Pet Nutrition Thread: I see no problem with my cat's vegan diet.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Pet Nutrition Thread: I see no problem with my cat's vegan diet.

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Gar or anyone else who feeds Wellness Core (or any Wellness, I guess), does the consistency often change radically? I picked it up because HelloSailorSign spoke highly of it, but the latest batch has been mushy as hell. Looking around online, this seems to be a common problem that people are reporting with the new batches, but Wellness doesn't seem to be responding to it very well.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2013 19:25

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:39

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

effika posted:

Yeah, the new chicken cans are mushy. We used it for years and never had an issue before now. The chicken mixes and non-chicken flavors seem OK, but I'm just waiting to get a batch of watery food the cat won't eat from those, too.

I was feeding the Core Salmon & Herring, but my cat didn't want to eat it after the texture changed. I have never seen him refuse wet food before.

I picked up a can of Core Chicken yesterday, and the texture is much better than what I got with the salmon flavor, but still mushier compared to a week or two ago.

Buff Skeleton posted:

I think canned food is more sensitive to environmental conditions in the shipping process, and gets cooked in the high summer heat to the point that it's all ruined by the time you get it into your house. That's what seemed like the problem was to me, but if others are reporting the same thing, it could be something on Wellness's end.

I'm in Seattle, so if the food is getting ruined by heat, it'd be a little weird. Google had some complaints about the texture going back into January. I'll see what Wellness responds with and I guess I'll try one of the other brands for now.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2013 16:20

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Wellness got back to me and were very nice about the situation. They did confirm that they often see texture changes particularly on a seasonal basis because of how the ingredients arrive, at least with the Core line. They said the food should still nutritionally be the same, but they want to be contacted whenever a pet refuses to eat the food.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2013 20:11

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

FISHMANPET posted:

So I've got two cats, and they're both fat. I feed them Solid Gold Indigo Moon. We feed them twice a day in a single bowl that they share. In total both cats get 2/3 of a cup a day. Which, according to the instructions on the label, isn't even enough for 1 cat. I'd give them less food, but they're both assholes and become whiny jerks rattling the closet door whenever they want food.

So is there a food that's good for the cats but isn't so calorie dense? I'd like to give them a higher volume of food but decrease their calorie intake.

You might try a wet food diet. It definitely helped with my cats, who were very vocal beggars on dry food. You could also try attaching some Sticky Paws or contact paper (sticky-side-out) to the bottom of the closet door as a surprise the next time they paw at it.

If you want them to lose weight reliably, it would be helpful to have them eating from separate dishes, since they may have very different caloric requirements. For example, my heaviest fat cat is just over 17 pounds, and he gets 218 calories per day. My other fat cat is 13.5 pounds, and she gets around 100 calories per day. That's a huge difference in calories for not a huge difference in weight. It varies a lot for each individual.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2013 08:34

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

scunish posted:

The problem isn't that we intentionally overfeed - we have two cats, and each gets 1/4 cup dry (solid gold indigo moon) and 3oz wet (solid gold blended tuna) per day.

The amount of food needed for a cat to safely lose weight can vary wildly between cats, but this actually seems like a lot of food to me.

Solid Gold Indigo Moon is 450 calories per cup, so even if you split them up, you would've been feeding them 112.5 calories each just in dry food. The small cans of food used to be 132 calories (I don't know if they still are, though).

Assuming the calories are still the same, you were trying to feed each cat 244.5 calories per day. That's more than my 18-pound cat was eating to maintain his weight. He's a lazy indoor cat, so obviously it'll be different for others, but that's a lot of calories.

I'm really curious how the new food works out for you!

My cats were jerks and became picky eaters when I started their diets. How many calories is your cat getting with the new food?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 19:15

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

scunish posted:

Wow. I seriously thought we've been skimpy with the food. Imagine the money I'm going to save! Ha ha

Hah, I had the same reaction before I started counting my cats' calories.

I figured they were just stealing each other's food and that's why two of them were fat, but it turns out they were stealing each other's food and I was over-feeding.

Gothmog1065 posted:

I was actually coming here to ask about feeding my cats. I have 4 of them, and I"m doing a mix of dry and wet food. I use Blue Buffalo Indoor formula dry and a mix of Innova and Blue Buffalo canned. Right now they get a can of innova (6 oz I think, the REALLY big can), or two cans of Blue Buffalo (3.0oz)in the evening, and in the morning about 2 cups of dry cat food. Is this about right? I might be feeding them too much dry food. I used to just fill the bowl and let them graze at will.

None of my cats are hugely obese. They all eat from the same bowl, and there's usually a little wet food left over for grazing for a few hours, and enough dry to last them through the day mostly.

Based on that, it's hard to tell whether you're feeding too much. Innova and Blue Buffalo both have a number of different foods and if you're letting them eat out of the same dish, there's no control over who is eating how much.

Also, Innova had a pretty big recall recently. You should go here and make sure none of your food is on the list. I don't know if any canned food of theirs was recalled, but it can't hurt to look.

If any of your cats are fat and you want to get that under control, you should actually separate them for feeding and not leave food out in between meals. That will give you an idea of how much food each one needs individually, so you can start tweaking amounts to get them to lose weight gradually. I know it seems like a hassle but it really isn't as bad as it sounds. That also lets you see if any of them ever start eating less than usual, which can be an indication of a health problem.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 08:14

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Dr. Chaco posted:

The more over-the-counter weird ingredient diets a dog eats before a vet gets involved in the diet trial process, the harder their job gets because their choice of proteins to try gets even more limited. This is because OTC diets are rarely truly limited ingredient, and without a veterinarian's input the diet trial is likely to be done incorrectly (not fed long enough, or not fed exclusively). So, if a dog is still itchy on an OTC venison diet (or the owner tried that 3 months ago and says venison didn't work), how do I know if it didn't work because the dog is really not food-allergic, or if it's because of any of those other factors?

Also, food allergy is a thing, for sure, but flea allergy and environmental allergies are so freaking common that I think people do their itchy pets a disservice by trying to figure out the food allergy situation themselves. I cannot count the number of dogs I see for itching where the owner tried to change the diet a couple times, to no avail, and the dog has either classic flea allergy or seasonal allergies that could have been managed sooner if only the owner didn't try to chase down the food thing first.

Just as more support for this... my itchy cat has been exposed to all kinds of proteins because we tried a lot of canned foods to find one he'd like, plus we used to feed Katz-n-Flocken (lamb). So if I need to do a limited diet for his itchiness, my choices are now basically kangaroo, rabbit, and homemade.

Coming from a customer, please don't recommend anyone use any food with novel proteins. You'll quickly pigeonhole them into having to do a homemade diet if it does come down to a food allergy.

