Senior Cat Who Doesn't Like Wet Food - Worth Transitioning?

[ooaab]

Hi Everyone,

We have an almost 11 year old cat who has never been a fan of wet food. Having read how much better it is for her, we were keen to try transitioning to a more wet food diet and bought GranataPet. I've read the posts about transitioning and the tricks to get her eating even just a small amount and building up, but she is quite a picky cat. We have found that if the bowl has wet food in it (we do timed feedings) she will more or less just leave it (sometimes completely, sometimes after one bite).

I am finding the fine line balance between not enough food and letting her get hungry a little tricky, especially as she has never been a very hungry cat to begin with. I also don't want to stress her out as she is a cat that easily gets stressed.

We have more flavours to try and sometimes shredding the freeze dried chicken on top helps, but Is it better at this time to stop trying the transitioning? Is there a better dry food that we could try? Any other tips, tricks, suggestions, advice? We would love to get her on a wet food diet or even more wet food in the mix, but we equally don't want to cause too much stress. She is currently on Perfect Fit 8+ Senior dry food and we are based in the Netherlands, so have those limits when it comes to selection.

Many thanks in advance!!

Heather

 

[missmimz]

I transitioned my 12 year old cat straight from kibble to raw food because he wouldn't eat any wet food. I tried every single brand out there, literally every single one, and the best i ever got was he would lick the juice from Tiki cat chicken and salmon. I was able to transition him onto Rad Cat, which is a raw food, using toppers that he liked. He then decided after a short period of time he didn't like Rad Cat any longer so I moved to making my own raw food, in addition he also eats some freeze dried raw food. 

Freeze dried raw is a great way to transition stubborn kibble addicts that don't like wet food because you can adjust the wetness. At first my cat wouldn't eat freeze dried food wet, but I slowly started adding more and more water and now he eats it fully rehydrated He likes Stella and Chewy the most, but Primal and Instinct Raw Market are both good too. I'm not sure of those are available where you are or if you can order them. Stella and Chewy does have little sample bags available. 

toppers are your friend so use them as much as you need to. Tuna, bonito flakes, freeze dried salmon, chicken, turkey, they're all very enticing to even the most picky cats. 

My cats were already on Orijen when i transitioned them, and Orijen is probably the "best" kibble. I'm not sure if that's available where you are either.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

You can also try crushing up some of her beloved dry food and using that as a topper.  Or have you tried mixing a little bit of the wet food in with the dry and seeing if you can gradually increase the amount of wet, kind of  the way missmimz did with the freeze dried raw and adding more water?  Just maybe try it with her dry food and the new wet food if you can't find any freeze dried food, or until you get some? 

Do be careful that she gets enough calorie in a day though...if not there could be health issues, especially of she's not on the thin side.  She needs to be eating at least 2/3 of her normal caloric intake or she risks getting Hepatic Lipidosis. 

But in answer to your initial question, I think it's worth it, having had three kidney cats.  I, personally, attribute their illnesses to having fed kibble to all of them.  Now that I know better, my last two surviving cats don't know what kibble is.  They get wet food or freeze dried raw only.  and I give them extra filtered water in their wet food just to make sure they are well hydrated.  (if the freeze dried raw isn't rehydrated for them, then it's as a treat only

)

 

[ooaab]

Thank you so much for the information @missmimz  and @mrsgreenjeens  - I am going to look up the freeze dried food options as well as that sounds like a great idea. We also found that of the taster pack we have the GranataPet that there is at least one flavour that she hates and one that she quite likes. So we have some options there as well.

Thank you for the confirmation of continuing and the other hints and tips. Much appreciated!