Begging Kitties

[zoebartlett]

Date: 12/19/2007 6:59:03 PM
Author: Elmorton

Our kitties should be eating 1 cup to 1 cup and 1/4 of food a day! I completely misread the bag and have been feeding them for half their weight. I''m going to burn in cat-hell, I swear.

So clearly, there is more in their bowls tonight. I am so ashamed...

Anyway, thank you all so much for helping!

You might want to double check with your vet just to make sure the portion size is correct. Do you think they list a higher portion size than needed so you''ll run out sooner and have to buy more food and spend more money in the process?

 

[rainbowtrout]

Date: 12/19/2007 5:25:11 PM
Author: FireGoddess
Re: the SD prescription diets....I've read that they are recc'd by vets because the vets get kickbacks, but I'm scared to change my kitty's food away from that because she had kidney stones and frequent UTIs before, and since the surgery and going on that SD prescription diet 8 years ago, she has had NO further problems. But I worry that she could be getting better food. Yet I don't want to risk giving her those old problems back if this stuff is working.


My new kitty gets Wellness canned and dry foods. I've been tempted to switch her to EVO, but she likes the Wellness just fine and I'm sure it's better than most stuff out there. I can also get the Wellness at a pet club store near me, whereas the EVO would require some 'searching out.' (Also the phosphorous content and renal deficiency stuff makes me wary just cuz of the issues my older cat has so I figure I just won't 'go there.')

Hey FG!


Since you're a grownup (i.e. not a grad student), this may not matter as much, but the Innova EVO is a good 60 cents cheaper a can. That matter to me--a lot. Prolly not as much to you though both excellent food though so it doesn't really matter aside from that IMO.


I did want to say that I got to see a S/D rep in the vets office today with MC. Creepy. CREEPY. She gave the head of the practice a two hour massage. Then she gave the other major docs at the practice equally impressive gifts, and the staff some little trinkets. She won her sales rep award, and is going to Cancun for it.
Yeah.

Sounds like a drug rep to me.

 

[rainbowtrout]

Um, I mean, a two hour GIFT certificate for a massage. Just in case that wasn''t clear.

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

I highly reccomend only using pet food companies that have APHIS certification. This means that they only use human grade materials. If the ingrediants list has "meat by products" or othetr non specific meat references, DO NOT get it. There is some really awful things in that including euthanized cats and dogs.

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 12/19/2007 6:59:03 PM
Author: Elmorton
Our kitties should be eating 1 cup to 1 cup and 1/4 of food a day! I completely misread the bag and have been feeding them for half their weight. I''m going to burn in cat-hell, I swear.

So clearly, there is more in their bowls tonight. I am so ashamed...

Anyway, thank you all so much for helping!

You''re just lucky they haven''t been gnawing on you in your sleep. LOL.

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 12/19/2007 8:47:43 PM
Author: rainbowtrout
Hey FG!

Since you''re a grownup (i.e. not a grad student), this may not matter as much, but the Innova EVO is a good 60 cents cheaper a can. That matter to me--a lot. Prolly not as much to you though both excellent food though so it doesn''t really matter aside from that IMO.

I did want to say that I got to see a S/D rep in the vets office today with MC. Creepy. CREEPY. She gave the head of the practice a two hour massage. Then she gave the other major docs at the practice equally impressive gifts, and the staff some little trinkets. She won her sales rep award, and is going to Cancun for it.
Yeah.

Sounds like a drug rep to me.

Oh. My. God.

I wonder how Chloe would do on the Wellness. Hmmmmm. I tried to figure out the ash and magnesium content for Wellness versus the Hills XD (now CD multicare), and I remember the Hills was less (which is what you want for kitties with urinary/kidney issues). Except now I''m somewhat confused as to how SD has been able to COMBINE the cd and xd foods when one is for kitties with urine pH that is too high, and one is for kitties with urine pH that is too low. I mean, how can the same product work for both?! I''d love to know, and the vet could not explain it to me. So I''ve been feeding it to her, but I wonder if Wellness would be just as good.

