My New Cat Will Not Eat Canned Food...what To Do?

[2kittiesplusme]

My four year old kittie, Blackie, that I adopted about 2 months ago, is a sweetie pie. She's a great cat and very affectionate. I feed her a very high quality dry food made by Acana, and she likes it. But she will not eat ANY canned food. I have tried several different healthy brands, and she just leaves the food in the bowl. I know that canned food is important for her to get enough water in her diet. A friend suggested a freeze dried raw food called Northwest Naturals Raw Diet for Cats. It comes in 4 oz. packets, and the directions are to reconstitute it with warm water. I haven't tried it yet. Any suggestions of what I should do?

 

[2kittiesplusme]

PS I'd like to change my user name because I only have one cat now. I don't know if that's possible to do at the forum.

 

[abyeb]

She might be used to kibble if that’s what she ate at the shelter, so, to her, wet food seems like something weird and different. Here’s a helpful article about this: Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food (canned, Raw, Or Homemade)

 

[duckpond]

Its hard to get some cats to eat wet, especially if they have always eaten dry. Try different wet foods, different proteins and different textures. i have some that love minced, some like shreds, and once in a while they will eat pate.
You can also try toppers on her wet food, does she have a favorite treat, like pure bites or something? Crush a bit of that up on the wet, it will usually get my cats to eating.

I tried northwest naturals, my cats ate it as well as any other freezed dried raw. I tried several, but they just are not fans. I free feed Dr. Elseys dry, chicken. and feed two wet meals per day, assorted brands and flavors.

I have 4, 3 eat wet very well. My little white girl just will not. so i feed her the best dry i can, offer wet to her twice a day, and keep several big wide bowls of fresh filtered water out for her. Also a water fountain. she loves the water fountain. But i dont give up on her with the wet, and once in a while she will eat some

 

[2kittiesplusme]

She might be used to kibble if that’s what she ate at the shelter, so, to her, wet food seems like something weird and different. Here’s a helpful article about this: Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food (canned, Raw, Or Homemade)

Thank you! I will definitely read the article! Sounds like just the info I need for Blackie. But guess what - she just ate some wet food. It's b.f.f. Tuna and Pumpkin Valentine in Gravy. I put a small spoonful back in her bowl after I washed the bowl. Maybe she will eat that tonight. It's getting time for me to go to bed, and she eats at night. That seems to be her favorite time to eat.

 

[2kittiesplusme]

Its hard to get some cats to eat wet, especially if they have always eaten dry. Try different wet foods, different proteins and different textures. i have some that love minced, some like shreds, and once in a while they will eat pate.
You can also try toppers on her wet food, does she have a favorite treat, like pure bites or something? Crush a bit of that up on the wet, it will usually get my cats to eating.

I tried northwest naturals, my cats ate it as well as any other freezed dried raw. I tried several, but they just are not fans. I free feed Dr. Elseys dry, chicken. and feed two wet meals per day, assorted brands and flavors.

I have 4, 3 eat wet very well. My little white girl just will not. so i feed her the best dry i can, offer wet to her twice a day, and keep several big wide bowls of fresh filtered water out for her. Also a water fountain. she loves the water fountain. But i dont give up on her with the wet, and once in a while she will eat some

Thanks for your reply! I just Replied to abyeb that Blackie just now ate some wet food. Hope she will eat more of it overnight. Hope your white kitty will learn to eat wet food, too.

 

[duckpond]

Thanks for your reply! I just Replied to abyeb that Blackie just now ate some wet food. Hope she will eat more of it overnight. Hope your white kitty will learn to eat wet food, too.

I hope so too. I keep trying. Luckily my other 3 like wet food a lot. they occasionally get picky, but they are cats Keep offering it, trying different ones. Best of luck and i hope you find some she loves. Glad she ate some tonight!

 

[2kittiesplusme]

I hope so too. I keep trying. Luckily my other 3 like wet food a lot. they occasionally get picky, but they are cats Keep offering it, trying different ones. Best of luck and i hope you find some she loves. Glad she ate some tonight!