Plus, food allergies actually mean they can't have any other treats, flavored medicines, or similar until the allergen is identified. It is a huge pain and really needs a vet's input, otherwise the owner will inevitably think it's okay for the dog to eat some of the cat's food or it's fine to give it just a tiny bit of chicken at dinner, which blows the limited diet completely, and then they'll blame the normal food instead of their mistake.

Sorry for the :words:

, I'm just really frustrated with my cat's itching now and I wish he hadn't been exposed to duck or venison because that'd make it a lot easier if it ends up being a food allergy.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 08:41

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

powderific posted:

I'm wondering if we should try a different food all together? I don't want to make things worse by switching things up on them again. I also really like the idea of Nature's Variety since the factory is only an hour away from where I live. Obviously that's not enough reason to stick with a food that makes the kitties sick though.

One of my cats used to eat too quickly, so here's what worked for me:

1) For kibble, I would put large marbles in the food dish, each at least 1 inch in diameter. The cat would have to shove marbles out of the way to get to his kibble. If you do this, just know the marbles have to be washed like normal dishes. I was lucky that my cat is kind of dumb, so he never figured out he could roll the marbles out of the dish.

2) When I switched him over to wet food, the problem went away completely. No more marbles! I use a pate-style food for him, so I don't know if he would have a problem with other textures.

I can't comment on the clear liquid without much food, though. I'd take my cat to the vet if that happened more than once. Excessive puking can be caused by a blockage, like a hairball that hasn't moved, or parasites (like worms, yay!), or lots of other things.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 06:14

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Dienes posted:

Between this and local stores slowly phasing out Solid Gold, its getting harder to find a good dry cat food anymore.

Why is it getting harder to find Solid Gold, anyway? So far it's the only food that one of my cats can eat for more than a few months without needing teeth extracted afterward.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 21:35

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Flying Leatherman posted:

I'm about to start transitioning my cat onto higher quality food (got suckered into Science Diet because I didn't do enough research, and just discovered this thread). Part of what I might try to do is to get her onto entirely canned versus a mixture of canned and dry food. I didn't see anything in the OP about that transition; does anyone have suggestions about how to manage that successfully, or should I just be tapering off her supply of kibble gradually?

e: Also, I was originally thinking about getting Wellness brand food, but after reading the last couple pages of the thread I'm just not sure what to do. It seems like a lot of the "Excellent" brands from the OP have been discontinued/bought out/lowered in quality in the last little while. I don't want to get the cat started on something that might decline or disappear in the next couple of years. Seems like Chicken Soup brand might still be okay? Any advice on brands would also be appreciated.

I've tried multiple times to get my cats on canned diets, so maybe this will help you.

Some cats are stupidly picky about texture, and there are lots of different textures to be found in canned cat food. If you suspect your cat might be picky, start with little cans and get a variety of different textures. (Other cats are awesome and will devour anything that resembles wet food, so maybe you won't have any trouble.)

Some foods may have a detrimental effect on your cat long after you've switched to it. I tried a Tiki Cat flavor for about 8 months, and the cat who was on that food had to have 2 dentals with multiple extractions during that time. Her teeth were disintegrating. We thought it was just a genetic problem, but I've since switched her off of Tiki Cat and she hasn't had to have an extraction in over a year now. My vet wondered if it was from the food, so I tried contacting Tiki Cat to ask about Vitamin D levels in that flavor, and they replied with the % of the contents that's allowed to be their added Vitamin D. AAFCO standards for that vitamin are in IU/kg, not a %. I asked them for the IU/kg. They didn't know the IU/kg of Vitamin D in their food, and couldn't find it out. They only know the %. (That's not typical - every other pet food company I asked was able to provide the IU/kg by phone/email, if it wasn't already on their website.) So make sure you monitor how your cat responds to any food change over time.

Canned food even from the same brand might change without warning. I had a cat on Wellness Core for a few months. One day, he abruptly refused to eat it. I contacted Wellness, and they informed me that their protein sources change seasonally based on availability. Even if you get used to a brand/flavor, it may not be the same in 3 months, and the cat may refuse to eat it then.

One of the vets here said something that has stuck with me:
The best food for a cat is the one it does well on.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 04:54

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

thebehaviorist posted:

I have two cats that I recently switched to natures variety instinct wet food (previously from Lotus wet food) a couple months ago and they were obsessed with it until I opened a new case of food and both cats recoiled when they went to eat it. I tried another can in the same case and same thing. Wouldn't eat it. I'm assuming the case was just a bad batch but now they won't eat any wet food at all. Even the previous wet food they used to eat they will no longer eat. All I can get them to eat is dry food (nature's variety and orijen). They both really need to be on the wet food since they tend to get constipated on dry food but I have no idea what to do at this point. Took them both to the vet last week and everything came back normal. Vet said just feed them whatever they will eat. Anyone had this problem before?

You could try different types of wet food. You can get canned food in pate style, cubed, shredded, etc., so a different-looking food might help. I keep a few cans of Solid Gold Blended Tuna around for when one of my cats decides she doesn't like her normal food anymore. Some folks keep Fancy Feast around for the same reason.

You should also report what happened to Nature's Variety. I had something similar happen with Wellness Core a while back, and they were nice about it. They wanted the lot number so they could pull a sample and make sure it was safe, then told me to return the food to the store and sent me a bunch of coupons.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 18:29

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Tamarillo posted:

My cat is a fat fucker. I need to slim him down. When he trots his gunt sways from side to side, and in the last year he has put on an eyewatering 1kg and now weighs a grand total of 6.6kg (14.5lbs). Easy solution would be to feed the fat bastard less, except that I have another cat who can hardly be persuaded to eat at all and has to be free fed - he doesn't eat on demand, doesn't recognise meat or wet food as food and I've yet to find any treat he will get excited over.

So I have one cat that lives to eat, and another that (grudgingly) eats to live. I thought about getting a micro-chip activated food dispenser thing except that Fat Bastard is uncannily smart and I think he'd either destroy it, push it to where the dog could get to it (and guarantee its destruction as Dog is also a fellow 'live to eat' aficionado) OR, seriously, learn that it will open when Anorexic Cat goes near it and will lie in wait for him to come along before shoving him out of the way and burying his own fat face in it, while simultaneously Anorexic Cat develops yet another food avoidance complex.

Anyone got any suggestions? My cat is turning into a blimp.

You could try building a box with an opening just narrow enough for Anorexic Cat and put his food inside the box. Some things to keep in mind if you do this:
1) You need a slot to be able to get the food dish in/out without tilting it. Like a prison food slot. (My cat's box has a long T-shaped opening, with the long part just wide enough for her to fit in, and the horizontal part sized just for the food dish).
2) You need to be able to open the box to clean it out because it gets gross.
3) The box has to be deep enough to put the food far enough back that Fat Bastard can't reach in and pull the dish to the entrance.
4) This only works as long as one of your cats is skinny enough to fit but the other isn't. Once Fat Bastard slims down enough to fit into the same-sized opening as Anorexic Cat, you're back to square one.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2016 22:19

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Echeveria posted:

As mentioned, slow transitions and pumpkin are what save me when I change foods. Weruva has individual pouches of pumpkin if you don't think you can use an antire can before it goes bad (I can't). I also use it when one of my cats is on antibiotics. I also give them some probiotics and that really helps with gas and smell. Most pet supply stores should have all of the above.