Re: the cost, I do remember what it was like to be a grad student...so I feel the pinch, believe me!!

 

[AmberGretchen]

Date: 12/19/2007 9:15:12 PM
Author: FireGoddess

Date: 12/19/2007 6:59:03 PM

Author: Elmorton

Our kitties should be eating 1 cup to 1 cup and 1/4 of food a day! I completely misread the bag and have been feeding them for half their weight. I''m going to burn in cat-hell, I swear.


So clearly, there is more in their bowls tonight. I am so ashamed...

Anyway, thank you all so much for helping!

You''re just lucky they haven''t been gnawing on you in your sleep. LOL.

Elmorton - your kitties are ADORABLE

What sweet babies

FYI, there was a long thread about better pet food choices for both cat and dog foods that raised a lot of good suggestions and issues around the time of the pet food recalls. Tha thread can be found here - its probably worth a look if you get a chance.

Also, I wouldn''t stress too much about the volume you''re feeding - ask your vet about that. My kitties are pretty big, and the vet recommended 1/2 cup of food per cat per day (we feed a mixture of Innova regular and Innova EVO) and the cats love it.

I said this in the other thread but want to re-iterate here - after we switched our kitties from Nutro Natural Choice to Innova, our vet was beyond impressed. They couldn''t stop raving about how healthy and glowing their coats and teeth and eyes and everything were. So to me, that is a better recommendation than just about anything else.

 

[movie zombie]

i've run the gamut of health issues with my cats.......and i think that in some ways we contributed to their problems by not getting educated regarding pet food sooner. i'm working with my vet to educate her as well. i've printed out many pages from the website i mentioned earlier to give to her to read.

unfortunately, pet food reps and the companies have good $$$ for advertising and have convinced the public as well as vets that they have nothing but the pet's needs foremost in their interest.....NOT: they're into making $ and that's the bottom line. dry food backed so that anything good in it goes out and then it is sprayed with a cocktail mixture to add nutrients and flavor. corn and wheat are cheap fillers.

what bothered me the most is that the food the vet suggested for the cats with the kidney problems had even more corn and wheat in them than their regular food! eta: it is the rare vet that hasn't bought iinto the advertising hype.......

and let's face it: getting educated re pet foods is time consuming. but i figure my cats are more important than my jewelry so i owe it to them to do as much research for their health and well being as i would a diamond or other gem.

the website i provided also gives the formula for figuring out just what is in the food you are feeding. the percentages on the packages don't give you the info you need. also, dry food and wet food cannot be compared without using a 2nd forumla that adjusts for their differences. it takes more than just reading the labels: it also takes knowing what the ingredients mean. some ingredients are listed in such a way to get around the fact that they really are a carb.

cat food didn't used to contain corn or wheat but manufacturers found it a cheap way to cut costs and increase profits. its at this time that certain diseases in cats start to manifest. its not that our cats are living longer and now we're seeing the diseases, its that we've been making them sick with what we feed them. i'm as guilty as anyone.....i did the easy thing......but no longer.

movie zombie

 

[bee*]

Date: 12/19/2007 12:24:13 PM
Author: amy_dub

Date: 12/19/2007 11:21:43 AM

Author: laine


ETA: According to what I''ve read, mostly here on PS, Science Diet is just as bad as the other mainstream brands, they just market it to vets so it seems better and give it free to vets for their own use so they will tell clients they use it. Don''t know if its 100% true, but I don''t use it. Science Diet does make specialized food for various health issues that are said to be good, and can be a lifesaver if you need it, but I wouldn''t bother with their regular food.

Science diet prescription diets are just as bad! from most of what i''ve read, they are formulated to continue to cause problems so that you''ll continue to use their products.


Most vets recommend SD because they get kick back from it for selling it in their offices. Plus in vet schools, vets spend very little time on nutrition and just recommend whatever the learn in clinicals, which is generally SD because SD funds some vet programs.

