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I free feed my cats the same dry food all the time but I vary their wet food, mostly because I haven't stumbled across something all 3 of them are excited about. I feed them wet once a day. The youngest is 10 and he's kind of a fatty. Not enough so the vet tells me he needs to lose weight, just he doesn't need to gain any more. He usually gets just whatever wet food the other 2 don't finish. The next is 12 and she went from 9 lbs to 8 lbs over a year but she's been holding steady there for almost 2 years now. The vet wants me to make sure she doesn't lose any more weight. Cat 3 is 16 has only been with me for about a year. He has been in early renal failure for a couple of years now. He wouldn't eat much of the prescription foods and was on the skinny side so we decided to go with foods he wants to eat more of and add water to increase his water intake. We had blood work done fairly recently and it's all been stable so we want to stick with that plan for now. Recently Cat 3 has been scratching around his ears enough to cause sores. He's also been eating only Wellness Core Salmon, Whitefish and Herring for the same time, because that's what I had. He's had it occasionally before with no apparent problems. For now we just stuck a cone on him until he heals up and I'm going to get something else to feed him. Here's the ingredient list. Is there something in here that's a relatively common allergen I should avoid? Salmon, Whitefish, Herring, Salmon Broth, Salmon Meal, Dried Ground Potatoes, Tuna, Natural Fish Flavor, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Cranberries, Ground Flaxseed, Salmon Oil, Taurine, Dried Kelp, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Chicory Root Extract, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Cobalt Proteinate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Proteinate, Folic Acid, Manganese Proteinate, Niacin, d-Calcium Panthothenate, Sodium Selenite, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Biotin. His itchiness might be unrelated so I don't want to go overboard and assume it's a big deal food allergy. I'm going to get a different food anyway though.
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Sep 8, 2015 16:32
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:21 |
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Try adding a little water and microwaving the food for a little. That seems to make it smell worse and cats seem to like that more.
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Feb 2, 2016 06:22
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Sydin posted:I probably am overthinking it. It might not be a problem. My cats eat pretty much anything ever.
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Feb 2, 2016 19:44
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Thanks - I'll go out and buy a few different types of canned and see what I can coax her into eating.
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demota posted:I'm new at catting. Any reason why Blue Buffalo Variety Pack works out to be 50 cents an ounce while Wellness Complete only works out to be 20 cents an ounce? They're both listed in the excellent cat foods list in the first post here, but one is more than twice the price of the other. Is there anything I'd be screwing up by swapping from Blue Buffalo to Wellness Complete? The latter looks like it comes in a wider variety of flavors so I can keep my cat's food varied just like the Blue Buffalo. The giant cans are generally cheaper per ounce, even looking at the same brand. I don't buy the big cans because I don't feed the whole can at once and have to refrigerate the rest. My cats won't eat it cold and are 50/50 on it when microwaved. It's fine to find the cheapest way to feed your cats as long as they eat it and you're happy with the quality. Like if your cats won't eat the Wellness, then it's not worth it. There's some moisture in dry food, just not a lot. Beef jerky is dry and grain free.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:48
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Just watch her weight and cut back a bit if she starts gaining weight. It doesn't seem like way too much if she's only eating wet.
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Feb 17, 2016 00:13
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I'm going to bring this question over from the dog thread. I adopted a 1.5 year old rescue hound (maybe a Plott Hound) a little over a month ago. She weighed 47 lbs and the vet is thinking she should probably weigh a bit over 50, maybe 55. I'm feeding her the Blue Buffalo Wilderness Large Breed Healthy Weight formula. She's getting 3 and 1/3 cups of food a day plus we're still on treats when working on her training. GoodBee posted:How can I judge if a dog should have some extra food for extra activity? And how much extra? She's still a little underweight but my vet said I shouldn't overfeed her, she'll probably gain weight just because she's been fixed and eating regularly. I'm feeding her according to the weight maintenance amount for how much we think she should weigh and we're going to she how she's doing when we go back in March.
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Nov 20, 2016 20:56
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Shugojin posted:Please tell me if I'm doing something secretly terrible because all the major metrics from looking at your dog seem to check out, it just has me worried. Are you interested in possibly switching foods or do you just want to feel better about what you are already feeding? If you're interested in suggestions for a different food, it may help to know which brands or flavors didn't work for you and why (wouldn't eat it, upset stomach, etc.) It may also help to know how much you're feeding now.
