Started my cat on Solid Gold
 

I started my cat, Caramel, on Solid Gold this week and he loves it! He has never been a picky eater, and was always content eating whatever I put in his bowl (piggy!).

I wasnt sure if I should have started him *cold turkey*, or mix it in gradually with his old food (purina :sorry: ), so I decided to just mix it for a few days. After his first few kibble, he has eaten up all the Solid Gold, and left the purina (smart kitty!).

He is 13 years old, so not a spring chicken, and has always been an indoor cat. Hes never had any health problems (knock on wood) and in the last 10 years has only ben to the vet once :shrug: , not health related, but a blood vessel blew in his ear and needed an operation (thats one expensive ear!).

Anything I should look out for with this food? His litter boox looks like usual, so I'm assuming everything that is supposed to pass is passing ;) .

with any diet change you can have intermittent issues like loose stool. that you haven't had any is a good sign, i know that digestive enzymes can help dogs with this issue and i imagine that the same is true of cats.
that is a pretty good leap in quality and i'm glad that your cat doesn't seem to be having major issues transitioning.
good luck with the change over.

Do you ever give Caramel any wet food at all? At his age, he could probably use the extra moisture. Cats eating only dry food tend to be chronically dehydrated, which is hard on the kidneys, and kidney failure is the leading cause of death in older cats.

The other thing I feel compelled to mention is that, at 13 yrs old, Caramel should be going to the vet for a check-up at least annually (some even recommend biannually since every year of a cat's life equals approximately 4 of ours). I'm hoping that when you say Caramel has only been to the vet once in 10 yrs that you're not including check-ups! Cats are experts at hiding their health issues until things get pretty severe. For instance, by the time symptoms for chronic renal failure appear, they've lost 70% of their kidney function. An annual exam should at least consist of a senior blood panel, urinalysis, blood pressure check, and possibly even an EKG. Sorry if I sound preachy, just trying to be helpful!! :)

Good post, Sugarcatmom. I agree with you 100% :)

Sugarcatmom - I have tried to give him a bit of canned cat food before, but has completely refuse to eat any of it each time (I cant for the life of me remember which brand though). Although, he does drink a good amount of water, should I try a bit of canned food again? Is there a brand in particular that I should try?

I have notice though, that his litter box still looks the same as I previously described, but he seems to eating a bit less than before (than when he was eating the purina)...?

[QUOTE=brianna079;447252]Sugarcatmom - I have tried to give him a bit of canned cat food before, but has completely refuse to eat any of it each time (I cant for the life of me remember which brand though). Although, he does drink a good amount of water, should I try a bit of canned food again? Is there a brand in particular that I should try?[/QUOTE]


Many cats get addicted to dry food because of all the flavour "enhancements" that are sprayed on it in order to entice them to eat it in the first place. That means it can take quite a lot of effort to convince them that canned food is indeed food, but it's well worth trying. I would get a variety of different brands and textures and keep offering it to see if there's something that Caramel will try.

The biggest trick to making the switch is to slowly start meal-feeding rather than free-feeding. If your cat isn't hungry enough when you offer the canned (having snacked all day on the dry that's always available) than you're going to have a harder time getting him to eat what you want him to. What I did was gradually start picking up the dry earlier and earlier, so that the time that there isn't any food available gets longer and longer. Lets say I want the evening meal to be at 6pm, then I would take up all dry at 4pm for a couple days, then at 2pm, then noon, and so on (if you're gone during the day, you can measure the amount of food put out to be less and less so that it's finished earlier). That way, you have hunger working in your favour when you DO finally offer canned.

As for types of canned to try, some Fancy Feast flavours seem to appeal to lots of kitties. It may not be the best quality (contains by-products), but it's not the worst and it's a good place to start (you can always mix in higher quality foods like Wellness later on). There is a list of gluten-free Fancy Feast on this website: [url]http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm[/url] Some are pate style, some are chunky, so you can see if Caramel has a preference.

You can also find some tips for transitioning to wet food on this site: [url]http://catinfo.org/#Transitioning_Dry_Food_Addicts_to_Canned_Food_[/url]
What I found helped was crushing some dry with a rolling pin and sprinkling it on top of the canned. You could also try some powdered liver treats (like [url=http://www.bennybullys.com/products.php]Benny Bully's[/url]) sprinkled on top, or some powdered freeze-dried chicken (like [url=http://www.realfoodtoppers.com/]Real Food Toppers[/url] or [url=http://shop.halopets.com/category.cfm?SID=1&Category_ID=15]Halo Liv-a-Littles[/url]).

You might need to pull out the big guns, and it probably won't happen overnight, but don't give up! It's truly better for cats to eat wet food.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes.