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I'm so sorry you had that experience. Unfortunately most folks are unaware that vets receive very little actual education involving feline dietary needs. What indoctrination they do get, is provided by the big pet food manufacturers in what is more of a marketing campaign that factual education. Please follow the link posted by Sonic Spork above.
I have lived with and been owned by cats for nearly 30 years, and I stopped discussing cat diets with my vet years ago.
Thank you, and I saved the link. One thing I wonder about.... if cats are fed strictly a soft food diet, how will that affect their dental health?
Thank you, and I saved the link. One thing I wonder about.... if cats are fed strictly a soft food diet, how will that affect their dental health?
I don't know why it would affect their dental health. Just the opposite, cats are programmed to eat meat, not hard dry food. Even their tongues have evolved to be like sandpaper so they can more easily lick meat off of bones.
I don't know why it would affect their dental health. Just the opposite, cats are programmed to eat meat, not hard dry food. Even their tongues have evolved to be like sandpaper so they can more easily lick meat off of bones.
True, but also bones, right? Which they will not get from canned food.
True, but also bones, right? Which they will not get from canned food.
Cats need moisture in their food. They won't make up the lack of moisture at the water bowl.
A kibble fed cat is always dehydrated to some extent. SO not good.
If you can't feed raw, at least feed canned.
Kibble doesn't help. The very accurate analogy made by those who specialize in feline nutrition, is this: When you, human, want to clean your teeth, do you eat cookies? Dry cereal? How would that work?
Particles of dry food matter get up in the gums. It doesn't help. Beyond that, if a human is dehydrated with a dry mouth much of the time, that also negatively affects the health of the gums and teeth.
So what does work? Well, if you can get your cat to cooperate (lol!) they do sell toothbrushes and cat-safe toothpaste. I'm very skeptical of this as a reliable means to clean the teeth of your average cat, though, merely because most won't sit for it. You can get a vet to do a cleaning of the cat's teeth, and if the cat must be sedated for any other purpose it's not a bad idea to tack that on there. Though I for one am not keen to do a special trip and take the risks of sedating my buddy just for that alone. The one other thing I've heard suggested, which might work, is to give the cat tough organ meat that they have to actually chew and gnaw. (Raw, not cooked.)
However, one thing I've read, is to never give a cat raw meat if they eat dry food as any part of their diet. A cat's digestive system can handle the bacteria present in raw meat, but not if they have dry food in their gut slowing things down.
The other thing that people sometimes ask me about when I tell them about all-wet diets, is they figure it would give the cat loose, stinky poops. Incorrect. Dry food will do that. But a healthy, wet-fed cat has highly efficient digestion, the hair moves through the gut and the poo is small and dry and not very smelly. They have fewer hairballs and they vomit rarely if at all. That whole "cats puke a lot" thing, that's a dry food problem. Or some other issue that is not normal or healthy.
Basically the premise is that cats don't need plant carbs. They really don't. The amount that a healthy cat in the wild would ingest is negligible. They get no nutritional, digestive, or dental health benefit from them. They are obligate carnivores and they need meat. The pet food companies are not marketing food to your cat. They are marketing it to YOU. That's why instead of "raw mousies, baby bunnies, lizards, moths and songbirds" in a can, you can find "Thanksgiving dinner with wild rice and vegetables." That's not cat food. That's people food.
Kibble doesn't help. The very accurate analogy made by those who specialize in feline nutrition, is this: When you, human, want to clean your teeth, do you eat cookies? Dry cereal? How would that work?
Particles of dry food matter get up in the gums. It doesn't help. Beyond that, if a human is dehydrated with a dry mouth much of the time, that also negatively affects the health of the gums and teeth.
So what does work? Well, if you can get your cat to cooperate (lol!) they do sell toothbrushes and cat-safe toothpaste. I'm very skeptical of this as a reliable means to clean the teeth of your average cat, though, merely because most won't sit for it. You can get a vet to do a cleaning of the cat's teeth, and if the cat must be sedated for any other purpose it's not a bad idea to tack that on there. Though I for one am not keen to do a special trip and take the risks of sedating my buddy just for that alone. The one other thing I've heard suggested, which might work, is to give the cat tough organ meat that they have to actually chew and gnaw. (Raw, not cooked.)
However, one thing I've read, is to never give a cat raw meat if they eat dry food as any part of their diet. A cat's digestive system can handle the bacteria present in raw meat, but not if they have dry food in their gut slowing things down.
The other thing that people sometimes ask me about when I tell them about all-wet diets, is they figure it would give the cat loose, stinky poops. Incorrect. Dry food will do that. But a healthy, wet-fed cat has highly efficient digestion, the hair moves through the gut and the poo is small and dry and not very smelly. They have fewer hairballs and they vomit rarely if at all. That whole "cats puke a lot" thing, that's a dry food problem. Or some other issue that is not normal or healthy.
Basically the premise is that cats don't need plant carbs. They really don't. The amount that a healthy cat in the wild would ingest is negligible. They get no nutritional, digestive, or dental health benefit from them. They are obligate carnivores and they need meat. The pet food companies are not marketing food to your cat. They are marketing it to YOU. That's why instead of "raw mousies, baby bunnies, lizards, moths and songbirds" in a can, you can find "Thanksgiving dinner with wild rice and vegetables." That's not cat food. That's people food.
Good info, thanks! But organ meat is not very tough! Liver? What about giving them raw chicken breasts/thighs now and then with their canned food diet?
Good info, thanks! But organ meat is not very tough! Liver? What about giving them raw chicken breasts/thighs now and then with their canned food diet?
I think the one I heard about was someone giving their cat raw chicken hearts. I've given Nimbus bites of raw chicken meat when I was preparing dinner before, and he eats mainly canned food (no dry.) But mostly this has been a matter of training and reinforcing to keep him away from my countertops while I'm cooking. He only gets a "treat" if he sits in a particular spot on the floor, on the other side of the kitchen, out of the way. He loves the meat, and it has not had any ill effects on him. (But I am not sure about the state of his teeth. They look cleanish? His breath doesn't stink... *shrug* ??)
The one thing is, raw diets are considered to be the best, gold standard, by many of the nutritionists, but it's vital to follow a recipe that includes meat, organ, bone, and supplemental taurine in the right proportions. I haven't gotten into it because I don't have a grinder, or the freezer space, and I don't have much time to be preparing cat food (I barely cook for the humans!) so I go the lazy, but more expensive route, of canned food.
I've been quite tempted to buy the frozen mice you can get from the pet store (meant for feeding snakes, I think) and giving them to the cat, but I have this thought that he'd eat part of it and I'd find the rest behind the sofa...so I don't.
I fed chicken hearts, when I could find them. They were sold in a package mixed with gizzards, and I would mix some into a batch of raw food. The cats loved the hearts but wouldn't eat the gizzards.
My understanding is that taurine is naturally present in raw meat, so no supplement is needed if the meat is fed raw. I think cooking is what destroys or somehow modifies the taurine, to a certain degree or percentage, which is why extra is added before cooking, so that some will survive the processing to be ingested by the cat.
I tried giving my cat chicken livers and hearts just as a treat and she wanted nothing to do with it. This same cat swallowed a mouse whole like she was eating caviar, go figure.....
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