Have to disagree with you on the prescription diets-I find them absolutely brilliant for some of our dogs. The SP J/D food for a lot of our clients has been a miracle worker. I wouldn''t bother putting a dog on the SP normal food, but the prescription diets really do work.
Also I''m in vet school in Ireland, and we have five hours of nutrition lectures a week. Not sure what it''s like in the US but we are taught so much about nutrition.

 

[bee*]

Date: 12/19/2007 9:10:56 PM
Author: brazen_irish_hussy
I highly reccomend only using pet food companies that have APHIS certification. This means that they only use human grade materials. If the ingrediants list has ''meat by products'' or othetr non specific meat references, DO NOT get it. There is some really awful things in that including euthanized cats and dogs.

totally agree with this. Some of the things they put into food is

 

[chrono]

The wet food being bad for the teeth and dry kibble good for the teeth is fallacy. It''s like saying eating hard biscuits/cookies is good for human teeth, so I don''t need to brush afterwards.

 

[Cleopatra]

After waking up for the fourth time with diarrhea and vomit on my bathroom floor, I''ve decided to switch Cleo''s dry and wet food. I searched the countless threads on good vs. bad pet food and I just purchased a bag of Innova Evo dry food and cans of regular Innova food (purchased online - as we don''t have any upscale pet stores on my end of nowhere).

I''ve noticed some say that Evo doesn''t give enough of something to be completely healthy for a kitty''s only source of nutrition...is this true? AmberGretchen seems to be the expert on this, so I''m hoping that she chimes in. Will the Innova regular canned food be sufficient for Cleo''s overall health when we give her wet food no more than twice a week? Or should I mix Innova dry food and the Evo dry food together as you have suggested?

I''m sick of cleaning puke...

 

[zoebartlett]

Date: 12/19/2007 8:49:20 PM
Author: rainbowtrout
Um, I mean, a two hour GIFT certificate for a massage. Just in case that wasn''t clear.

I burst out laughing when I read this. I truly thought you meant a real massage. All I could think of was, "no WONDER she''s going to Cancun! That''s the best rep ever! Also a little creepy."

 

[chrono]

Date: 12/20/2007 8:48:37 AM
Author: zoebartlett

Date: 12/19/2007 8:49:20 PM
Author: rainbowtrout
Um, I mean, a two hour GIFT certificate for a massage. Just in case that wasn''t clear.

I burst out laughing when I read this. I truly thought you meant a real massage. All I could think of was, ''no WONDER she''s going to Cancun! That''s the best rep ever! Also a little creepy.''

It''s a good thing you clarified this later. I was thinking, "man, that sure is a very special rep to have the know-how of massage and to actually perform a 2 hour massage."

 

[Lorelei]

I also had visions of the rep actually doing the massage on the practice head...

 

[bee*]

Date: 12/20/2007 8:30:26 AM
Author: Cleopatra
After waking up for the fourth time with diarrhea and vomit on my bathroom floor, I''ve decided to switch Cleo''s dry and wet food. I searched the countless threads on good vs. bad pet food and I just purchased a bag of Innova Evo dry food and cans of regular Innova food (purchased online - as we don''t have any upscale pet stores on my end of nowhere).


I''ve noticed some say that Evo doesn''t give enough of something to be completely healthy for a kitty''s only source of nutrition...is this true? AmberGretchen seems to be the expert on this, so I''m hoping that she chimes in. Will the Innova regular canned food be sufficient for Cleo''s overall health when we give her wet food no more than twice a week? Or should I mix Innova dry food and the Evo dry food together as you have suggested?


I''m sick of cleaning puke...

One of the main things that kittens and cats need is taurine which is an essential amino acid that cat''s can''t make enough of themselves. They can get this from most animal derived proteins though. They also can''t synthesize Vitamin A so that has to be provided in a pre-formed version in the diet and again that''s derived from animal derived products. Other than that, make sure the food contains Calcium, Phosphorous, small amount of Magnesium and Niacin.

 

[rainbowtrout]

The EVO dry is a complete nutritional diet. I feed it when I am away on vacation.

