I'm convinced, Hubby not so much

Ok, so I'm convinced that wet food is better for my babies than dry food. My hubby is not so much. His argument is his parents own three cats and only feed them dry food and they're fine (I would say not, one is horribly overweight--we called him my waddle buddy when I was pregnant--and the other has diabetes--there is only one that is "fine"). I bought two pouches of Nutro Natural Choice at Petco yesterday to see if they liked it before I bought several pouches and he fussed that it was more expensive than the dry food we're feeding (Sensible Choice by Royal Canin). When I bought the pouches he said that I was going to spoil them so much they wouldn't eat dry food .Would it be ok to feed one meal a day from the pouch and the rest the dry food? I realize it's BEST to feed wet for every meal, but I figure something is better than nothing and I don't think he will argue if I I use the pouch only once a day.... at least for now until I can convince him .

I have 6 cats, so an all wet food diet is out of our budget.
The best compromise is to feed a good quality dry (which you are), and a good quality wet. At least 50/50.

To keep weight down you can start feeding them 'meals'.
Half a punch of wet in the AM, a measured amount of dry throughout the day and half a pouch in the PM.
A bit harder with kittens, because they do eat a lot, and burn up a lot of calories.

Originally Posted by EstimosNBearHug

Ok, so I'm convinced that wet food is better for my babies than dry food. My hubby is not so much. His argument is his parents own three cats and only feed them dry food and they're fine (I would say not, one is horribly overweight--we called him my waddle buddy when I was pregnant--and the other has diabetes--there is only one that is "fine").

Click to expand...

You could also tell him that it's like smoking, some people do get 98, but you don't want to be the one that doesn't. Plus if they get diabetes, kidney or bladder problems the vet bills will probably be way higher than what you "saved" on food.

And if he thinks you're spoiling your cats, maybe you should make him nothing but breakfast cereals with a vitamin pill for a few days, see how he likes that We don't eat the same preformulated food every day, so why would a cat who gets a little variation be spoiled ?

Fiance and I have this exact discussion on occasion. His isn't so much that I feed her wet food, but that I drive across town (approx. 30 minutes) to buy it He gets in a mood and thinks I am wasting money on the wet food in the first place AND wasting the gas (which is expensive) to drive to the specialty pet store that carries the brand I feed her. He used to say that there are many cats out there who have lived long lives on dry Friskies, or whatever brand. I tell him that since Dori is MY cat and MY responsibility, which were the rules when I got her, then I am allowed to feed her whatever I choose He doesn't give me too much trouble about it now that he has accepted that I do compromise in some ways though for the extra expense. For example, I try to go to the pet store on my lunch break when she needs food. My office is much closer to the store that the house so I save a bit on gas. I also might cut out on something extra I was going to buy myself if it is time to buy her food as well.

B and I are like that too.

We HAVE to keep the food out all day otherwise Patches will whine and cry (I tried it's not pretty).

Anyhoo, Patches and Beauty both have dandruff and B won't let me change their diet (currently Purina Chow Indoor formula). He believes that indoor cats are just like outdoor cats (he grew up on a farm), so his two cats are overweight, Whitey has a PC belly to him now - I call it his beer belly, and at Luna is still slim. However, I'm beginning to feed them wet once a week. They really do like it over the dry.
I would like to get them into a better dry food though.

Gas isn't an issue, as we have to go to Petco to get either food. It's across from Wal-Mart, anyway, so I just go there before I go to WM for my grocery shopping. He just likes to complain about money. Hehe. He's stingy on some of the dumbest things.

Originally Posted by lunasmom

Anyhoo, Patches and Beauty both have dandruff and B won't let me change their diet (currently Purina Chow Indoor formula).

Click to expand...

You might want to try adding some oils to their diet, maybe some fish oil or some salmon oil.

It sounds like he's afraid that if you start feeding them wet, they'll never touch dry food again, which just isn't the case. Even the cat most attached to wet food still eats dry in between meals. It's very easy to balance the two.

If cost is his concern and getting some wet into the cat is yours, why not just go with supermarket brands of wet food? A can of Friskies only costs 40 cents. It doesn't have to be expensive to be good for the cat.

Well, it doesn't have to be expensive but it does matter what's in it. Supermarket brands tend to not have as good ingredients so you have to be careful. I don't own a car so I pretty much have to buy Zissou's food at the grocery but I've picked out the best one they carry at the grocery I go to and that's what she eats. Anything with "Water sufficient for processing" as a first ingredient is out. And anything with "meat by-product" or "animal digest" or equally nasty stuff is out. The one Zissou eats costs twice as much as those, so cost has a little to do with it. If I could go to the pet store I could find better food for the same price, though.

Anyway. There's absolutely nothing wrong with feeding half-and-half. Z doesn't eat that much for some reason, (she's healthy, she's just little) but she gets a half pouch of wet kitten food a day and eats about a cup of dry every 2 1/2 days ish. If she ate more I'd give her a whole pouch instead, and sometimes I do anyway even though she doesn't finish it! If your husband is concerned about the cost, perhaps you could buy in bulk at Sam's or something. Then it would cost even less, and since you're compromising that would be important! And tell him the healthier the cats are the more you'll save on vet bills and litter and such!

Believe it or not, my vet said that an adult cat is more than fine on a good dry food and that's it. Now, being that Lucky is still under 1yr, she said to give her as much as she would eat since kittens burn a ton of calories.

Either way, I feed her both. She LOVES her wet food, so I give her 1/2 can am & 1/2 can pm. Sometimes she doesn't always finish it. And I leaver her dry out all day she goes through 2 cups in about a week.

Also, I've been giving her kitten milk with her wet food as a nutrients supplement and she LOVES it. Then I realized she wasn't drinking too much water, so I cut back on the milk to once a day. Sometimes she stands at the fridge and meows. And I say nope, wait till tomorrow morning!

Duh!!! forgot to mention.... Petsmart saves me alot of $...I have their card and if it's on sale I buy like 2 months worth so I don't have to go back!

I think what we're going to do is leave dry food out all day (they graze, I've noticed) and do wet food in the afternoons for "lunch". I usually put about 1/4 cup out (in each bowl) of dry food and it usually takes them all day to eat that. I did the wet food this afternoon, a half pouch for each and they chowed down. Marbles didn't eat all of his, but he eats more dry food than Alex does. Alex, however, licked his bowl clean. Hehe. Thanks. I think we'll do this so they get a little bit of each. Hey, if anything, it'll make the dry food last longer.

Cats are way better off eating wet-only or 50/50 than just dry. Read through just about any thread here relating to wet vs dry (there's a new one every week it seems) to find out why. Vets are not feline nutrionists, just as some human doctors know jack about human nutrition. It doesn't make them bad doctors or bad vets, but that's not even what they're supposed to do!

Originally Posted by Zissou'sMom

Vets are not feline nutrionists, just as some human doctors know jack about human nutrition. It doesn't make them bad doctors or bad vets, but that's not even what they're supposed to do!

Click to expand...

Well put. I tried to post the same thing, but it came out sounding tactless so I let it be.