Tip: You can freeze pumpkin! Just cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper, spoon out individuals portions on the sheet, and put the sheet in the freezer for an hour. After the hour's up, pop the frozen portions off of the paper and store them in a freezer bag.

That way, you can just pull out one frozen portion and thaw it overnight in the fridge before feeding it to your cat.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2016 05:32

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

owls or something posted:

The freedom line is grain free too.

It took us about 6 weeks to really break Noodle from her shelter grazing kibble addiction. Our own fault for reinforcing that behavior after we adopted her. She knew we'd have to give her kibbles if she held out and it wasn't a fun journey making the switch, but our hand was forced after she had a UTI. Now we have her exclusively on one 5.5oz can per day broken into two meals about 12h apart. I think her walnut sized brain has finally forgotten that kibble exists and resistance is futile.

We wasted a lot of food though during that month or two and it really pissed me off plenty of times. It's like she was doing it to spite me.

I'm incredibly jealous of your success with weaning your cat off of kibble. We have an elderly tortie who reluctantly eats a small amount of wet food, about three small bites/licks at a time, and then she rejects the rest. We've tried nearly every chicken- or fish-based flavor at the pet store. Since she has a history of throwing up if she doesn't eat often enough (which makes her even more nauseous and food-averse), we eventually gave up because it was too dangerous for her to go without eating. At one point, she stopped eating anything for 3 days. Many, many vet trips later, we're just happy to have her eat anything now, and she gets whatever food keeps her interested in eating.

We're pretty much resigned to the fact that if she ever develops a food allergy, she's going to need a feeding tube for the rest of her life.

CancerStick posted:

Question:

Adopted my first ever cat. 8.2 lbs per the adoption medical report with a “4 - Lean” on the BCS chart. Planning on going to a vet and will ask some basic questions as a first time cat owner but she is due for vaccines in two weeks so I figure to avoid two office visit fees I’ll do a check up and vaccine visit in two weeks.

In the meantime my question is related to how much to feed her. Have some wet food that says 3 cans for 6-8 lb cat. She is 8lbs, but lean. Should I shoot for a “target weight” and feed a little more? 9–10 lbs?

Meet the beauty.

Congratulations on your new slave-driver! Many cats are good at regulating their weight themselves, especially if you only have one cat, so you might find that she determines how much she wants to be fed, rather than you deciding how much to feed her.

But as someone else with an underweight cat, I have three pieces of advice:
1. How much you need to feed your cat can vary based on her activity level and how well she handles the food (you'll pick up on cues in her coat, her breath, her bowel movements, and her activity level while on the food). Sometimes the amount can change on a weekly basis but it will likely change at least on a seasonal basis.
2. Track the amount you're feeding her by the kcal amount, not the number of recommended cans. Our 8.2 lb cat (elderly, not as active as a kitten) is eating a little over 200 kcal per day right now and is gradually gaining weight, but we're giving her as much food as she wants, that just happens to be where she stops herself. I have another cat who's getting 180 kcal per day of a different food, and that keeps her hovering around 10 lbs.
3. Buy a baby scale. I've had this one for years https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Salter-914-WHLKR-Toddler-Scale/dp/B00009KX5U/ and it's the only way we've been able to track how much to adjust feeding amounts.

I can't emphasize enough how life-changing a baby scale is for a cat with sensitive weight. Weigh her at least once a week and adjust how much you're feeding her by small amounts. Drastic changes in weight can also be an early signal that something is wrong even if she's acting like everything is fine.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 22:26

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

CancerStick posted:

These cat food companies definitely want to sell as many cans as they can, huh? Did some research about using k/cal and that made a lot of sense.

It seems that way sometimes, but the pet food industry also has to err on the side of caution. They don't know if your cat is indoors/outdoors, young/old, hyperactive/lazy... so the info they provide is usually advice that won't starve a young, super-active cat.

CancerStick posted:

We adopted her last Saturday and we initially got a dry food (Solid Gold Indigo Moon). Then as we read more about the benefits of wet food we looked at cost effective ways to use primarily wet food with maybe a little bit of dry to help keep the cost down.

Per the wet food we have: 84 k/cal a can; instructions are 3 cans per 6-8lb of cat a day
The dry food: 455 k/cal per cup; instructions are 1/2 cup for 7-9 lb of cat a day.

We have been doing the 3 cans, but figured we would do 1/4 cup of dry a day to help get more food in her since the 3 cans was "only" for 6-8 lbs of cat. Doing the math I have probably been giving her 360-370 k/cal a day. Whoops.

I'll just monitor her like you said and try and get some frequent weights to see how she is doing. Even though she has been receiving a higher amount of calories per day you would think she is starved. Can't go into the kitchen without her following and meowing at us. The second you get the cat food out she is amped and eats till its gone then proceeds to go back to her food bowl and lick it dry a handful of times over 30 minutes post feeding.

360-370 kcal per day may not be outlandish if she's young and active, although my cats would look like basketballs if they ate that much. The best amount to feed your cat is the amount that keeps her at a healthy weight (your vet should be able to tell you what a healthy weight would be for her), and the best food to feed your cat is the one she does well on.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2019 03:18

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Snowy posted:

So I�ve got this adorable 3 month old Maine coon and he�s starting to be a pain about his food. I�ve got Royal Canin wet and dry kitten food for him, and that was fine for a while, but my gf already has a 10 year old cat and a dog.

We kept him away from the other pets at first, but now that they�re all hanging out together he just wants their food. And our food! He wants everything but his own food, and doesn�t eat a lot of it unless I trick him by putting a few treats in it.

How do I make his own food more interesting for him? Should I take some normal cat food and mix it in?

And how bad is it that he keep chowing down on dry dog food? He loves it but it seems like that can�t be a great idea.

I'm hoping you figured something out for him by now, but just in case, here's my two cents:

Royal Canin in my experience isn't the most appealing food for cats. I wouldn't be surprised if you need to switch his food to some other brand of kitten food (assuming he wasn't put on this food for some health reason).

Canned cat food comes in a huge variety of textures and flavors. I have one cat who prefers shredded chunks of fish, and another cat who won't eat anything except chicken pate. Canned cat food also suffers from some seasonal changes - pet food companies occasionally change up their ingredient sources depending on cost. So at some times of the year, the chicken may come from one place, or the fish might be a certain kind of fish, and other times of the year, that completely changes. Some very picky cats will refuse their food because of changes like this.

Try to stick with common proteins (chicken, fish) and avoid any food with unusual proteins like duck or venison, just in case your cat ever has to go on an elimination diet and your vet wants to use proteins your cat hasn't been exposed to before.

