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Mooch - one wet food that I absolutely LOVE is Tiki Cat (you know when Mommy says its stinky - real sardine and fish bits - that it is going to be good!). It is sometimes hard to find but if you can find a retailer they have a variety pack that might be worth a try. The website is http://www.petropics.com/.
Thank you always for your thoughtful, uplifting responses!
I kept thinking all last night about the dry issue and not pushing my mom to get her 2 off of it... Urgh, MOTHERS! How can I not encourage her to get hers off of dry, too, now that I know the benefits of it?
>You know your mom best, but mom says she would also have given your mom a can of wet food for Yoyo, and told her to leave it out for him overnight, and wear earplugs to bed. Who knows, she might have been surprised by what she found in the morning.
I agree. I should have pushed for her to do that. Unfortunately, by the time she called me, Yoyo had meowled Mom's patience away (he does every day -- and that's why he and his sister Lulu come stay at my place during the daytime through until early evening - we've had many discussions about this, too, and this is just the way it goes -- they all love to play together, so it's nice for them anyway). We used to have a daily fight about her feeding too many 100% horse meat snacks so I had to stop providing them for her and her guys.
Anyway, long story short (hard for me apparently, LOL), in order to give them a 3 oz Wellness canned, she'd have had to have do some work (put water in and mush it up to become the consistency that they like or they won't eat it), and I wussied out to encourage her to do so since she was already being so short and I've been rather fed up having to explain things to her.
Nevertheless, I should have told her to open a 5.5 oz Evo wet, which is already nice and pasty.
>Yesterday mom surprised her mom as she was letting me eat breadcrumbs on top of the dining room table.
LMAO! Woo hoo, breadcrumbs!
My guys hate anything for human consumption except I once caught Mooch licking the pesto spread off my toast, much to my horror! (Lots of bad stuff in there, obviously!)
>I know the concern for getting enough calories must be on the back of your mind, but as you're transitioning them, let them dictate their pace.
Thanks. We seem to be in a good groove - this morning I fed them their breakfast : a little over 1 tbsp of dry, and I split a 3oz can of Wellness between them (I just have my two guys this morning), and they did a pretty good job of eating it all! Only about a tbsp and a half of wet left!
>she didn't load the feeder properly recently, and that she needed to make it up to me
LOL, you're cute! I'm glad to hear your mom figured it out and made things up to you.
Again, thanks. I needed that encouragement. Maybe I'll write out a new menu chart for her feedings to help her out some. And I'll continue to support going all wet for all 4.
We're switching over to wet, and a strange thing has happened--we're losing weight! We really vacuum up our food (which is doled out in generous helpings) but are losing weight anyway! This is good for portly Spot (he's lost 1.4 kilos!), but Harvey has gone from 7.5 kilos to a little over 6 kilos! This is NOT good for a Maine Coon show kitty, especially in the Premiership Class, where they're supposed to be bulkier and more mature-looking than the Champions. Hmm...
Maggie - I didn't see your post until just now! I'm sorry! Thank you for your suggestion on Tiki. Hmm. I'm not sure if I've seen that here, but I'll take a look.
Harvey - Can I just tell you how jealous I am that you guys all slurp down your wet? We are making no progress at all. I know you said you were eating cheapo wet food - can you tell me what it's called? I've just spent the last two hours searching Catster and any other cat food forums place and also all over google for healthy wet foods in Japan and came up with nothing.
I even looked for Fancy Feast and have found that it's called Mon Petit here...maybe? But I want to get the specific ones that have no bad stuff in them, and since all the names are totally different....urgh! I wrote to Purina in the States to see if they could somehow help me figure out what is what.
Why on earth are all the wet foods in Japan FISH? Aren't you not supposed to feed your cat fish more than once a week?
LOL about you Maine Coons losing weight while chowing down! Oh, we want to stop the dry so bad!
About the Maine coons loosing weight on canned food, yes this will happen so you need to give them more protein for muscle mass, chicken would be good. There is a new food out there called before grain by Merricks, but I choose not to use that food, as Im a bit iffy on them being right next to a rendering plant.
Yes, I've been told that by several breeders, including a scary Persian lady (she's not Persian, she's a Japanese who RAISES Persians), who said in a basso profundo smoker's voice "RAW MEAT! RAW MEAT! THAT'S THE TICKET! RAW MEAT!" It made me wonder what SHE chows down on at dinner time...
The other alternatives I've been offered have been to (1) go back, yup, to Science Diet, which will put on the pounds again, but not necessarily healthily, and besides which, if I don't give Harvey wet food, he rips my hair out by the roots while I'm sleeping, and/or (2) keep him in a cage for a few weeks or so (one of those three-tiered, ceiling-high jobbies) with lots of food and nothing else to do all day but eat, and then letting him out for a vigorous exercise session once a day. Neither of these options seems to be particularly cat-friendly.
It is true, though, that even though show kitties are generally speaking pampered, spoiled, and totally devoted to their owners, there are aspects of cat showing that are not necessarily nice, at least from the cat lovers' point of view. It's all about human ego--Henry starts losing weight and goes back to picture-on-the-Wheaties box sleek muscularity, and I want to turn him into a fat gob. Shame on me. But I want those Best of Breed and Second Best of Breed ribbons that will send him to the Finals...Well, more exercise, and more chicken, and raw sliced beef (which is easy to get, and which the cats will eat with relative enthusiasm) are all things I'll try, starting today. I'm sure glad I bought a baby scale--I can keep track of daily weight fluctuations from now on. And there's a month till the next show, so if I'm lucky, I can get Henry back to his fighting weight in a healthy, stress-free manner.
The woman that suggested RAW MEAT, RAW MEAT is absolutely CORRECT. Firstly cats are OBLIGATE CARNIVORES, secondly cats should not eat a dry diet. Domestic cats are descended from desert dwelling felines and MUST subsist on meat to be truly healthy. Also cats normally DO NOT drink a lot of water. A cat who eats dry food cannot make up for the amount of water that is lost by eating a raw or wet diet no matter how much water it drinks. This also overly stresses the kidneys and dry food is the leading culprit of urinary stones and crystals.
My cats eat a 90% wet diet and I use a very high quality, meat-based , grain-free kibble as a "topper or mix-in " a few sprinkles to satisfy their urge to have something to crunch. They eat mostly Wellness , EVO, Wysong or California Natural grain free canned foods... and they absolutely LOVE Natural Life canned cat food ( made w/all organic and natural ingredients ) which you can find at Petfooddirect.com or WalMart. I sprinkle a tiny bit.. maybe a spoonful of dry in the bowl and mix it in with 1/4 can of wet food , add a liquid organic enzyme supplement I buy at Petsmart and some Salmon or fish oil and 1/4 cap of Uva Ursi ( homeopathic herb ) to the food to ward off urinary tract and bladder problems along with DISTILLED water. Cats should never drink tap or spring water because of the minerals which contribute to urinary stones and crystals. So far so good.... they've been in the best health EVER.
Cats are finicky, but only if you let them be. They learn soon enough they have to eat or starve. I just wish they'd learn to eat raw. Thank god the dogs like it
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so I had to stop providing them for her and her guys.
(Lots of bad stuff in there, obviously!)
Maybe I'll write out a new menu chart for her feedings to help her out some. And I'll continue to support going all wet for all 4.