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Nov 21, 2016 05:14
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I, personally, feel better about feeding my pets something with meat as the first ingredients. I don't have anything to add over what's in the OP. The important part is your dog eats it and does well on it. Now if you do want to explore other options, it looks like those other brands are chicken based and your dog might just like beef flavored kibble the best. There is probably a food that has small kibble and beef as the first ingredient that she might do even better on. I don't have any suggestions because my dog seems perfectly happy with her big chicken kibbles. I'd reread the OP and look up some options and then decide if your going to stick with what you've got or try something else.
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Nov 21, 2016 16:05
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ANUSTART posted:Not an answer to your question but have you considered switching her to the regular large breed in wilderness or do you want to use up the bag you have, or is the extra fiber% something you like? It really may just take time to build weight up from what she was being fed at the shelter too, but again i know that isnt what youre asking. I have no reason not to switch over to the regular large breed. I honestly didn't see it at the pet store but it's probably there. My current bag is almost gone and I haven't opened the second bag. Do you think these two formulas are close enough that I could transition over a couple of days? I think I will do this.
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Nov 23, 2016 13:53
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ANUSTART posted:Days late but you can, yep. how is it working so far? Just fine as far as I can tell. She did have soft poops the day after Thanksgiving but my brother had given her a couple of pepperoni.
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Nov 27, 2016 16:25
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ANUSTART posted:Days late but you can, yep. how is it working so far? Spoke too soon. I ran out of the Healthy Weight yesterday and my dog had liquid shits last night. She didn't poop this morning so she's spending the day in her crate. I'll see how she's doing this evening and maybe give her a little canned pumpkin?
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Nov 29, 2016 17:15
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Yeah, she was doing fine on the Large Breed Healthy Weight and I switched her to the regular Large Breed. She had a brief bout of the shits but seems to be doing fine yesterday and today. I was almost out of the Healthy Weight so I probably transferred too quickly. I was hoping to not have a problem since same brand, same protein. I went with the Blue Buffalo since my cats have been eating the cat version for years and they are doing well. Local dog park hive mind seems to be going Blue Buffalo Wilderness for some reason too.
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Nov 30, 2016 22:32
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fknlo posted:Also, are there any high quality prescription foods? Anything I get is going to need to be fish since my cats both have some issues with foods with non-fish products in them. I have never seen any. Your choices are go with a prescription food or find a vet that's up on the current research or willing to read whatever you find and work out a feeding plan. Basically, the prescription foods have been tested and approved to treat a condition. There may be additional research suggesting that certain qualities of food are better for cats with certain conditions. Personal anecdote, I took in an elderly cat with renal failure who wanted nothing to do with prescription foods. My vet said the most important things were 1. He not starve to death so we had to find something he would eat. 2. He get plenty of water, so I mixed water in with his wet food. And 3 was try to find a food that was easier on his kidneys. We found some suggestions for ingredients/contents that followed some research but nothing that had as much data as prescription foods. I also learned to give him fluids at home. He lived about a year and a half after I took him in and died at 16. I think he was pretty comfortable but who knows how much longer he might have lived on prescription food. I think most prescription foods are corn and chicken based. If your cat really can't deal with that at all, talk to your vet or find a different one willing to monitor your situation on a different diet. There are a bunch of possible problems cats can have that can be treated with diet and I have no idea what kind of research is out there. Good luck.
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Dec 3, 2016 05:30
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ANUSTART posted:Nooo I was going to do it anyway. She's over it now. Maybe she has a sensitive stomach. She seems to be doing better on the regular large breed wilderness and she was fine on the Healthy Weight. I think I may have over fed her a couple of times. She doesn't mind.
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Dec 6, 2016 14:32
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Glad she has gotten better but I was told you could switch within BB as long as it was in the same type (not from regular to wilderess but from flavors within regular, etc). Maybe my dog is just hardy? Sorry she got so sick from it I feel horrible.
