Have you ever tried to explain to someone feeding their cats only or mostly dry food that what they are doing isn't healthy? My Dad and my Stepmom free feed their cats dry food, they believe dry is better for their teeth and my stepmom believes that cats need roughage and fiber like we do. When I have tried to tell her that cats in the wild eat a high moisture, high protein and low carbohydrate diet she argues that they are domesticated. I'm irritated by her response. It's not intelligent. Putting a roof over a cat's head does not change a cat's biology in any way. She recently suggested that I should get indoor dry food for my cats because it has the vitamins for an indoor cat I told her I'm not feeding dry food to Rosie because I don't want her to get diabetes or any dry food related health problems and she still doesn't get it. I don't want to disrespect my elders in any way even though I consider myself an elder myself at 42. But one of their cats died of cancer and I believe he was only 13 and the other one is significantly overweight. And it really upsets me to see cats have to settle for a shorter lifespan and suffer a health problem that could be avoided because of people's ignorance and refusal to learn the truth. I'm going on vacation to visit family in Eureka for one week. They will be feeding my cats twice a day and scooping out the litter box. They won't let me get a pet sitter. I'm not going to have any dry food in the house and I'm going to tell them that I don't want Rosie to have any. I have to tell them so it won't come as a huge shock to them when they discover there is no dry food to feed. And they better not buy any or feed any of their own dry to Rosie because I'll be mad as hell. Yes, I appreciate the fact that they're doing me a favor and that they do so much for me. But I swear if they protest because I don't want Rosie to have dry food they will be crossing the line and they won't be right.. I'm worried. My vacation is the first week of October and I'm stressing over this one thing. Hopefully it will be all right.
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Convincing people who feed only or predominantly dry cat foods to their cats.
- Thread starter moggiegirl
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I think it depends on your cat's needs and what you want to feed. My boy Tiger could only eat dry food and he drank water as he needed. He threw up every type of canned food even high quality. My girl Angel eats mostly wet but she munches on her dry food, too. I don't consider dry food bad if necessary. But your cat's diet should also have wet food if all possible. Some cats are dry food "junkies" where as some cats will only eat wet food. So it depends on the individual cat your cat won't die from eating dry food.
Yes, there are definitely plenty of people who get stuck in one way of thinking and it can be impossible to convince them otherwise. I tend to pick my battles with dry food feeders, because some people are eager to make healthy changes to their pet's diet when you tell them new information, but other people if they feel like they're being told that they are doing something wrong, will become only more stubborn the more you try to convince them. For people I know well and I know get skeptical about what I have to say on the subject, I can sometimes find sources that they do trust saying what I want to say and guide them towards those, but it's a delicate process. It has to come across like I'm sharing something interesting that they might also be interested, rather than me instructing them to learn or do something. It doesn't always work of course, but I least I tried.
It's frustrating feeling like there are animals that you know could be taken better care of out there, but at some point it's beyond your control and you just have to let it go, otherwise it will drive you nuts. The good news is that if Rosie does somehow get fed dry food for a week, it's not enough to significantly impact her health that much.
It's frustrating feeling like there are animals that you know could be taken better care of out there, but at some point it's beyond your control and you just have to let it go, otherwise it will drive you nuts. The good news is that if Rosie does somehow get fed dry food for a week, it's not enough to significantly impact her health that much.
All emotive subjects are the same, politics, religion, cat food... all the same. The more you criticise people's beliefs on one of those subjects, the more tightly they will cling to them. Give them facts, charts, diagrams. Find some statistics about dry food, medical data, something like that and show your parents. Let them come to the realisation themselves. Don't make them feel like bad cat parents for feeding dry food, simply give them the factual reasons why you choose not to do it. This will be hard because it's an emotional issue for you as well, but if you really want to have a dialogue with them, you have to take a calm and even handed approach. Until I found this forum I'd had no idea dry food wasn't good for cats. Most people are the same. We all have to learn and we all have to start that learning somewhere. Good luck 
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- #5
I would hope that if Rosie is fed dry food for one week that it won't be enough to significantly impact her health. After all I used to feed both wet and dry to both cats thinking it was fine as long as they weren't eating only dry food. And they were fed this way when O went on vacation. But this was before I lost Spotty to kidney disease and decided to remove all dry food from Rosie's diet. Rosie is now also an older cat, about 14 or 15 years old. Dry food is addicting to cats too, another reason I don't want her to have it. I guess I'll just have to do my best at nicely asking them not to feed her dry food even though they won't understand.
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- #6
Since the switch to wet food Rosie has gotten finicky. That won't help when I'm out of town. I may have to put her on the wet food most cats will eat, Fancy Feast.