Dry dog food is not necessarily bad for cats as a snack but it doesn't have the right nutritional content for long-term cat health.

There are various tricks you can use to get your cat to eat the food you want (using a small amount of tuna juice, or mixing treats in as you've discovered, etc.), but personally I'd just try a different type of food.

Valicious posted:

I have a 6 year old corgi and I’m feeding her dry Blue Buffalo. Is there a heal5h benefit to switching her to canned?

This is a great question for your vet, depending on your dog's health condition and your own living situation. In general, canned food usually has higher protein and fewer preservatives. For animals that don't drink enough water separately, canned food can also be better for hydration so it might have some benefits to kidney function. But canned food also goes bad faster than kibble, so if your dog won't eat a full can over 1-2 days or you have to leave the food out while you're gone for hours, those could make it not a good option.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2019 21:13

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

DkHelmet posted:

Two parter:

My cat seems to have a fowl allergy and is now on an all wet, novel protein (rabbit) diet. We had originally noticed delayed vomiting after feeding, but only with food that had a chicken protein in it. Weird thing was that the kibble came up like it went in, only 3+ hours later. Once we figured it out and went to rabbit he's been fine.

Could there have been anything else that caused a superpower to barf whole kibble back up hours after eating?

And if not, are there any good kibbles we could get that would be acceptable? I'm kinda eyeballing the solid gold winged tiger and stay in salmon, as well as instinct limited ingredient rabbit. We'd love to be able to find a kibble that he and his littermates might enjoy without having to chaperone feeding.

Food allergy talk:
Definitely check with your vet before you make changes to your cat's diet if he has a food allergy. It's also good to confirm with your vet before changing your other pets to a limited ingredient diet themselves - that's usually something you want to avoid, since if one of them develops a food allergy, you generally won't do an elimination diet trial with a protein they've had before. So you'd be eliminating rabbit as an option if any of his littermates develop an allergy. Granted, he might be getting some exposure to whatever protein his littermates are eating now, since they probably groom each other/share water dishes/etc. So sometimes it's necessary to switch all animals.

If your cat is allergic to fowl, are you intending to avoid turkey and quail? Both of the Solid Gold foods you mentioned have bird proteins from what I would consider fowl.

With most standard commercial pet foods, I would personally be worried about unnamed ingredients getting mixed in. I've occasionally found wrong-shaped kibble in Solid Gold batches, like a piece of kibble from some other line found its way in the bag. The Instinct kibble seems like it might be a better idea for avoiding that, since they explicitly target a limited ingredient diet. Maybe they'd be more careful?

Otherwise, there are some brands that specialize in novel protein diets and may be sold through specialty pet stores, if you want to check on the availability of those.

Regurgitation talk:
If you haven't definitively determined it's a food allergy, and you're absolutely sure there's no recording/observation error in him regurgitating 3+ hours after eating... then I would start wondering if there's a problem with his esophagus. His ability to keep down the new wet food might just be because wet food doesn't trigger the problem. Regurgitation is generally the eviction of food from the esophagus, not the stomach. There are some health conditions that can cause problems in the esophagus, and if food is staying there for 3+ hours, that's a bad sign.

Here's what I would start looking at, if it were one of my cats:

something preventing food from moving through the esophagus normally so it doesn't actually reach the stomach at a normal rate (could be a blockage, but there are lots of other possibilities, including birth defects, tumors, and some diseases)
something preventing the GI system from behaving normally (e.g., a disease that impacts digestion) so the food isn't broken down at a normal rate - this would imply he's vomiting, not regurgitating
indigestibility of what was eaten (e.g., things like cellulose are hard to digest, so if they come back up at any time, they'll look largely undigested), but with normal kibble, this raises the question of why the cat can't digest it
observation error (maybe he stole food from his littermates more recently than 3+ hours ago and that's what was regurgitated) - note that this is the only option that isn't incredibly scary

# ¿ Mar 18, 2019 06:20

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Organza Quiz posted:

The problem doesn't seem to be with grains or lack of grains specifically so much as a ton of new foods on the market which haven't been properly tested. The advice is to stick with established brands that have tested their foods over long periods. I don't think there's been any reports of cats having specific problems but it doesn't seem like bad advice to me to check if the food you're feeding your pet has actually been tested properly.

Keep in mind the biggest push in the grain-free movement is very recent. It's hard to prove that your pet food is safe over 20+ years when your company hasn't even been around that long. In fact, the companion animal care industry as a whole has seen massive changes over the last few decades - the American Pet Products Association reported $28.5 billion spent on pet care in the US in 2001, and $72.5 billion spent in the US in 2018. Pet food expenses alone have more than doubled.

Most of the food you see on the market today didn't exist 10 years ago, and while the AAFCO and FDA are the ones who say an ingredient is safe to use in animal feed, I doubt even they ever did studies like "if you feed a dog a high amount of potatoes or legumes every day for many years, it'll stay healthy." Twenty years ago, the industry was much smaller, and they were more worried about basic things like "don't put onions in the dog food."

I'm not sure what the solution is, honestly. We live in a weird time where there isn't quite enough data to ensure food safety over a long lifespan. A PI vet (or maybe vet tech?) once said "the best food is the one your pet does well on," and that's the best advice anyone can give any pet owner right now.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2019 22:22

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Tamarillo posted:

The Royal Canin renal diets have a lower total % of protein and phosphorus - kidneys are key players in protein metabolism and if they're packing in, you want to ease their workload as much as you can. It's awesome that you want the best for your pet as this is obviously why you're information gathering; but do listen to your vet when they recommend a prescription diet - it isn't about quality or affordability, it is literally that the composition and content of the food has been tested and specifically works to help alleviate the condition it's targeted at.

Have you seen recent studies on the effect of lower protein in cats with kidney disease? Last I looked into it, there were no studies on it in cats, and there was actually a big controversy among vets because the low protein renal diets were formulated decades ago based on studies done on rats and people, not cats.

There were several studies that showed renal diets significantly improved a cat's survival with kidney disease, but the theory was that was due to lower phosphorus and other aspects that targeted the endocrine system, not the protein reduction.

The renal diet studies in cats were also pretty weird (and maybe still are). Some of them were funded by companies that manufacture renal diets, and some even surgically altered cats to force kidney disease to occur instead of using cats where it already existed, which raised questions about whether the conclusions would still apply in naturally-occurring kidney disease cases. Hopefully newer studies have gotten better.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 21:41

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Bertrand Hustle posted:

Wet food question for this princess:

Meet Aphra. Former stray, been with me about a week and a half since I scooped her up off the streets of Boston. Story here. Spayed, shots given, FIV/FeLV negative, treated for fleas. Recovering well. I don't know what she was eating before I got her, but I have tried a few foods and she doesn't seem to be especially picky (or sensitive to food changes), with a few exceptions: she won't touch anything with pureed pumpkin in it, and for some reason she doesn't like the soupy chicken in broth type food. I'm trying Blue Buffalo Freedom Fish Recipe but I'm not crazy about ingredients like carrots and potatoes. She loves it, of course, and anything else with fish in it to the point where if I eat fish I have to eat it in the other room or she'll be right in my face.

