I want to take my cat off wet food and stick completely to dry food.

So it has come to my attention that since my cat was fixed, the wet food is giving her fairly rapid weight gain and the worst smelling gas possible. She literally has gas all day, and it is the most unbearable I have smelled to date. My boyfriend insists that I no longer feed her the Fancy Feast gravy lovers, or any canned food for that matter. I give her a bowl of Meow Mix dry food each day in addition to the 1 can of Fancy Feast, so I will just simply cut out the Fancy Feast. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on what I am doing with her (Buttercup) - it would be greatly appreciated!! 

Weight gain would be from Meow Mix because the ingredients are absolutely horrendous and kibble is full of carbs which cause the issue. As for Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers the pate is better the wheat gluten, corn starch, and things like that are not good. Cats need meat period and the worst wet food is pretty much better than the best dry. I should note that on a dry only diet dehydration becomes a big problem with cats.

Just go with classic pate in fancy feast and she will be fine, it's the gravy giving gas and that meow mix is junky. It will make her fat with no healthy ingredients.

I agree with both posters. Cats are obligate carnivores and need to have a high protein, low carbohydrate diet that is mostly meat. Fancy Feast pates are definitely the best ones out of the line. The rest have too many carbs from the gravies and fillers. My cats are on a canned only diet and I have never smelled gas from any of them. All of my cats came from shelters and were on a diet of mostly cheap dry food. Their #2 could knock a buzzard from the sky.

A benefit of giving them a canned only diet is that their #2 now rarely has any smell at all. The reason is that with cheap dry foods such as Meow Mix, there are a lot of ingredients that their bodies have no use for therefore they don't process them and go right out the other end. The more their food can be used by their bodies, the less waste there will be and less odor as well.

Another plus is that they will shed less. Henry sure does. When he first came to live with us, if I ran my hand down his side, I'd be covered in hair. Now he hardly sheds at all. If you plan to continue to feed dry, there are many better options out there. A lot of members here opt for a higher quality kibble and a cheaper canned. Friskies pates are liked by many cats and are reasonably priced. Tractor Supply Company has a grain free food in their 4Health line that is good and reasonable as well. Merrick has a good dry food that is middle of the road price wise. This food is not available in grocery stores. You can save on both wet and dry foods by shopping online at retailers such as Chewy.com, Wag.com, Amazon.com and petfooddirect.com. All of these retailers have a subscription service that saves you money by having the foods shipped on a schedule. My favorite is Amazon's subscribe and save. 

The link below is an example of Merrick dry food. You can see the difference in ingredients between that and the Meow Mix. Yes, it's more expensive but it's better to spend more money up front on better food now than on vet bills later on down the road. 

https://www.chewy.com/cat/merrick-p...ck&utm_term=&gclid=CO3p0aDO78kCFZcjvQodpUQHtw

Please have your BF look at this link here: http://catinfo.org   if he is convinced that your cat should only eat the Meow Mix. Dr Pierson is a very respected expert on feline nutrition. 

I agree with the others! It's carbs that generally cause weight gain and dry food like Meow Mix is filled with them. Gravy Lovers is filled with wheat gluten that makes them pretty carby, too. We went through this with our previous cat: she loved dry food and Fancy Feast foods with wheat gluten. And she had a very bad weight problem.

As for gas, we had a very smelly problem with one of our current cats: once we cut out dry food and and started feeding only grain-free wet foods without potato, she totally freshened up. (Potato seemed to be especially bad for her, cats just don't need carbs like potato.)

I like @bonepicker's idea of feeding Buttercup Fancy Feast classic pates. @Tsukiyomi is right that cats need meat and that's what the Fancy Feast pates are. Sheba's another option and Friskies pates are another possibility, though they do have some rice. Basically, any canned food without any forms of corn, wheat, rice, potato, peas, or tapioca should be pretty low-carb.

I agree with @Kat0121's post, too, which went up just as I was about to post! The litter box smells a lot less when cats are fed only high-protein canned foods! (Been there, done that on the bad smells!)

I agree with the others, weight gain is likely a result of too many carbohydrates from the inexpensive dry food. 

 In the wild, cat's only get about 5% of their nutrition as carbohydrates and it's mostly the contents of their prey's stomach.

I adopted a very overweight cat this year and put him on all low carbohydrate canned food and he has slimmed down dramatically on an all wet food diet. I also don't have a lot of problems with litterbox smell.

The other issue with dry food only diets is that they don't provide enough moisture for the vast majority of cats and cats typically don't make up the deficit at the water bowl, unless cat guardians work really hard to facilitate creative ways of liquid consumption.

Chronic dehydration can lead to costly urinary and kidney problems down the road. 

Trishavv428 said:

 
So it has come to my attention that since my cat was fixed, the wet food is giving her fairly rapid weight gain and the worst smelling gas possible. She literally has gas all day, and it is the most unbearable I have smelled to date. My boyfriend insists that I no longer feed her the Fancy Feast gravy lovers, or any canned food for that matter. I give her a bowl of Meow Mix dry food each day in addition to the 1 can of Fancy Feast, so I will just simply cut out the Fancy Feast. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on what I am doing with her (Buttercup) - it would be greatly appreciated!! 

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What makes you think it is the Fancy Feast rather than the Meow Mix that is causing the gas?

Please don't feed Meow Mix or any similar inexpensive brand. The ingredients are horrible (corn, rice, by products, cheap indigestible fillers) which causes gassiness and horribly stinky poop in many many cats. Cheap dry food has been likened to greasy fast food filled with preservatives and unhealthy chemicals for Humans. It tastes good but not great for the health or waistline. Try to feed a decent brand that is grain free. Chain pet stores like Petco and Petsmart sell god brands of grain free dry foods that don't cost an arm and a leg. Here are some threads with suggestions on affordable dry food:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/298052/advice-on-good-dry-food-at-reasonable-price

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/295932/good-dry-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/301035/interested-in-starting-cat-on-good-dry-cat-food-thoughts

If you can, continue to feed both dry (a good one, not the Meow Mix junk) and canned food. Only canned food is ideal but not everyone can or wants to do that for whatever reason. Instead of the Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers, feed the regular Classic / Gourmet ones. Gravy based foods use thickeners which some cats' tummies aren't happy with. Have you tried Friskies? The bigger can size is more economical than those tiny 3 oz cans of Fancy Feast (more food for not much more money).