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After reading your first post it sounds like you definitely do not want your dad and stepmom feeding Rosie and your other cat kibble while you are away and yet on this post it sounds like you are resigned to them sneaking in some kibble.
I would have a good talk with them beforehand, express your wishes and tell them under no circumstances should the cats be fed kibble, these are your wishes. Look them in the eyes and ask if they will be able to respect your decision.
At this point it doesn't sound like you trust them to respect your feeding decisions, this isn't something you should be worrying about. If so, maybe you ought to consider a pet sitter who will not deviate from what you are asking to feed.
I understand this your dad and stepmom but that doesn't give them the right to supercede what you indicate you are asking of them.
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I agree with what @LisaMarie12 wrote. I was thinking about this thread before I saw her response and realized that there are two issues here. There's the issue of how best to feed a cat (something I have to agree to disagree about with my own parents who at least feed a combination) and then there's the issue of family dynamics, which often lead to (eek!) control issues that begin when we're born and worm their way into many aspects of our lives over the years. Even to things that seem as simple as feeding a cat for a week.
As someone about a decade older than the OP, I can only say that I don't envy her position on this decision, particularly if her parents claim they "won't let her" get a pet sitter. I suspect many of us have been through analogous situations. (Yes, I'm speaking from experience here!)
As someone about a decade older than the OP, I can only say that I don't envy her position on this decision, particularly if her parents claim they "won't let her" get a pet sitter. I suspect many of us have been through analogous situations. (Yes, I'm speaking from experience here!)
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- #9
I know they love me and always mean well and I don't want to speak negatively of them here on a forum they will not be reading but Rosie's health is very important to me. I will talk with them and hope it goes well. If it turns into a dry versus wet food debate and they don't comply with my request to feed Rosie only wet I'll have to hire a sitter.
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- #10
Well, I had this conversation with them tonight over dinner and it went better than I thought. My Dad said he doesn't care, he'll feed whatever food I put out. Works for me. My stepmom protested a bit saying "But I think there's too much salt in those cans." I don't know how much salt is in canned cat food. I told her that I don't want Rosie to get diabetes and that cats need water. My Dad said that their cat won't eat wet food, she licks the juice and won't touch the rest. I let the subject drop in order to not have a debate about this on my Dad's birthday. I'm less worried now.
After I got home today I took all the cat food cans in the cupboard that have fish and carrageenan in them and dropped them in Petco's donation bin and bought new food for Rosie without fish and without carrageenan, the only ones I could find are Nature's Variety, certain Solid Gold ones, Chicken and Turkey Soultistic and Fancy Feast for when Rosie is finicky.
After I got home today I took all the cat food cans in the cupboard that have fish and carrageenan in them and dropped them in Petco's donation bin and bought new food for Rosie without fish and without carrageenan, the only ones I could find are Nature's Variety, certain Solid Gold ones, Chicken and Turkey Soultistic and Fancy Feast for when Rosie is finicky.
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Feline Nutrition site also has some very helpful and convincing information:
http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition
There are a lot of articles on the site about feeding raw which is a big transition I would suspect your parents will not take up, but they can substitute that with canned wet food.
Here's a snippet:
"Cats have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates. Period. They evolved to get almost all of their fluid intake from the food they eat. A mouse, a typical prey food, is about 70% water. Dry kibble food contains far too much carbohydrates and far too little moisture to be an appropriate food for cats."
http://feline-nutrition.org/nutrition
There are a lot of articles on the site about feeding raw which is a big transition I would suspect your parents will not take up, but they can substitute that with canned wet food.
Here's a snippet:
"Cats have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates. Period. They evolved to get almost all of their fluid intake from the food they eat. A mouse, a typical prey food, is about 70% water. Dry kibble food contains far too much carbohydrates and far too little moisture to be an appropriate food for cats."
For people like parents, it would help for them to read some of the professional articles by vets saying that it appears that it is healthier to feed a predominantly wet food diet. Your parents will rarely listen to you as any authority. They always see you, as their child, as knowing less than they do. Sometimes they are right, but sometimes they are wrong. Find and print some articles.
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- #13
These are the articles that convinced me and I read them on my own. Dropping this information on my Stepmom and Dad, not so easy. Plus there is the added difficulty that their cat will only eat dry food. All I can do is explain to them why I choose not to feed dry to my cat when the subject comes up. And I will mention those articles if by some miracle they are open to reading them. It's an uphill battle.