Been looking at maybe Tiki Cat or Solid Gold. Is menadione bad? The OP was inconclusive, but that was six years ago, and a lot of premium foods seem to have it. I tried one of the Tiki Cat recipes when I first got her because I was just trialing different things to see what she'd eat, and the conclusion is she goes bonkers for fish. Fish treats are the only ones she'll touch, too. Other than that I just want to feed her good food.

Just my two cents, but I'm a little biased against Tiki Cat. Our cat loved it, but she kept getting resorptive lesions in her mouth. She had multiple teeth extracted over the course of a year, starting shortly after we switched her to Tiki Cat. Our vet asked us to contact Tiki Cat about how much vitamin D was in the food she was eating, because there were some early studies showing there might be a connection between vitamin D overdose and those lesions in cats (although there were also studies trying to explore a genetic component).

We contacted Tiki Cat. Tried phone, tried email. They either didn't respond at all or they churned out auto-response non-answers, or they said they'd call us back with more info. After weeks of trying to get any useful information from them, they told us something along the lines of "vitamin D is less than [x]% of that recipe."

That blew my mind. AAFCO standards aren't for vitamin D as a percentage. AAFCO standards for vitamin D are IU/kg. We told them so, and provided the AAFCO standards for reference, but they had no idea what the IU/kg was. Tiki Cat's support was incapable of providing information on whether their food actually met AAFCO's standards.

That was a few years ago, and hopefully it was just a huge disconnect between support and manufacturing, but it's a big reason why I'm skeptical about new pet food companies now. Adhering to AAFCO standards is basically on the honor system since states don't really have the time/resources to aggressively enforce pet feed guidelines.

We switched that cat to Solid Gold. She hasn't had any resorptive lesions since we took her off Tiki Cat. I'm not overly thrilled with Solid Gold as a company because their ingredients are a little creative and I don't think they handled their recall very well, but the cat eats it and her teeth have been fine for years now, so we stick with it.

Wellness Core is also worth looking into. Their customer support was awesome when our other cat stopped eating that all of a sudden.

And, with great shame and chagrin, I will once again point out that the more maligned companies (e.g., Purina, Hills) have been doing this for decades. I have seriously considered trying to switch to poo poo like Fancy Feast just because it's widely used and it's been around forever.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2019 23:23

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Boogalo posted:

The vitamin D stuff is interesting since both of my cats are showing resorbtion issues. Milly is stuck on prescription limited protein diet due to sensitive stomach and Butters just eats the same stuff since it makes it easy, they're also free-fed and not overweight so big score there. Current food since around christmas time is royal canin adult PR rabbit, and before was wellness core but Milly was way barfier on it. They're both switched to wet of the same due to some dental work (resorbed teeth) but i'm throwing away a lot of it and they're losing a little weight and it would quintuple my food bill to feed them this wet full time

I'll get to switch them back to try in a few days, but i'll still try to get them to eat a little wet food in the evenings and will talk to my vet about the vitamin D stuff.

Cornell has a useful site on it:

quote:

The cause, says Jennifer Rawlinson, DVM, chief of the dentistry and oral surgery section at Cornell University�s College of Veterinary Medicine, is unknown. �There are a few theories,� she says, �but no one is sure about what really stimulates this condition. Some researchers, for example, theorize that an excess of vitamin D in commercial cat food might be to blame, but other researchers don�t necessarily agree. So, for now, we don�t have an answer.�

There are tons of interesting studies about it, with results on both sides of the theory, so the scientific evidence doesn't fully support vitamin D overdose as the primary cause. But that was the logic behind us reaching out to Tiki Cat when we suddenly started seeing issues.

If you're curious, you can reach out to the pet food companies and ask about their vitamin D content in the food you use. If you used a different food before and your cats didn't have issues on that one, try reaching out to that company, too, so you can compare the content between the foods.

Your situation is extra lovely because switching foods when you've got a prescription limited protein diet is not a good idea. I was lucky because we could just try another food and see if that helped.

owls or something posted:

I ditched the fancy brands for Purina's Pro Plan wet food and my sweet precious kitty eats it happily and has been completely fine and healthy. Costs about the same as Blue Buffalo, but isn't completely loaded with carrot chunks and potato.

As a former Nestle factory employee I can say that they have really, really good food safety/quality stuff going on behind the scenes in their factories. Their brands are the least often recalled which I've come to think is what's really important.

It's funny that you mention this, because the most recent cat food recall I know about is this one from Nestle (in their Muse line):

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-...natural-chicken

There are three interesting things worth noting about that recall:
1. The vast majority of pet food recalls in general are for bacterial contamination or incorrect levels of vitamins/minerals, but this was a machinery problem.
2. Purina didn't catch the problem until consumers started complaining.
3. The equipment failure only impacted a single flavor.

So on one hand, I'm disappointed that Purina didn't know there was a problem until consumers complained, but on the other, it's good that it was due to machinery and it had such a limited impact.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2019 21:29

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Pollyanna posted:

Jet�s used to Science Diet, but I�ve considered switching his food to something better. That said, I�m mostly worried about the possibility of urinary crystals and periodontal disease - but he seems fine so far...it�s hard to tell.

Is there a way to check if my cat is having urinary issues, or has teeth issues? Nothing�s really come up at vet visits, but boy is his breath terrible.

Urinary issues:
Watch for litter box habit changes. Cats are good at hiding pain but they still send all kinds of signals. Passing less urine, going to the box more frequently, squatting to pee but not producing anything, peeing outside the box, peeing in "safe" spots like the bed or soft laundry piles, red or pink urine (one of the reasons I use a light-colored litter so it's really hard to miss).

Some places sell test kits that claim to let you test your cat's urine at home, but the ones I've seen specifically market themselves for UTIs, so I assumed they're not as good as a vet because the urine won't be sterile. I've never taken them seriously, but if you're curious/worried, it couldn't hurt to ask your vet for their opinion.

Teeth issues:
Other than waiting for it to get so bad that the cat stops eating on one side of his mouth, the best way to tell is to look. Resorptive lesions, tartar buildup, and inflamed gums are pretty obvious once they get bad, but it takes practice to be able to look in your cat's mouth. Even my most tolerant cat will only allow 1-2 seconds of inspection at a time. If you have a camera that can catch a good yawn, that'd probably be a lot easier.

Your vet should do an oral inspection during your cat's scheduled checkups. If you mention the bad breath, your vet will probably spend extra time examining his mouth. Once your cat is 10+ years old, you're probably doing a more involved senior exam every 6 months to watch kidney values and such anyway, so his teeth will get inspected about as often as a person goes to a dentist.