Anyway, I am not sure I see the point of just feeding wet once or twice a week. The big plus of wet is the water content, especially for male cats, and they won''t get that benefit just from eating it as a treat. Of course, there are other benefits, the protein content in wet being a big one, but the water is also paramount.

 

[Cleopatra]

Oh thank you Bee! You just made me take a deep breath I''ve been reading up on Evo a lot lately and it does provide all of those vitamins and minerals that you mentioned.

I''m just worried about little Cleo because there is a lot of protein in this food, and I''m scared it might be a shock to her body to switch to such a different food. I may have to slowly mix it into her current food to get her tummy used to this new formula.

 

[Cleopatra]

Date: 12/20/2007 9:02:00 AM
Author: rainbowtrout
The EVO dry is a complete nutritional diet. I feed it when I am away on vacation.


Anyway, I am not sure I see the point of just feeding wet once or twice a week. The big plus of wet is the water content, especially for male cats, and they won''t get that benefit just from eating it as a treat. Of course, there are other benefits, the protein content in wet being a big one, but the water is also paramount.

I actually just got Cleo a few months ago - she is the first cat I''ve ever owned, and I tried to do plenty of research on kitties to make sure I was doing the best I could in raising her.

FI thinks that wet food is a "treat" for Cleo. Cleo goes BONKERS when we open a can of wet, and she nearly makes herself sick eating it so quickly - so, we''ve come to think of canned food as more of a treat for her than an actual food staple. Is that pointless???

 

[bee*]

Date: 12/19/2007 8:49:20 PM
Author: rainbowtrout
Um, I mean, a two hour GIFT certificate for a massage. Just in case that wasn''t clear.

hehe!! I was thinking our vets would love if the rep gave them a massage

 

[rainbowtrout]

Date: 12/20/2007 9:04:03 AM
Author: Cleopatra
Oh thank you Bee! You just made me take a deep breath I''ve been reading up on Evo a lot lately and it does provide all of those vitamins and minerals that you mentioned.


I''m just worried about little Cleo because there is a lot of protein in this food, and I''m scared it might be a shock to her body to switch to such a different food. I may have to slowly mix it into her current food to get her tummy used to this new formula.

Cleo, any food which is certified AAFCO means they fed it to a control group for six months and it at least marginally met their nutritive needs. So, it HAS to have taurine and vitA. It might not always be the BEST food, but you can rest that the cat won''t die on it. Usually most common "brand name" foods are AAFCO, its on the side of the bag or can.

 

[movie zombie]

Date: 12/20/2007 9:06:22 AM
Author: Cleopatra

Date: 12/20/2007 9:02:00 AM
Author: rainbowtrout
The EVO dry is a complete nutritional diet. I feed it when I am away on vacation.


Anyway, I am not sure I see the point of just feeding wet once or twice a week. The big plus of wet is the water content, especially for male cats, and they won''t get that benefit just from eating it as a treat. Of course, there are other benefits, the protein content in wet being a big one, but the water is also paramount.

I actually just got Cleo a few months ago - she is the first cat I''ve ever owned, and I tried to do plenty of research on kitties to make sure I was doing the best I could in raising her.

FI thinks that wet food is a ''treat'' for Cleo. Cleo goes BONKERS when we open a can of wet, and she nearly makes herself sick eating it so quickly - so, we''ve come to think of canned food as more of a treat for her than an actual food staple. Is that pointless???

short and simple: yes. she eats so quickly because she''s afraid she''s not not going to get more and its what her body needs. dry food is really starving your cat.....it does NOT have the nutrition your cat needs. ask your FI to read the website i provided. its an eye opener.

and there is a difference between Innova and Evo....same manufacturer, different ingredients.

movie zombie

 

[AmberGretchen]

Cleopatra - it sounds like you''re doing the right thing, transitioning slowly onto a better quality food. That''s sweet that you think I''m an expert - honestly I feel like there is always more to learn (and I''m getting a PhD in Immunology, so you wouldn''t think this would seem complicated by comparison, but it does!!). There''s a lot of conflicting information out there, and many of the studies that are needed either haven''t been done or haven''t been done in a way that makes them scientifically convincing. I''m not as convinced as Movie zombie about the wet food only (no disrespect meant at all MZ - I can certainly see the arguments for it and they are powerful). I feed a mixture of Innova regular and EVO because I did read what seemed to be a well-considered piece written by a veterinary nutritionist (which sadly I can''t find the link to anymore) which said that EVO alone might put cats at a slightly higher risk of developing urinary tract blockages.