I am a human doctor, not a cat doctor, and any advice that I give you concerning cats should be checked with your veterinarian. However common sense tells you that feeding dry food to a cat for a week is not likely to cause any harm. To my knowledge the greatest harm that can come from dry food is feeding only dry food to a male cat without free access to water. This can cause crystals in his urine and these can cause a urinary blockage in his urethra, the tube leading from his bladder to his penis. This is unlikely to happen in a female cat as the urethra is shorter and wider and there is no penis!
Diabetes can occur from over-feeding a cat so that he/she becomes obese. This is obviously a long term event and you need a long term fat cat before he/she will develops diabetes - not just a week or so.
There are many causes of kidney disease in cats - see https://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/outreach...s/diseases/chronic-kidney-disease-and-failure - a website from Washington State University. Feeding dry food can cause damage via repeated urethral blockage in a male, unlikely in a female, but again, this is long term. I am not aware that kidney damage can occur by eating dry food otherwise, but I am very willing to be corrected. We lost a beloved 14 year old Siamese, Rupert, to kidney failure at the end of 2015 and I researched the internet thoroughly then.
I have always fed wet and dry food to all my cats over the years, I leave a handful of dry on their newspaper table cloth but feed freshly opened pouches of wet food on her saucer at feeding times. Sukie's feeding time has been determined by Sukie who rubs against us when she is hungry, and then jumps on the kitchen stool. I note that she wants food roughly every four hours. I am just adding fresh meat to her now, at 18 months.
With Caution, entering into the Wet/Dry food controversy,
Geoffrey
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I'm sorry about your loss @Geoffrey.
My own research (conducted a couple of years ago) lead me to believe that there's a lot of hype about feeding only-wet and very little evidence.
The whole "feed wet" agenda is based on the strange premise that cats don't have a developed "thirst drive". I have yet to see any proof of that. Thirst is a very basic physiological mechanism intended to get mammals to drink just as much as they need. Sure, if you limit access to water, you risk dehydration. Otherwise, I see no good reason why a cat that's fed dry food will not drink water to add to the diet.
It's the entire "natural fallacy" that bothers me here. Still, if you're into that, here's something to consider -
Cats "natural" nutrition calls for small amounts of food, several times a day. They would just hunt one small mice, than maybe a couple of hours later hunt another small one right? Most people who feed wet, offer only two meals a day. At best three. Simply because you can't leave wet food out for long or it'll spoil.
So, maybe when doing that you're creating a whole new set of problems? What if I say that the cat's pancreas is designed to handle smaller amounts of food 8 times a day and not two meals a day? Note that I am not in fact saying that because I don't like to make unsubstantiated claims. I'm just saying that if you insist on follow what you believe to be "natural" for cats then that should be as much of a consideration as feeding wet vs. dry.
For myself, I feed mostly dry. I've had cats who ate almost only dry and had no issues at all (including neutered males). This isn't to say that that's necessarily the ideal solution for all cats. I can see how a cat with urinary tract issues may need extra hydration and you could try and do that via feeding wet food. That's about it, for me. I have yet to see any research that says otherwise. If you have that, by all means, I would love to see it
The fact is that nutrition studies are incredibly hard to perform. In order to really know if there's a difference between feeding wet and dry, you'd have to conduct a proper lifetime nutritional study where that would be your only variable (i.e. same content of food, one served wet the other dry). There has never been such a study and I seriously doubt there ever will be. Simply because these kind of studies are very very expensive and I see no good reason for anyone to invest in that (there are other topics related to cat health that I would like to see funded first, sorry!)
So, to get back to the first question @moggiegirl, my concern would be more with the sudden change of diet. That's rarely a good idea, especially combined with the additional change of overall environment (with you gone). For that reason - and as far as I'm concerned, that alone - you should absolutely insist that they feed her the food that she is used to.
My suggestion would be to explain that this isn't about some agenda or ideology. It's simply about feeding cats the right way, which means no sudden change to her diet. You can tell them that if they change her diet (even to a new type of wet food) there's a very good chance that they're going to add cleaning vomit and diarrhea to their visits. Maybe that will help?
My own research (conducted a couple of years ago) lead me to believe that there's a lot of hype about feeding only-wet and very little evidence.
The whole "feed wet" agenda is based on the strange premise that cats don't have a developed "thirst drive". I have yet to see any proof of that. Thirst is a very basic physiological mechanism intended to get mammals to drink just as much as they need. Sure, if you limit access to water, you risk dehydration. Otherwise, I see no good reason why a cat that's fed dry food will not drink water to add to the diet.
