Canned Food Recs Needed - Casper Losing Appetite

sivyaleah

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Casper, is on the cusp of 15 years old. His appetite the past few months has increasingly been diminishing.  I'm pretty concerned about it. He's been through 2 dental procedures in the past year or so, where several teeth had to be removed.  We've had him x-rayed (normal), blood tests (normal), have brought him into the vet 3 times already this year and nothing shows up as "wrong" so, I think it's just him aging and perhaps losing his sense of smell/taste and general forgetfulness too. We have been noticing he seems confused about where he is at times and this crosses over to eating too - there are times where I have to pet him and show him the bowl.  Or, turn the bowl around.  Or empty the bowl and put in new food.  You get the drill.  I'm sure some of you have experienced this.

Also, over the years we went from feeding a very varied high quality canned diet with some Orijens kibble on the side to mostly only using Fancy Feast Classics, and cutting down on the kibble as much as possible.  It got to a point where he wasn't dealing with other food textures other than pates very well (plus, Cocoabean has a preference for pate style too and she also had several teeth pulled recently).  It seemed to be causing him too much trouble to eat shredded or diced foods, so we cut it out.  I've tried various other pate foods from other brands but none were a hit.  The FF was the only thing that he would consistently eat.  We also recently decided to try a different kibble because he always had an issue throwing food up now and then but we were coming home nearly daily to piles of kibble around the house.  So now, they are getting Blue's kibble for older cats - can't remember the name off hand.  

Anyway - we need to get his interest up to eat. He's already lost a pound or so over this past year and while he needed to, it wasn't due to cutting him back, it was due to him not eating well.  

Anyone know of canned pate type foods we can try that we may have overlooked previously? I don't think he's even getting more than 100 calories or so at this point. Today, he ate maybe an ounce at breakfast of the FF, about as much at dinner and a few tablespoons of kibble, if that.  This in comparison to Cocoa, who has eaten about 4-5 ounces of wet food and also a few tablespoons kibble.  
 

bonepicker

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Mine love Merrick duck or chicken LID pate and Nutro natural choice chunky chicken loaf (it is pate) No carageenan in either
 
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sivyaleah

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Mine love Merrick duck or chicken LID pate and Nutro natural choice chunky chicken loaf (it is pate) No carageenan in either
Thanks for the rec.  Casper won't eat duck at all but, chicken he loves.  

I've tried Merrick in the past but they stopped eating it.  Nutro also.  But it's been so long I'll give them another go.
 

lisahe

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Ours love both those brands, too, and would recommend the Merrick LID turkey. Bravo also has new canned foods, some of which are pates: I've only tried the duck pate on our cats but I think there's also something with chicken. The duck is a very soft, lappable pate.
 

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Nature's Variety Instinct is one my cat's favorite brands. It's pate and pretty soft and I think it's meaty smell is stronger than some other brands, which might be part of the appeal.

Have you ever given him baby food? Chicken, turkey, or ham from Gerber or Beechnut in the little jars are just plain meat, water, and sometimes a little cornstarch. It smells very enticing to a lot of cats and it's very easy to lap up. It's not a balanced cat food obviously, but you could try mixing it in with his food or giving some as a snack to give him some extra calories and see if it helps.

Poor Casper. Thank goodness he has you looking after him!
 
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sivyaleah

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Nature's Variety Instinct is one my cat's favorite brands. It's pate and pretty soft and I think it's meaty smell is stronger than some other brands, which might be part of the appeal.

Have you ever given him baby food? Chicken, turkey, or ham from Gerber or Beechnut in the little jars are just plain meat, water, and sometimes a little cornstarch. It smells very enticing to a lot of cats and it's very easy to lap up. It's not a balanced cat food obviously, but you could try mixing it in with his food or giving some as a snack to give him some extra calories and see if it helps.

Poor Casper. Thank goodness he has you looking after him!
Haven't tried the baby food yet and I suspect he'd eat that.  What I usually do is buy the Almo brand, which is high quality without the appropriate nutrients.  He loves those, especially the drumstick dark meat one,

I used to feed Nature's Variety Instinct in our rotation but both cats would barely touch it most times. I think the texture, for them, was too dry although it's a pate.  Probably because of the added clay in it.  

Perhaps I'll pick up a bunch of other brands and try everything out until I hit on something that he'll enjoy.  Thankfully, Cocoabean eats just about everything although she prefers wet over dry which is a good thing.  Casper prefers dry but I really try to limit it whenever possible.  
 

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My Speedy has always been quite thin and was recently diagnosed with CHF, so keeping the weight on her is a big concern. She can be a picky eater and I mostly restrict her to pate, if I give her chunks or slices she just licks off the gravy and leaves the meat.  

Speedy loves Sheba but I can't give it to her, she is on a strict low sodium diet and Sheba's customer service people did not answer my requests for detailed nutrition info. If just getting him to eat is your main concern, try it. Lots of folks post here that their cats love Sheba. Speedy also eats Fancy Feast flaked trout  and Friskies Savory Shreds salmon (although we do have the gravy problem).  I know many here are not fans of those brands but both flavors are recommended by Tufts veterinary school for low sodium diets.  

Lately I am also buying Weruva and Fussie Cat, she likes them both. Especially Fussie Cat, she goes nuts for it, but it is a bit chunky.  Again, I'm sure many here can tell me that there are higher quality foods. But I can't feed Speedy anything that I don't know the sodium content and these are just about the only two brands that share detailed info. 

Good luck!

Edited to add: Scratch that,  Ijust heard back from the Fussie Cat people, it contains about twice the sodium Speedy is allowed to have so we won't be eating that anymore. They were very helpful and Speedy does love it so I'm not going to say it is bad food, just not right for us.
 
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