There was some really good information about this on that previous thread (I posted the link above), including from some people who I think have done some really thorough research through what''s out there.

Bottom line, I personally believe, based on what I''ve read and know, that feeding a high-quality dry food and/or a high quality wet food and/or a properly prepared raw diet to your cat are all better than feeding Iams or Purina or regular SD or whatever other mainstream brand. Beyond that, I think there''s a fair amount of uncertainty and not as much good evidence one way or the other as I would personally prefer to see in order to make more definite determinations.

I hope that helps. I really think that a combo of what you got - the Innova EVO and the Innova wet food will be great for your little Cleo. And if she really likes the wet food, I think its fine to feed only that. My kitties turn their noses up at wet food most of the time (and I''ve tried most of the high-quality brands on them - Merrick, Innova, Felidae, and others), so its mostly kibble in our house because that is what they will eat.

 

[zoebartlett]

Just out of curiosity, what are the price differences between the recommended brands? I called my vet and asked him if there was a particular brand he''d recommend and he didn''t have one. He didn''t tell me to stay away from Iams though, which is what I''ve been using. A big bag in the regular grocery store or Target is something like $14.00. I try to get it from the local animal rescue league (where we got one of our cats) when I can, although it''s a little more expensive. I figure that if I can remember to buy their food from the rescue league, the money''s going to a good cause.

 

[Aloros]

The better-quality stuff is always more expensive, but since they contain less fillers, the cats don''t need to eat as much to be satisfied. And the best part?

Their poop doesn''t stink as much!

I have to stick my nose waaaay up in the litterbox to catch a whiff (I do empty it regularly as well). Plus, I count it as sort of an insurance plan, since the cat will likely suffer fewer health problems.

 

[laine]

Date: 12/20/2007 6:01:23 PM
Author: zoebartlett
Just out of curiosity, what are the price differences between the recommended brands?

I pay about $33 for a 15lb bag of Innova EVO. With 2 active young cats, it lasts me about 7 weeks.

 

[misysu2]

I paid 9.99 for a 6-lb bag of Wellness from my local Whole Foods.

 

[chrono]

I buy by the bulk, so my local store gives me a discount. Something like $1.10 per Wellness can and also similiar for California Natural. www.petfooddirect.com has great prices when you can take advantage of the 20% off sales. It doesn''t happen all the time so I just keep me eyes peeled for it.

 

[Deelight]

I have never even heard of Wellness, Innova I do not even think they sell them here (Australia).

I personally have never had a problem with SD, I have with any other foods I have feed my Persian from diahorea (which is yuck

) to vomiting and teeth problems from feeding only wet food because our cat would not eat dry food that was until we tried the SD/TD and then the furball one he loves, SD is the only hard food he will eat. Their stools are small, firm and not as smelly, so for me it works.

I have feed my cats Science Diet and have for years one from when I found him and the other from about 1yr old if anything they have thrived and blossomed on the stuff, our cats gets furballs and vomit unless we feed them the SD (hairball control), if you have ever seen a poor kitty get a furball i it is not pretty

. It is worrying hearing nasty stuff about but as far as I am aware it is the most complete and nutritionally dense cat food available here, which is why I fork out the mega bucks for my kitties food.

 

[chrono]

Dee,
SD and the furball formulation did not work on my kitty. She still hacked up gross stuff like crazy on the furball SD. She did well as a kitten but as she got older, she put became overweight and had a ton of health problems until I switched. I''m sure there must be some other cat food manufacturer in Ozzie that makes good stuff.