It's the entire "natural fallacy" that bothers me here. Still, if you're into that, here's something to consider -
Cats "natural" nutrition calls for small amounts of food, several times a day. They would just hunt one small mice, than maybe a couple of hours later hunt another small one right? Most people who feed wet, offer only two meals a day. At best three. Simply because you can't leave wet food out for long or it'll spoil.
So, maybe when doing that you're creating a whole new set of problems? What if I say that the cat's pancreas is designed to handle smaller amounts of food 8 times a day and not two meals a day? Note that I am not in fact saying that because I don't like to make unsubstantiated claims. I'm just saying that if you insist on follow what you believe to be "natural" for cats then that should be as much of a consideration as feeding wet vs. dry.
For myself, I feed mostly dry. I've had cats who ate almost only dry and had no issues at all (including neutered males). This isn't to say that that's necessarily the ideal solution for all cats. I can see how a cat with urinary tract issues may need extra hydration and you could try and do that via feeding wet food. That's about it, for me. I have yet to see any research that says otherwise. If you have that, by all means, I would love to see it
The fact is that nutrition studies are incredibly hard to perform. In order to really know if there's a difference between feeding wet and dry, you'd have to conduct a proper lifetime nutritional study where that would be your only variable (i.e. same content of food, one served wet the other dry). There has never been such a study and I seriously doubt there ever will be. Simply because these kind of studies are very very expensive and I see no good reason for anyone to invest in that (there are other topics related to cat health that I would like to see funded first, sorry!)
So, to get back to the first question @moggiegirl, my concern would be more with the sudden change of diet. That's rarely a good idea, especially combined with the additional change of overall environment (with you gone). For that reason - and as far as I'm concerned, that alone - you should absolutely insist that they feed her the food that she is used to.
My suggestion would be to explain that this isn't about some agenda or ideology. It's simply about feeding cats the right way, which means no sudden change to her diet. You can tell them that if they change her diet (even to a new type of wet food) there's a very good chance that they're going to add cleaning vomit and diarrhea to their visits. Maybe that will help?
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- #16
When the subject comes up again I will be sure to say that Dr Lisa Pierson wrote a long extensive article about why wet food is better than dry and Dr Elizabeth Hodgkins wrote a book about it so my parents will know this information isn't coming from me. Getting them to actually read this stuff would be an uphill battle.
Since you asked..................
The whole "feed wet" agenda is based on the strange premise that cats don't have a developed "thirst drive". I have yet to see any proof of that. Thirst is a very basic physiological mechanism intended to get mammals to drink just as much as they need. Sure, if you limit access to water, you risk dehydration. Otherwise, I see no good reason why a cat that's fed dry food will not drink water to add to the diet. ...
For myself, I feed mostly dry. I've had cats who ate almost only dry and had no issues at all (including neutered males). This isn't to say that that's necessarily the ideal solution for all cats. I can see how a cat with urinary tract issues may need extra hydration and you could try and do that via feeding wet food. That's about it, for me. I have yet to see any research that says otherwise. If you have that, by all means, I would love to see it
In the process of discovering the importance of RSS (relative supersaturation) in urinary crystal formation, many studies have been done. Here is a condensed summary of just one.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22005408
Br J Nutr. 2011 Oct;106 Suppl 1:S128-30. doi: 10.1017/S0007114511001875.
Effect of dietary water intake on urinary output, specific gravity and relative supersaturation for calcium oxalate and struvite in the cat.
Buckley CM1, Hawthorne A, Colyer A, Stevenson AE.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of dietary moisture on urinary parameters in healthy adult cats by comparing nutritionally standardised diets, varying only in moisture content. A total of six cats were fed a complete dry food (6.3 % moisture) hydrated to 25.4, 53.2 and 73.3 % moisture for 3 weeks. Urinary specific gravity (SG), urine volume, water drunk and total fluid intake were measured daily. Cats fed the 73.3 % moisture diet produced urine with a significantly lower SG (P < 0.001) compared with diets containing 53.2 % moisture or lower, despite voluntary water intake decreasing as dietary moisture intake increased. Cats fed the 73.3 % moisture diet had a higher total daily fluid intake resulting in a more dilute urine with a lower risk of CaOx when compared with the lower-moisture diets.
Related info:
.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14974568?dopt=Abstract
Starch and fiber in diets potentially stimulate formation of struvite crystals. Hence, reducing dietary carbohydrate is desirable to prevent struvite urolith formation.
Most dry foods have more carbs, starch and fiber than wet foods, and that affects struvite crystal formation. Urinary concentration affects calcium oxalate crystal formation.
A food containing low carbohydrates and more than 53.2% moisture will naturally prevent both kinds of crystals and stones.
