I have a new cat
Well, not really, but it seems like it. You see, with this whole pet food scare, I started doing a little research. Fortunately, none of the food I've been feeding my cat are part of the recall - yet. But as I've mentioned before, my cat pretty much eats her food, and almost immediately pukes it up, undigested. How it is that she's such a porker - about 12-14 pounds I suspect - given how much food comes OUT of her, is beyond me. I've tried expensive "all natural" foods that vow to cure your cat of everything you could imagine - and she still pukes. When dry food was added to the recall, I decided to consider making our own cat food. I found a site called catnutrition.org with instructions for doing just that. But more importantly, there was a link to an article that was published in the Journal of Veterinary Medicine, about what cats should be eating, versus what we all feed them. It was as though someone had switched on a light bulb. Duh! What does a cat do when it's left to its own devices? It catches mice, birds, rabbits (yes, I had cats that brought down rabbits), basically rodents of every imaginable variety, fish, and eats them, puking up the parts that don't digest, like feathers, fur, some bones, and so on. Cats are obligate carnivores - or true carnivores. They don't eat corn, wheat, rice, carrots, apples, stuff like that. Yet, we feed them cereal based food. About the only non-meat item cats eat is grass. A cat needs 5 times as much protein as a dog! And their systems are not designed to handle a lot of carbohydrates very well. That's why all our cats fed kibble get fat - they don't know what to do with all that cereal, so it's stored as fat. It's also why they develop kidney, thyroid, and pancreatic problems. It really makes so much sense. A dog will eat pretty much anything, even in the wild. Cats eat critters, and little else.
No way was I going to put in the time to make this raw food. As The Daughter pointed out, I can barely make meals for The Spouse and myself (not for lack of skill, simply lack of time), let alone the cat. She made this comment in a room filled with the Oldest Son, three grandkids, The Spouse, the Son-in-Law, and me, and it was followed by much laughter, especially by the oldest granddaughter. But the concept of what the cat should be eating, as opposed to what she has been eating, made total sense to me. So, when I went to the store, I sought out cat food that was composed of meat and good fats, not cereal. I discovered that all the Fancy Feast canned food contains wheat gluten - the culprit in this catastrophe - with the exception of the fish meals. They contain no cereals. The worst thing I could see on the labels was guar gum, and since I know that's just a thickener, and it was way down on the list, I wasn't too worried. I bought several flavors of the fish meals - fish and shrimp, trout, salmon, etc. That night, I removed her dry food and gave her half a can of the Fancy Feast. She devoured it - and no puking. The next morning, she got another half a can. Now, these are the small cans, so she's not getting a lot of food. I half expected her to down the portion I gave her and come begging for more, but that was not the case. For the past four days, she's had only the canned food,with a few little dry treats thrown in to help keep her teeth in shape. Since I'm not making the raw food, she's not getting bones to keep her teeth clean and strong, so I will be giving her some tartar control treats every couple of days. For the past four days she has not puked once. And she is suddenly frisky and active and silly. She is like a kitten again. I am amazed. She wakes me up at 4 AM, which is not all that cool, but she does it by patting my face with her paw over and over, like she wants to play. She is a new cat. I am so amazed what this food change has done, but it makes so much sense. Maybe, when the days are longer, I will undertake making the raw food, because ideally, cats need RAW meat, not cooked meat. But for now, I am relying on Fancy Feast.
