Pawcurious Vet Blog: Pet help, stories, and information with Dr. V

I was very pleased to see how many people are interested in the cat food discussion and are thinking about making a change! In the spirit of that, I spent a good hour at the local boutique pet food store collecting some different cat diets. I’m going to try giving them to my cats and tell you what sort of reaction they have to them, as well as what kind of reaction I had (being someone who is, ironically, easily grossed out). I’ll also give you the lowdown about how much work went into preparing each one, and tell you how much I paid for a general cost-comparison.

Fortunately for me, I have two very unselective cats, which is not that common in cat-world. There are some cats who show a marked preference for one kind of food over another (ie will only eat dry or only eat canned); if you decide to try changing foods, just be aware of this and do it gradually if needed. Sometimes *very* gradually. Where it’s not a big deal to make your average dog wait it out for a day or two to decide they are hungry enough to try a new food, letting a cat go without eating for a few days can have some nasty consequences, so proceed with caution.

I picked up four different kinds of foods for comparison. All of them are grain-free, which I think should be a minimum requirement for anyone trying to improve their cat’s health with diet. The four types of representative foods I selected are a bag of dry food, a stack of canned food, one bag of freeze dried food, and one bag of pre-made raw diet nuggets. I’m starting off with the freeze dried food this weekend, since I found the idea of cat astronaut food strangely appealing- stay tuned for the results!

This brand is the first contender.

As a side note, it’s always fun to go into those kinds of boutique pet food stores as a veterinarian. “I’m so happy you are doing this,” said the owner. “I’d give you some cards to hand out to clients, but I know you’re contractually obligated to recommend XXXX brand so I won’t.” When I assured her that wasn’t the case, she seemed shocked. I know I sound like a broken record, but although vets may have preferences just like everyone else, there’s no one holding a gun to my head to make me recommend a brand, even the ones whose prescription diets we might stock. No one could make me recommend a medication or a food I didn’t want to- I shudder to think about what that would mean for medical professionals if that were required. She also told me how horrified she was at the number of vaccinated dogs she’s seen who are coming down with parvo, and is telling customers to just not vaccinate and the problem would be solved because obviously the parvo vaccine is causing parvo. That’s when I smiled, took my bags of food, and left.

My point is: Go there and get the good food but ignore the rest of the blather, OK? Listen to me.