If anyone wants to read a very long, thorough study that came to this same conclusion, read https://www.waltham.com/document/nutrition/cat/cat-urinary-tract-health/276/
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Thank you for bringing forward the resources @Red Top Rescue ! Much appreciated!
I went through all of them.
Let's separate between the issues of moisture (wet vs. dry) and the issue of protein/carbs balance. I'm sure you'll agree the two are not necessarily related. You can formulate a protein-based dry food or wet food with tons of carbs.
Let's focus on the dry vs. wet issue.
There is really just one study there. The Waltham page repeats the first study you linked to. That study was done on six cats for ten days. Which essentially means very little. It's a very interesting study but there's a long way between a single small study and changing feeding recommendations.
There is another study about treating cats that already have FIC. Which I believe I refered to (possibly in another thread), saying that cats that are already showing urinary tract problems may indeed need the extra hydration provided in wet food.
The Waltham report brings up two additional points -
1. You can formulate dry food in a way that encourages cats to drink more water.
2. Feeding small amounts throughout the day helps maintain a constant PH level.
Which brings us back to the point that for most owners, feeding wet means feeding two meals a day. I still don't like people leaving food out for 12 hours at a time. From the anecdotes brought forward here (and from my own experience), cats indeed avoid the leftovers anyway. So essentially, that's still 2 meals a day instead of a constant supply of small amounts.
I've said it before and I'm saying it again. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeding all wet. That said, I absolutely don't think there's enough scientific evidence to indicate the need for feeding an all-wet diet to healthy cats. Especially when you consider the fact that for many cats, this means fewer meals a day - something that has its own potential health problems.
The bottom line is we need more data. It needs to focus on the wet vs. dry variable and compare foods with the same protein to carbs ratio. It needs to cover a far larger number of cats and - even more importantly - follow them for years and not days. The data should also address the issues of other diseases and not just crystal formation.
It's entirely possible that a decade from now we'll have more scientific evidence which may (or may not) show that an all wet diet is indeed superior to feeding dry, or a mix of wet and dry. If and when that happens, I'll be happy to change my opinion. For now, a study conducted on six cats for 10 days is just not enough IMHO.
I went through all of them.
Let's separate between the issues of moisture (wet vs. dry) and the issue of protein/carbs balance. I'm sure you'll agree the two are not necessarily related. You can formulate a protein-based dry food or wet food with tons of carbs.
Let's focus on the dry vs. wet issue.
There is really just one study there. The Waltham page repeats the first study you linked to. That study was done on six cats for ten days. Which essentially means very little. It's a very interesting study but there's a long way between a single small study and changing feeding recommendations.
There is another study about treating cats that already have FIC. Which I believe I refered to (possibly in another thread), saying that cats that are already showing urinary tract problems may indeed need the extra hydration provided in wet food.
The Waltham report brings up two additional points -
1. You can formulate dry food in a way that encourages cats to drink more water.
2. Feeding small amounts throughout the day helps maintain a constant PH level.
Which brings us back to the point that for most owners, feeding wet means feeding two meals a day. I still don't like people leaving food out for 12 hours at a time. From the anecdotes brought forward here (and from my own experience), cats indeed avoid the leftovers anyway. So essentially, that's still 2 meals a day instead of a constant supply of small amounts.
I've said it before and I'm saying it again. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeding all wet. That said, I absolutely don't think there's enough scientific evidence to indicate the need for feeding an all-wet diet to healthy cats. Especially when you consider the fact that for many cats, this means fewer meals a day - something that has its own potential health problems.
The bottom line is we need more data. It needs to focus on the wet vs. dry variable and compare foods with the same protein to carbs ratio. It needs to cover a far larger number of cats and - even more importantly - follow them for years and not days. The data should also address the issues of other diseases and not just crystal formation.
It's entirely possible that a decade from now we'll have more scientific evidence which may (or may not) show that an all wet diet is indeed superior to feeding dry, or a mix of wet and dry. If and when that happens, I'll be happy to change my opinion. For now, a study conducted on six cats for 10 days is just not enough IMHO.
@Anne I am so glad to hear what you have to say, I have been stressing out about how to get my kittens to eat wet food. They were weaned onto dry, and while one is happy to eat wet the other only ever takes a few small bites. She's very enthusiastic about her dry food though. The simplest thing to do would be to give her the best quality dry food and give her broth and cat milk to drink as well as water, but I've been feeling really guilty about this, like I'm condemning her to kidney disease if I don't make her eat wet.
What's wrong with Fancy Feast wet fish cans? My cats love fish once a day. Their two other meals are Fancy Feast meat cans.