You can have dental X-rays taken for cats, but it requires sedation so it isn't really something you want to do just for kicks.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2019 00:00

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Bertrand Hustle posted:

Is menadione bad? The OP was inconclusive, but that was six years ago, and a lot of premium foods seem to have it.

This is from an older post, but I went looking for info about menadione today after we decided to switch one of our cats' diets again, because the new food we're trialing has menadione. I found this interesting: http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2011/07/vitamin-k3-menadione-in-pet-food-is-it-safe/

Even though it's from 2011, the comments go up to late 2018, and the author has been good about correcting/updating viewpoints on other topics, so I'm guessing the conclusion still holds.

That blog seems like it answers a lot of pet nutrition (and overall health) questions with realism. Stark contrast from the sensationalist pet articles that usually get top billing in Google search results. Pretty neat.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2019 00:03

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

mick ohio posted:

I am so glad to have found this thread and I hope y'all can help me!

I am trying to find a good wet/dry food combination to help my cat lose weight. He weighed in 2 pounds heavier at the vet this morning than he was a few months ago, and it was shrugged off by the vet and vet tech with "well, that's the prednisolone. just feed him less," which I find infinitely frustrating, since he's been taking that for years and we've *lost* several pounds while on it with better diet. We've been working on weight loss for the past two years, too, so the sudden +2lbs was alarming and disheartening this morning. That's a lot!!!

I started researching veterinary nutrition when I got home, played around with the calorie calculator from the Pet Nutrition Alliance and found that I'm feeding my cat appropriately in terms of kcal for weight loss for his size/goals. I found a pet nutrition clinic in my area, but their initial fee is $600+ and I can't afford that right now.

Here's the facts/history:
-7 y/o domestic medium hair cat
-has asthma
-has chronic idiopathic rhinitis
-has feline herpes
-prone to URIs
-weighed in at 16.2 pounds today
-takes 2.5 mg prednisolone/day
-takes 2 puffs of Flovent inhaler/day
-takes 1tsp lysine supplement/day
-not interested in playing unless its for food (so when he's breathing well, we throw dry food and chase it around)

Currently eating:
- 1/4c dry food (right now Canidae's limited ingredient chicken)
-1/2 can natural balance limited ingredient chicken or duck
- 1 tbsp dry food or 1tsp treats for snack/playtime
= ~190 kcal/day
- limited ingredient diets were suggested in case asthma had any food-related allergy associations. I'm not convinced it's necessary, to be honest

Hoping for:
-a better quality dry food that both my cats can eat (other cat will only tolerate a tablespoon mixed in with her wet food, so not sure how much I need to consider her with that)
-a wet food that isn't pate, since pate + congestion gives him a peanut butter mouth effect

I hope I explained everything well. If I can answer any more questions to help folks get a better picture, please let me know. We need help! I want my guy to be at a healthier weight so he can have as long a life as possible with all his health problems.

Suggestions:
1. Buy a baby scale.
2. Make sure he isn't stealing food. Never leave him unattended with access to the other cat's food. If you leave him unattended, I guarantee that he's stealing her food.
3. Be very specific how you measure his daily food. If you feed him multiple times throughout the day, or if someone else helps feed him, measure out his daily portion into a separate jar and make sure you only feed him from that jar. Don't just reach for the 1/4 scoop and try to eyeball amounts.

It doesn't matter if online sources are telling you that you're feeding him the right amount. If he's gaining weight like that, he isn't being fed appropriately for his situation, because you only have two levers: food and exercise. Very sedentary cats don't need to eat as much to maintain their weight. I have one very petite, hyperactive cat who weighs 8 pounds and eats more calories than my lethargic 15-pound monster. It makes no sense when you look at the numbers, but their weight is good this way. :iiam:

A baby scale is pretty much mandatory for any serious pet weight loss at home. I use something like this one but you can find cheap baby scales through thrift stores, garage sales, and mom Facebook groups. Don't use an adult bathroom scale, because it won't be accurate enough. A baby scale will let you track your cat's weight and make adjustments week by week. My cats all change their food/exercise habits seasonally, so I end up having to modify their food portions a few times a year to maintain their weight.

My goal for my two overweight cats was to get them to lose 1/4 pound per month just by gradually scaling back their food. That's intentionally a pretty slow pace for weight loss because I wanted to take it easy on them. One cat was overweight at 17 pounds (goal: 15 pounds) and another cat was overweight at 13 pounds (goal: 10 pounds). It took a long time. Even now that their weight is under control, I weigh them every 1-2 weeks.

As for what you wanted to hear, about food recommendations... unfortunately, I think you should consult a different vet about that, if you don't trust your current vet's recommendation. Food allergies aren't very common in cats in most regions, and they usually manifest as skin/hair problems near the face, or (less often) as problems in the GI tract. Your situation is pretty specialized if your vet suspects a food allergy related to asthma.

I can offer some general info, though. Limited ingredient diets are supposed to be strictly followed for 2-3 months to see if symptoms improve, but the diet becomes unreliable if you have multiple cats who eat different diets but still groom each other/share the same water dishes/have different treats/etc. So if you want to know if a limited ingredient diet is helping, you have to monitor the results closely over that time period, and you probably need to switch all cats in the house. Also, although food allergies are relatively uncommon for cats, the most common food allergen is the protein source. Most cat owners who use a limited ingredient diet can swap in another food that has the same protein source, as long as that's the only protein source. The same rules apply, though, because you'll need to monitor over another 2-3 months to see if conditions improve/worsen, in case your cat is actually sensitive to something other than the protein source.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2019 21:42

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

mick ohio posted:

Thank you so much for this! The food is strictly monitored and there's no free-feeding in the house at all. They're fed in separate rooms with the door closed until both cats are done (if the second cat hasn't finished, her food is put into a drawer or in the fridge). The only common / shared item is water bowls. The new cat just joined us a month ago, so that helps with having a better read on the LID, since we'd been doing that for two years prior. The asthma itself is well controlled-- he's had maybe 5 attacks in the last 9 months. The LID was recommended at a time when his asthma wasn't well controlled, but it was put in place along with a bunch of other things all at once. In that time, he's had the occasional non-limited food, and I haven't noticed any change in asthma/congestion with food differences.

I guess the weight gain is worth a second opinion from another vet? He'd been consistently losing weight for a long time, then suddenly gained it all back. Why wasn't that concerning at all to the vet we're seeing now?

I should also mention, we've seen maybe 5 different vets in the last few years due to moves and needing more advanced care sometimes. I have a file folder of all his records since adoption and feel like I've been diligent in providing his records to any new vets we see. I'd love to stay at the practice we're at now because its a minute drive from the house and he doesn't do well in cars. :/

Anyway, sounds like more active weight monitoring with a baby scale and gradually decreasing food is the best way forward for right now. Please let me know if I'm missing anything & thanks again!