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Cats are all idiots. I free feed my cats dry food and give them a little supplemental wet food. I did give mine the Cats in the Kitchen from Weruva for a while but then they stopped eating it all. They kept leaving the bigger chunks. They've been eating the Soulistic in the reddish-brown pouches for a while now and they've been cleaning the plate. I remember seeing that Soulistic was Weruva's brand for PetCo but I didn't find anything definitive with a quick Google just now. Some people have posted concerns about feeding Soulistic as the only food source, mostly because it is fish heavy and low on calories (high moisture). That's probably why it's working out well for supplemental feeding for me. One of my cats is a little on the chunky side but he's been holding at about the same weight for years now. He's 11. The other one is 13 and doing great. She's a good weight and just had her senior blood work come back aces. She will be having her teeth cleaned for the first time this year.
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Jan 28, 2017 02:51
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Why? AFAIK those are both stabilizers derived from edible plants. I don't think they have any nutritional value but they make dry food pellets stick together.
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Apr 13, 2017 03:43
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I get that those are things you might try eliminating if your pet is having food issues but so is literally every ingredient ever. I was wondering if there was a legit reason to avoid it.
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Apr 14, 2017 23:58
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I think urinary formula cat food by itself encourages drinking more water and peeing. I haven't read anything about sodium content in pre-packaged pet food though. Got any good links?
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May 28, 2017 13:51
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I've fed my cats a couple of cans of iandloveandyou but it wasn't as easy to find so that was all they got. No problems though. They got some Weruva when I was subscribed to petflow.com and they liked that okay. Right now they get supplemented with the Soulistic in the brown pouches. If I remember correctly, Soulistic is the PetCo version of Weruva. I think it's comparable and the brown pouches seem to have a texture that my cats will eat pretty the whole thing. I do still feed my cats the Blue Buffalo dry, despite them having a couple of recalls and provoking some goon hate because they've been doing well on it and none of the products I've purchased have been affected by the recalls. porkswordonboard posted:GSDs can have hella allergies as they age so I recommend diversifying their diet when they are young, if possible. A bit of random advice I picked up from this thread or a predecessor was the opposite. It was to not feed your dog a variety of proteins because then you wouldn't have a novel protein to feed them if they developed an allergy. I didn't do any research into this on my own though. I'm interested in the subject though. I got my dog in October and she's mostly eating chicken based foods, but I've been giving her treats with other proteins. I'm mostly curious.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:28
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I think someone at boarding might not have realized you supplied their food and fed them something else. Now they have to adjust back to their food.
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Jul 2, 2017 16:02
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You don't have to buy prescription food from the vet's office. It wouldn't hurt to feed your cat the prescription food until you get to see a new vet, if you don't like your current one. If your cats eats it, it might be the best thing. Just a reminder, prescription foods are prescribed because they have been tested and proven to show improvement for a specific condition. There is additional research being done and you might find a vet who will work with you to find a solution with a different food if your cat won't eat the prescription diet. But I wouldn't recommend going that route just because you don't like ingredient list. (Maybe if you honestly can't afford it.)
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Jul 25, 2017 16:42
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crowbb posted:On some other site where they were ripping this food they suggested grain free wet, which is why I asked about that specifically. But people everywhere seem to have strong pet food feelings so I don't know if they were just BSing or not. The price is an annoyance, but if it comes down to it I will pay it. Some people are bat-poo poo insane when it comes to food. I feed grain free but I never read any actual research on any real, proven benefits. It made sense to me and my vet has no issues but I might just be spending extra money and gaining no benefit. My current pets have no health issues at the moment.
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Jul 25, 2017 21:33
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I've been feeding my dog a large breed formula since the shelter billed her as a large dog. She's between 50-55 lbs. I've mixed in some food of the same brand and flavor that I guess is their average dog formula because PetSmart had a coupon for a free bag of dog or cat food recently but the large breed didn't have a bag that came in a small enough size to get a free bag. I haven't had any problems yet so I think I'm fine to keep switching her to the "regular" food. Now I'm adopting a second dog who is under 50lbs. I'm not sure what her ideal weight should be but I'll discuss that more with my vet once the adoption has gone through and we've had an exam. The shelter wasn't sure of her exact weight or what it should be but we're thinking 25-30 lbs. She seems a healthy weight now but her intake was 2 months ago and she hasn't been spayed yet. She'll be weighed when she has surgery. I feel like it will be easier to manage if they are eating the same dry food. So I plan to fully transition Dog1 from large breed to regular and Dog2 from the shelter brand to the new food at the same time. I guess my question is should I give Dog1 any large breed supplements for joint health? As far as I can tell, the main difference between the large breed and the regular are the large breed has larger pieces, which I don't think is a huge difference, and it has added supplements for joint health. I will ask my vet also.
