Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘dry food’

Nature’s WORST

Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , , on June 24, 2009| 4 Comments »

Apparently they are giving out free samples of Hills’ “Nature’s Best” dry dog and cat food somewhere near work. Someone left a sample on the table at work yesterday and today there was a woman on the elevator holding three samples. I could NOT hold my tongue in the elevator – and simply told her “You know, that is NOT very good pet food.” She said “it’s not?” and I said “No, read the ingredients. Mostly grains, little meat. I used that exact pet food as an example of BAD pet foods in a recent talk I gave on the subject, and why reading labels is important.”

If you’ve read anything on my blog, you probably know I do NOT think feeding dry pet food is a good idea. I also DETEST Hills’ pet foods – they use horrible quality ingredients and were among the last to stop using carcinogens as preservatives… all under the guise of being “veterinarian recommended”. Recommended by vets because they give free food to vet students and fund vet courses on animal nutrition and market themselves HEAVILY to vets! NOT because they make good pet food!

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Vets and pet food

Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , , , , on December 11, 2008| 4 Comments »

This post has actually been a work-in-progress for some time, but a phone call today pushed me to try and finish it. That phone call took place with the internal medicine specialist treating Studley. The specialist has diagnosed Studley with pancreatitis and IBD, based on an ultrasound performed Tuesday. Today he got back the results of Studley’s GI lab, and expressed some confusion that while he KNOWS Studley has IBD (based on the ultrasound results), his GI lab results (cobalamin and folate) were normal.

I do NOT generally openly disagree with most vets (to their face). I’ll express my opinions to my regular vet, who acts very open to my ideas and thoughts – but I’ve learned not to waste my time and breath on many vets who really don’t care what I think about anything. They just want me to do what I’m told. However, today for whatever reason I felt the need to tell this specialist my suspicions on why Studley’s results were normal. I told him I had worked with many cats with IBD, adopted and fostered, and I fed all my cats an “IBD friendly” diet. This diet had eliminated symptoms and normalized GI lab results for the other cats I’d worked with – and my thinking was, if Studley was fed this “IBD diet”, and it’s treated these other cats with IBD, it made sense to me that it’d also treated Studley, without my knowing he even had IBD.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Fat cat, skinny cat – what ya gonna do?

Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , on November 28, 2008| 5 Comments »

Obesity seems a rather fitting post-Thanksgiving subject, doesn’t it? However, in this case I’m talking about feline obesity.

Not coincidentally, recent research shows the most effective method of “normalizing” a cat’s weight is feeding a low-carbohydrate WET diet (canned or raw). Normalizing a cat’s weight means inducing weight loss or weight gain in order to achieve an ideal weight. So, this diet not only works best for those chubby kitties that need to lose weight – but also those skinny kitties that need to put on some weight (particularly muscle)!

I witnessed this myself first-hand with my cats, Omaha and Afer. When I adopted Omaha in 2003, he was morbidly obese at over 20 pounds (estimated ideal weight of 8 pounds).

Omaha at the shelter - over 20 pounds

Omaha at the shelter - over 20 pounds

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Junk Food

Posted in Chi-Town Fur Gang, Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , on September 9, 2008| 3 Comments »

Friends of mine compared dry food to doughnuts, candy, or chips recently.  They noted that a little bit given to a healthy cat, probably won’t hurt them.  I actually agree – but if your cat is anemic, vomiting and/or has diarrhea/constipation, is borderline diabetic (or full-blown diabetic), obese, or has a tendancy to develop urinary tract stones – I would argue (once again) they should be given absolutely NO DRY FOOD!

I DO understand about some special cases, but in my opinion there’s a difference between understanding your choices and the risks and benefits of those choices and choosing something for which you feel the benefits outweigh the risks… and making a choice ignoring the evidence, justifying your decision with “my vet said” or “well, all my cats in the past” or “I know cats that”… like the people that *know* canned/raw is better for diabetics but don’t want to bother with the “effort” required to open a can twice a day. 
(more…)

Read Full Post »

Pop goes the pop-top can

Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , , on August 28, 2008| 3 Comments »

Let’s talk about canned food.  First, if it isn’t already abundantly clear – I think dry cat food is a very bad idea.  I don’t think anyone thinks the semi-moist foods (those little pieces that aren’t hard as kibble, but chewy, like Tender Vittles) are a good idea.  (If you do – well, they’re not for the same reasons dry/kibble is bad and more.)

So, where does that leave us?  Options remaining are a freeze-dried raw food,  a frozen raw food, or a canned food.  (Or, I suppose there’s the options of a freshly made raw food or whole prey or homemade cooked diet – I won’t go there for the time being.)  I realize there are MANY caregivers out there that are reluctant to feed raw for many reasons, and I do not fault them for that!  I think commercial canned food is a perfectly acceptable option!  While the majority of my cats’ diet is a frozen raw food, I do feed canned food to them on occasion and I feed my foster cats canned food.  Why don’t I feed my own cats’ canned food more often?  Well, a few reasons including cost (yes, homemade raw is less expensive), palability (if some of my cats get canned, they start clamouring for it and refusing to eat their raw), and a couple cats that had IBD so long before their diet was changed that even most canned foods cause them stomach upset…. among other reasons.

However, I’ve seen some  people argue against canned food – and I’d like to discuss some of the “reasons” why.
(more…)

Read Full Post »

Feline lower urinary tract disease

Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged , , , , on August 2, 2008| 3 Comments »

I’ve had no fewer than THREE conversations with individuals in the past week regarding their cats and urinary tract disorders (in these cases, urinary tract inflammation and/or stones). In each case, the individual was feeding a dry food.

The most effective means of avoiding urinary tract disorders is to feed an all-wet diet. One coworker resisted all of my pushing until his cat landed up blocked and hospitalized, and one surgery and $2,500 later he switched to canned.
(more…)

Read Full Post »