In my opinion (disclaimer: not a vet), if you've been doing the limited ingredient diet for years and his asthma is under control, you should feel free to switch his food and monitor to see if his asthma remains stable. You can call your current vet and ask if they see any reason you shouldn't try it, to be safe. Food trials are currently the most reliable way of testing cats for food allergies/sensitivities, so the best thing anyone can do even in a clinical setting is try a diet, monitor, and be prepared to switch back if things regress.

The pet food industry is a total crapshoot, so if you do decide to try a new food, just be brave and try a brand/texture you're comfortable with. The rules I follow:
- Most of the diet should be wet food, if possible (especially for male cats)
- Fish ideally shouldn't be the main protein (the fishing industry is just super lovely right now)
- Don't put too much stock in gimmicky marketing (those gimmicks haven't been around long enough to prove long-term efficacy in cat diets anyway)

That's it. I gave up on ruling out brands with lovely ingredients and instead focus on whether the cat likes it and how their teeth/fur/intestines/kidneys react on it. Lately, I tend to lean more on Purina foods because they've been around forever and they process their own food, but I also buy Solid Gold and Wellness.

For the weight gain, taking him to another vet is your call. Increased appetite is a pretty common side effect of prednisolone in cats, so it's not that your vet is wrong, but if you're sure nothing has changed about his food amounts or his activity level in the last few months, gaining two pounds out of the blue is pretty odd. I mean, it's technically possible that he grew a crazy tumor in that time, but if that were the case, you'd almost certainly be seeing other side effects. Still, you could have him X-rayed to see if anything incredibly weird is going on.

My best guess though is that his activity level decreased without you noticing, and because you didn't have a way to weigh him at home, you kept feeding him the same amount, so he just stockpiled the extra calories. There's a really interesting neuroscience thread where the OP talked about the difficulty in weight loss from a neuroscientist's perspective - the OP theorized that it seems like your brain has some sort of pre-set idea about what it wants your weight to be, and if you try reducing your calories or increasing your activity level to lose weight, the brain seems like it pulls opposite levers, trying to keep you at its own idea of the ideal weight. Weight management is apparently a big mystery to brain experts, too.

At the end of the day, if you trust your vet, stick with them. If you don't trust your vet, find a new one.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2019 22:22

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

TrixR4kids posted:

This is probably a dumb question but most people seem to agree that wet food is generally better for cats. That said dry kibble always seems like it has a much higher % of protein according to the ingredients (which I would think is a good thing and would make it better for them, even the most premium canned foods have like 11% protein where as some poo poo dry kibble is like 30%. What�s the reason for that difference?

Not a dumb question at all. This is actually so strange in the pet food industry that the FDA tells pet owners to be extra careful when comparing wet and dry foods. Basically, you can't compare wet and dry food "guaranteed analysis" labels at all.

From the FDA site:

quote:

The weights of ingredients are determined as they are added in the formulation, including their inherent water content. This latter fact is important when evaluating relative quantity claims, especially when ingredients of different moisture contents are compared.

For example, one pet food may list "meat" as its first ingredient, and "corn" as the second ingredient. The manufacturer doesn't hesitate to point out that its competitor lists "corn" first ("meat meal" is second), suggesting the competitor's product has less animal-source protein than its own. However, meat is very high in moisture (approximately 75% water). On the other hand, water and fat are removed from meat meal, so it is only 10% moisture (what's left is mostly protein and minerals). If we could compare both products on a dry matter basis (mathematically "remove" the water from both ingredients), one could see that the second product had more animal-source protein from meat meal than the first product had from meat, even though the ingredient list suggests otherwise.

Note that it talks about "dry matter basis." This is the key when comparing kibble to wet food - but it's not how "guaranteed analysis" labels work, as this section points out:

quote:

Guarantees are declared on an "as fed" or "as is" basis, that is, the amounts present in the product as it is found in the can or bag. This doesn't have much bearing when the guarantees of two products of similar moisture content are compared (for example, a dry dog food versus another dry dog food). However, when comparing the guaranteed analyses between dry and canned products, one will note that the levels of crude protein and most other nutrients are much lower for the canned product. This can be explained by looking at the relative moisture contents. Canned foods typically contain 75-78% moisture, whereas dry foods contain only 10-12% moisture. To make meaningful comparisons of nutrient levels between a canned and dry product, they should be expressed on the same moisture basis.

The most accurate means of doing this is to convert the guarantees for both products to a moisture-free or dry matter basis.

So if you want to compare wet food to dry food, you have to calculate the "dry matter basis" instead. The FDA page talks through how to do that calculation, too. When you calculate the dry matter basis, usually a wet food will have higher protein than a dry food. The guaranteed analysis just makes it look different because so much of what's in a wet food can is moisture content, not nutrient ingredient content.

All that said, I don't know of any studies that have shown healthy cats do objectively better on wet food diets than dry food diets over time. (Granted, I haven't kept up with pet food studies in the last few years.) Wet food can obviously make a big difference when you start seeing hydration problems like constipation or urinary issues, which is why I feed my elderly cats mostly wet food, but as far as I'm aware, no one has proven that an otherwise healthy cat will have a worse life if fed dry food. Consequently, wet food tends to get recommended as a precaution, not a proven best practice.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2019 02:18

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

My dog has been losing weight recently, I don't have my scale in my new place yet and I don't think I would have much success holding her for the 20 seconds or so it would take to weigh her, so I'm not sure how much. Best guess she's about 50 pounds when her normal healthy weight is 55-60 (bloodhound/heeler mix). She's about 10 years old, currently eating the Nutro senior chicken dry food. I'm not sure if she's not getting some nutrients she needs or what, because she's not eating any less of it. I also caught her chewing on a pinecone outside a while back which seems concerning if she's going after something with zero nutritional value (aside from my old food wrappers out of the trash hey-o).

What would be a more nutrient-dense food in the same price bracket as the Nutro/Nature's Recipe? As much as I would like to, I can't afford the stuff that's $50 for a 20 pound bag.

Less on-topic, is there anything I should be checking on at home before taking her to the vet if she doesn't start gaining weight again? She's got a wart that's growing back, but when they cut it off last time they tested it and it was benign. They also did an ultrasound or something like that (involved shaving her belly is all I know) at the same time, that was about 4 months ago, came back clean. Can stress cause a dog to lose weight? My wife and I just split up and I'm wondering if she could be stressed because she's only seeing my wife once a week or so rather than all day every day.

This is a few days old and I can't speak with confidence about dog food options, but in general, any unexplained weight loss in any animal is grounds for a vet consultation. Weight loss is one of the earliest symptoms you get for lots of problems in the GI tract.