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Jul 31, 2017 04:17
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Super Grocery Kart posted:I always assumed "large breed" on dog food packaging referred to really big dogs, like 90 lbs plus. 50-55 lbs isn't really all that big. Both my mutts are in that range, pretty much full grown, and are doing great on regular adult food. Although they've only been transitioned off of puppy formula for a few months. Yeah, I didn't know what food to get. The shelter had her listed as a large dog so I bought large dog food. I told my vet what I'd picked out and she told me it was fine. Apparently there are vastly different definitions of small, medium and large dogs depending on what you're looking at.
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Jul 31, 2017 19:57
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ANUSTART posted:Large breed usually has larger kibble and some vitamins like chondritin and glucosamine and caratine (sp?) but some lower the fat too so idk, I always assumed it was more for 70lbs+ cos mine is 50lbs and does fine on regular adult formulas with joint supplements. I'll ask my vet about joint supplements. And I did notice slightly higher reported calorie content in the regular version of the food so we'll watch their weight. quote:Also Blue Buffalo is following the route of Natures Recipe and showing up in Targets, hope this doesnt lead to a drop in quality again. I hope not. We'll see though. My cats have been eating Blue Buffalo for most of their lives and I've been hesitant to switch them off of something they've been doing well on. I picked it for the dogs since the cat version has been good for the cats.
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Aug 7, 2017 17:54
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The feeding instructions say to feed smaller dogs once a day and larger dogs twice a day. I've been feeding my 50lb dog twice a day. Is it a huge deal if I feed my 25 lb dog twice a day instead of once?
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Aug 15, 2017 03:11
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hats4cats posted:Looking for a senior cat dry food brand that is a softer or easier to chew. You can mix warm water with the dry food but I don't know how long you can leave it out. You could also try finding some soft treats for supplemental feeding. It's not complete nutrition but if the choice is treats or nothing, it might be okay since your cat is eating actual cat food too. You can at least ask your vet if it's an okay long-term solution.
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Aug 19, 2017 01:24
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Both my rescue pups had a bought of nightmarish diarrhea when switching them from shelter food to other food. My vet said it wasn't a big deal unless it continued and wasn't getting better while on only the new food. The shelter sent the first dog home with a small bag of food and I tapered the food over the whole bag. She still poo poo on my floor once and had soft poops for a while during the switch. I got the second dog from a different shelter, further away, and it was a little chaotic picking her up. I didn't get any food for her so I just started her on the same food my other dog eats. She also poo poo all over my floor once, almost immediately, but it was fine within the week. What does your vet say?
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Mar 13, 2018 01:13
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My dog has gotten the scooty booty when she ate a piece of hair and didn't poop out the whole thing. That's not a continuous thing though.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:49
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Does anyone feed Castor & Pollux? I want to be lazy and feed my dogs something decent that I can pick up at the closest place to me. Edit: Dogfoodadvisor rates it lower than the Blue Buffalo Wilderness dry, which is what I've been feeding them. I guess I'll stick with that and just pick up a couple cans of the wet if I don't make it to the store when I should. GoodBee fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 22:55
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What are some good resources for comparing food brands? The OP is from 2013 and now there are new brands and some old brands (may?) have changed formulas. Last time I looked I used dogfoodadvisor and it seemed fine. A couple more sites pop up on a search but who knows which one to look at. Someone make a meta pet food rating site and aggregate all the other site, tia
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Jul 12, 2018 18:40
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I haven't looked for one for dogs but there was a page where they broke out phosphorous content of cat foods. It varies by flavor, not brand. Maybe someone has done that for dogs? I was looking for something my old man cat would eat after he quit eating the prescription diet. I'd stick with prescription if your dog will eat it since those are actually tested. My old man didn't live too much longer after he wouldn't eat the prescription stuff. I did that under the vet's supervision along with giving him fluids. We were pretty much just trying to make him more comfortable at that point.
