Worried - cat loss of appetite

[javo2004]

Hello,

My little boy is 1 year old now.

We are from portugal and, unfortunatly, is very HARD to find quality food (other than the regular ones, with generic "meat", "cereals", "meat subproducts")!

So, as I want my cat to eat good quality food,  I have to import from Spain (buy it online).

Using this method, he has been on Orijen (premium dry) for some months.

Then, following some suggestions from this forum, I also started to give him regular canned food everyday. His diet now is 50% dry (Orijen) - 50% wet (regular canned).

He has been OK with this.

During the past month, I noticed that my cat's appetite has been decreasing. That worried me, also because of his age!

When I got home afterwork, I started to notice that there still was food on his bowl - (strange!!!) - sometimes almost all food!!!

He is a beautiful persian (long hair) so it is difficult to evaluate his phisical condition solely on looks.

Last weekend I gave him a bath and, with the wet fur, I was shocked on how skinny my poor boy is !!!!

(Do you have any idea of the ideal weight of a 1year old persian cat? - As soon as I get home, I'll weigh him and post the result here)

However, he seems ealthy and is full of energy. He never refuses his favourites treats. I am wondering if he doesn't like the food I am feeding him.

I called my vet and she blamed me, as she is always trying to impinge me a Royal Canin breed specific food.

She was socked when I said I am feeding him regular canned food! She says Persian Cats are sensitive cats and should be fed accordingly.

In your opinion, is this true?

Anyway she has an history of trying to sell me unnecessary products... and I am seriously thinking about changing my cat's vet!!

Question:

It's been sometime that I am thinking on switching to raw diet ... and this is the time to make decisions.

What you do if you were in my position? Would you try the raw now? Would you buy this breed specific dry food?

Thanks!

 

[ritz]

That is a little strange; dry food is usually more calorically dense, although wet food, if mainly high protein and very low carbs, may be better utilized by your cat so doesn't need as much food/calories to sustain weight.  I would definitely keep an eye on him and weight.

Breed-specific foods are money makers for the company.  That said, long haired cats may have problems with hairballs, but egg lechiten works well with this.  And, the bowl should be shallow to accommodate his flat face.  I think your vet was thinking your cat needed really small kibble to eat because of your cat's flat face.  Regardless of size, cats don't really chew kibble, they swallow it.

If you can get high quality meat, liver, kidney-thymus and bone in Portugal, you should consider raw feeding.  Look in the Raw feeding forum for ways to get started.  And there is an recent thread about how to start raw feeding--from someone who lives in the U.K.--you might want to check out.

 

[ldg]

Well, given how thin your kitty has become, I would think a vet visit is in order. And as your vet wants to push prescription / breed-specific food, I would definitely put some work into finding a better new vet. Are there online forums or services where people rate vets (or other services) there? Sometimes those can be helpful, if that's an option.

While you search for a new vet, and learn about raw feeding via the links Ritz provided, you can just offer your kitty some bites of raw meat to see how he likes any of it! It's safe to feed up to 15% of their diet without balancing it, so you can start offering a little bit here and there and see how he takes to it.

Also, here's a link to the Raw Resources thread: http://www.t hecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread

And if you need ideas and tips for transitioning from his current diet to raw, we can help there too. Some kitties need help making the switch. :rub:

Oh - and to help with a caloric-nutritional boost, you can see if he likes egg yolk. Some find it too sticky, so adding a little water to it may help (I feed it raw, but you can lightly cook it, or boil the egg). Or you can just try mixing the yolk into his wet food. Since egg yolk lecithin isn't likely available there (anything labeled "lecithin" is almost always soy-based unless otherwise specified), the egg yolks will help with the hairball control too. :nod:

 

[vball91]

Check out this thread about ideal weight. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/213862/ideal-weight-for-cat  It has some charts of body profiles that may be helpful to you as well as some pictures of other cats.

At just a year old, his eating may be slowing down naturally as he matures out of kittenhood. The trick is to see if he is at a good weight and if he is gaining or losing weight. It's really hard to tell what the ideal weight is though, and honestly my vets have not been very helpful. Aria has been anywhere from 6.8 to 8.0 pounds, and none of them have ever mentioned her weight, either positively or negatively. I know now from my own research that she needs to be closer to 7 pounds to be healthy because cats are naturally lean animals.

If raw is something you can do, I highly recommend it. I can't believe the change in her energy levels (which might not be good for you

) and coat quality already. As an added benefit her pee (more) and poop (less) don't smell as much either. I truly believe that after giving her a home, switching to raw food has been the best thing I have ever done for her.