Blackie ate some canned food this morning, too. I read the article about transitiioning, and in it is a link to timed feeding. So I am going to train her to eat at certain times of day. These are excellent and informative articles. Wow. She ate some more canned food this morning, too. I think she's getting the idea now!

 

[duckpond]

Glad it is working for her

My little white cat has issues with food. when she was a kitten she was spayed right before i got her. she had several more surgeries trying to fix the problems. Even had a two week vet stay. At that time she was eating mainly all wet food. I took her favorites to the vet office while she was there. I now think that was a mistake. after she came home she would not eat her wet food at all. i started feeding dry, as she was starving. The vet and i thought with a bit of time she would eat wet again. NOPE, i think she associates it with the vets office, and all the pain she went through. It was a 4 month deal. She fixates on one food, she wants 1 dry food, no other dry, and very little wet.

this was about 3 years ago. Last year i tried timed feedings, with both dry and wet food again. She lost too much weight, she still would not eat the wet, and she will not eat but a bite or two of dry at any one time, she is a big nibbler. Vet and i agreed, too hard on her to try this. Stress can cause as much problems for cats as anything else. So I free feed Dr. Elseys dry, she nibbles many many times during the day and night, never more than a bite or two here and there. she will some days have a bite or two of wet food, i still offer it twice a day. Seems to work for her. she is a perfect weight, and the vet says her body tone is awesome, she has lots of muscle I hope they never stop making Dr. Elseys dry! My other 3 are much more open to foods, they will eat a lot of things.

 

[laura mae]

I feel your pain. We adopted a cat a year ago that is an unenthusiastic wet food eater. She'll eat a bit of it, but was raised on kibble. I offer the wet food first at specific meal times and have offered her the same variety I give the others. My declining cat Jeffery got super sick in December and came back from a stay in the vet hospital agreeing to eat Hills I/D. He's very much off wet food because of his nose issue and heating the food does nothing for him. And yet I have another cat who cannot have dry food because of constipation issues and wants that dry food more than a nap.

I'm pretty sure in the lifetime of the current brood of cats I have tried literally every brand of wet food NW Naturals freeze dried and Primal freeze dried. My constipated kitty loves those and can't have that either because of the bone. But my 17 year old with hyper thyroid gets the freeze dried to get him extra protein and calories. He's a big fan of NW Naturals and Primal duck. I heat the water for 20 seconds and then soak the food while preparing everyone else's supper dish. He eats that first and then the other canned food.

I mention the constipation issue because it can be a problem with the freeze dried raw because bone gets ground up for the calcium. And NW Naturals adds psyllium fiber that turned out to be a $2400 constipation problem for Booberry.

 

[Blakeney Green]

I think that the saying "The best food is one that your cat will eat" really applies here. Ideally cats should be getting at least some wet food in their diet, but it's more important that your cat is eating, period. It's virtually impossible to convince a cat to eat something they don't like, even if they become very hungry. At only two months in, your cat is probably still adjusting to all the changes in her life. I would continue to offer different kinds of wet food to see if she likes anything, but she may never - and that may just be something you have to compromise on.

If kibble is going to be your only option that she's willing to eat, you may want to encourage more water intake with something like a fountain instead. Some cats just won't eat wet food no matter what you try.

 

[2kittiesplusme]

I think that the saying "The best food is one that your cat will eat" really applies here. Ideally cats should be getting at least some wet food in their diet, but it's more important that your cat is eating, period. It's virtually impossible to convince a cat to eat something they don't like, even if they become very hungry. At only two months in, your cat is probably still adjusting to all the changes in her life. I would continue to offer different kinds of wet food to see if she likes anything, but she may never - and that may just be something you have to compromise on.

If kibble is going to be your only option that she's willing to eat, you may want to encourage more water intake with something like a fountain instead. Some cats just won't eat wet food no matter what you try.

Thanks, Blakeney, well, Blackie is eating some wet food now. I read the articles about transitioning and timed feeding times, and am working on that, rather than having kibble out ALL the time. I'll leave food out this afternoon because I'll be gone for several hours.