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Jul 28, 2018 19:32
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If I were a vet, I would find it hard to reccomend a food when I can't back it up with any science/study or guarantee from the food manufacturer. One problem with non-prescription foods is that their levels of *whatever makes them comparable to prescription foods* aren't guaranteed. If I need a low phosphorus diet for example, the prescription diet guarantees that the phosphorus content is within a certain range. I can also find tests that show a particular flavor of non-prescription food generally has a phosphorus level in the desired range but any particular batch could contain too much phosphorus for my pet's needs and I wouldn't know unless I test every batch. There wouldn't be a recall unless it was outside of acceptable levels for normal pets. I feel like this falls in the same zone as US vets declawing cats. Most (I think still, I could be wrong) will do it because if they don't the cat get surrendered or euthanized.
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Aug 4, 2018 04:06
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I'm really glad other companies are getting into the prescription diet line. A lot of the research has already been done, they just have to guarantee they are meeting the guidelines suggested by research I also hope I don't need any prescription food, fingers crossed.
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Aug 5, 2018 03:19
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I hope she's done more research than a Netflix documentary. I'm not anti raw pet food diet but if the dogs regularly come in contact with small children, elderly or immunocompromised people, do not feed them raw. The risk of bacteria transmission is not worth any potential benefit to the dogs. Cooking her own dog food is fine with regards to that.
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Aug 11, 2018 02:08
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padijun posted:probably not lol Ha! Yeah. I'd see if you can shut her down if either of you have parents or kids that come in contact with the dogs. There are some reasonable arguments/published rules for why therapy dogs who deal with children, sick people, and the elderly can't be fed raw diets and continue to provide therapy. See if she can be redirected to cooking for pets. It would take way longer for any negative dietary effects to occur to the dog than risk transmitting bacteria to any vulnerable group of people. Source: I'm pretty sure my shelter pup survived off of literal garbage for quite a while and still exists. Don't do raw based on a documentary or fad. If you cook for your dog for a couple of months until you get bored, it's probably going to be fine in the long run.
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Aug 11, 2018 03:12
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Braki posted:So the FDA recently launched an investigation into grain-free diets causing heart disease in dogs. I wanted to post in here to spread awareness of this, because I know a lot of people here feed grain-free. The link to the FDA statement is here. I was reading about this. From the FDA link: quote:The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting pet owners and veterinary professionals about reports of canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs eating certain pet foods containing peas, lentils, other legume seeds, or potatoes as main ingredients. Is this what to look out for? It sounds like the particular foods have been identified but they're trying to not name names. It also sounds like meat based grain free isn't a problem. Do you have any more information?
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Aug 14, 2018 15:22
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Braki posted:Lisa Freeman is a veterinary nutritionist who works at the Tufts vet school and has written a pretty excellent and detailed article here that goes more in depth about it. Thanks! That's a good article. It seems like there are potentially a couple of different things going on here. I've got a couple of older cats who've been eating grain free for a long time now. They get senior bloodwork done and are doing well. It doesn't sound like grain free for cats is a problem. I started feeding my dogs grain free when I got them because it worked well for my cats. But cats =! dogs so maybe I should ask my vet. I've been feeding my cats more wet food lately and I've been considering feeding my dogs more wet food too. My dogs are shelter dogs so who know what breeds or genetics they might have. They definitely aren't giants and I don't suspect they are any of the other breeds identified as possibly at increased risk, so I think for now I will be on the lookout for symptoms mentioned in the article and ask at my next vet visit. In the meantime, I'm probably going to see about adding some more wet food into their diets.
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Aug 15, 2018 01:34
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What have other people switched from grain-free to? The lack of knowing what exactly is causing the problem is making me indecisive about what might be good to switch to. I'm interested in what the hivemind has to say.
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Sep 14, 2018 00:11
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:21 |
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Okay, I'll ask a specific question. What are some good, non-grain-free, chicken-based dry dog foods for medium-sized adult dogs? I need to go shopping soon.
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Sep 19, 2018 17:08
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