Freakbox posted:

Hi PI- mostly lurker here, but I noticed that someone mentioned DCM in dogs a page or so back. I was actually coming to ask about it, so -

I have a two year old (46 pound) Pitbull/Greyhound mix and I feed him grain free, so I'm a bit concerned, but I also know that I'm a worrywort. The brand is Meridian and the ingredients Do contain potatoes and chickpeas, so I'm a bit worried. Would it be alright if I took a photo of the ingredients list? It's a dry food but I was fairly sure it was at least moderate quality.

I just want him to be healthy. He's a good boy.

Edit: they have a website! This is what he's eating right now.
Meridian Daybreak

Bucky being an exhibitionist as a bonus :

The FDA still hasn't determined a definitive cause for the rise in DCM cases, but some vets are recommending that pet owners change to a more proven diet out of an abundance of caution. You should raise your concern to your vet (and if they don't take you seriously, change to a new vet). DCM cases have been reported in lots of breeds and across all ages, so at this point it doesn't seem like there's a "safe" group. However, Meridian isn't listed in the data the FDA has published so far, and not all dogs on grain-free diets are developing DCM (in fact, the number of complaints was very small in the last FDA report - the problem is that it's still a dramatic increase from previous years).

The FDA's most recent report is available here: https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigation-potential-link-between-certain-diets-and-canine-dilated-cardiomyopathy

That page also has a link to a PDF compiling a few years' worth of DCM-related complaints the FDA has received, which you can search for various pet foods.

If changing foods is something you're interested in, this is a good resource for what to look for: https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2016/12/questions-you-should-be-asking-about-your-pets-food/

If you want to stick with your current food, you should watch him for signs of heart issues: fatigue, coughing, fainting, less energy on walks, etc., and keep up with routine vet visits where your vet can monitor for more subtle problems like heart murmurs.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2019 00:22

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

Yeah, honestly I don't know anything about dog food since I just have cats, but I am waaaaay past the point of caring about gimmick ingredients and fad diets from the legions of boutique pet food companies that have sprung up in the last 10-20 years.

Purina has been in the pet food business for over 100 years. They manufacture their own food, and they employ more veterinarians than your average vet clinic. After all of the bullshit that's happened to pet food over the last 20 years, I think you could do worse. I think even the huge melamine scandal from 10 years ago only impacted one of Purina's product lines.

That said, I'll echo the stuff I normally say with cats:
I've used Purina, Wellness, and Solid Gold. They've all been fine for me, but all three companies have had recalls, and I check for new recalls every week just in case. I actively avoid Blue Buffalo and any company that's been in business for less time than a cat's lifespan.

This article is the best advice I've seen on how to navigate pet food selection now: https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2016/12/questions-you-should-be-asking-about-your-pets-food/

# ¿ Sep 21, 2019 00:30

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

SeANMcBAY posted:

One of my little good boy cats, Sweaters, has been having issues with impacted anal glands lately and has been scooting. They�ve been expressed twice but seem to get impacted again soon quickly. My vet suggested changes to his diet. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions in regards to high fiber quality and affordable cat food?

Is your cat overweight? Or is he having issues pooping, like showing signs of constipation/only passing small pellets of poop/having diarrhea? Did you have the vet determine if your cat had an infection in his anal glands?

I'm asking because dietary changes might not fix it if it's recurring because of an infection or disease. If, on the other hand, your cat is just failing to poop normally (which is how anal glands are stimulated naturally), then dietary changes could make a big difference.

If your cat is having problems pooping normally, you might need to try wet foods. These are not typically considered "affordable," but increasing moisture intake can be really helpful for regulating cat pooping habits, depending on what the problem is.

Whether you go with wet or dry food, to determine the fiber content, you're actually going to need to contact the pet food companies directly (unless you can find it listed on their website). Specifically what you're looking for is going to be called the "typical analysis" of "total dietary fiber." The company should also be willing to provide you with the "crude fiber" content (also found in a typical analysis), from which you can roughly determine the soluble vs insoluble fiber in that recipe (very roughly speaking, soluble fiber in a recipe = total dietary fiber - crude fiber, which is fine as an estimate although it isn't quite exact for reasons you probably don't care about). None of this info is provided in a meaningful way in the "guaranteed analysis" you see on pet food labels. Pet food labels are not useful for determining fiber content. You need to get the typical analysis instead.

Fiber requirements can be highly variable between individuals, so it's hard for anyone to recommend a specific diet for fiber. Your vet or a veterinary nutritionist would be the most qualified to recommend a particular soluble/insoluble ratio for your cat based on his health profile. In the absence of that kind of specific advice, I'd suggest getting the typical analysis of fiber in the food you're currently using, because then you'll know what baseline to use to find a higher fiber food. Then you can contact the manufacturers of other foods that you're interested in, and compare that fiber.

I mean, I can tell you that insoluble fiber is what bulks up stool, and bulkier stool might put more pressure on the anal glands while pooping to keep them operating normally. But if your cat is constipated, adding more bulk to his stool could just make that problem worse, and you instead want to find the right balance of soluble/insoluble fiber to keep him pooping regularly. So it's really going to depend on your cat.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2019 23:28

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:39

LoreOfSerpents: Dec 29, 2001; No.

SeANMcBAY posted:

He�s not overweight at all. He�s a healthy weight according to the vet. He�s also pooping fine as far as I can tell. His glands are not infected yet. She thinks he may also be allergic to something but suggest diet changes first before going that route. Thank you for the information.

Wait, are you saying your vet thinks an allergy might be causing anal gland impaction? Or is the allergy thing totally separate?

Healthy pooping habits for a cat:
- Bowel movement every 1-2 days
- Shape/consistency is a recognizable "2" on the cat fecal scoring chart (fair warning, if you google that it is exactly what you'd expect to see)
- Color is plain brown, not too dark or too light

If your vet is concerned about allergies, I have two more suggestions:
- Whatever food you try, stick to common proteins like chicken for now. This will make it easier to try a novel protein diet later if you do need to go down the limited ingredient route.
- Talk to a veterinarian who specializes in allergies. If you're in the US, you may have an animal allergy clinic nearby, or your vet may be able to order a consultation from an allergist at a veterinary university who will look over the cat's symptoms and records without you having to go there yourself.

Talking to a specialist in allergy cases can be helpful because limited ingredient diets suck A LOT, especially if you have multiple cats, and you really only want to go down that route if you absolutely have to. Also because allergists are way more familiar with symptoms of allergies. I mean, if my vet looked at a cat who had normal pooping habits but kept getting impacted anal glands and she said he might be allergic to something, I'd think she was high.

[ Edit: I should clarify, dermatological symptoms are very commonly associated with allergies in cats, including food allergies, so that would also explain a vet's concern with allergies. I'm just assuming that's not relevant in your case since your cat tax photo shows a very happy cat face. ]

LoreOfSerpents fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Sep 26, 2019

# ¿ Sep 26, 2019 00:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > Pet Nutrition Thread: I see no problem with my cat's vegan diet.