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What is the general opinion about free feeding vs meal times, and urine food vs regular food? IIRC the old thread said to always feed prescription food if prescribed even if it wasn't super high quality, but what's the opinion of the food isn't prescribed? Okay, so - one of my two kitties experienced some food insecurity before I got her and would freak out if she ever saw the bottom of the bowl, so I just got a big dog dish and kept it full. Over the past few years, her food anxiety has gotten much better, but we've kept free feeding because neither cat is fat (well, they're both a little tubby but not fat-fat) and I like the convenience. The problem is that the boy cat recently started having peeing problems. Sometimes he'll pee for a long time and lick himself a lot when he gets out of the box. No blockages, yet. The vet says it's idiopathic cystitis or FLUTD (same thing?), and it could be caused by stress and/or being tubby. So - stress: the house isn't very stressy, but the girl cat can be a dick to him sometimes. They coexist fine and play together occasionally, but we do not have kitten cuddle puddles going on. This might be more of a behavioral question, but does anyone have any ideas for how to make the girl cat be less of a dick? Anyway. Back to the diet question for the diet thread: the vet said that switching to meal times and to a urine food "might help" prevent bouts of cystitis. Obviously I want to do the right thing to keep the cat healthy, but I don't love this idea because free feeding has worked pretty well and we have a high quality non-urine food that everyone really likes (Scrumbles). Finding a high quality food in the UK was so hard that I'm worried about finding a specialty food that doesn't suck. If the vet had said "definitely switch to a urine food" I'd definitely do it, but since she didn't I feel a little lost here. Goon hive mind, what should we do? Do mealtimes with rx food? Free feed dry during the day and maybe do rx wet food at night? Keep the same food and put feliway diffusers all over the house?
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Sep 28, 2020 18:31
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 00:55 |
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