's better for him, especially since males can have urinary tract issues. He needed to travel extensively starting in early October, and I was concerned that he wouldn't eat enough and would develop health problems if I didn't get him back into dry food. (He had to fly for 7 hours, go into quarantine for ten days, wait a month and a half, fly 7 hours again, and do another 10 day quarantine.)

He and his brother made it through all of that, and are doing great at their new home, though. What a relief!

Thanks again for your replies, and I'm sorry for not following up.

LisaHE said:

 
It sounds to me like the cat just has a strong preference for wet food! I think it's better for cats than dry food anyway -- it generally has more meat and protein and less fillers and carbs than dry foods -- so I'd say you're lucky he prefers wet food over dry! Cats are carnivores so need meat, plus there's far more moisture in wet food.

The liquidy morning vomiting may be because he got hungry during the night and didn't want to eat the dry food. If you feed that cat only wet foods, you might be able to avoid the morning vomiting (either the "empty" yellow kind and the scarf and barf," too) by feeding a good bedtime snack. One of our cats used to have similar vomiting (both types) and half a can of caloric food late in the evening has taken care of it.

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You can also try feeding 1/2 a Pepcid (5 mg) to him.  My 15 year male cat has an issue throwing up mornings.  Our vet suggested the Pepcid. We put it into a Greenies pill pocket before bedtime; which he loves.  It seems to have helped somewhat. He has gone as long as a week or more without barfing when we are making sure to pill him.