Quote:
Originally Posted by kikimau
Well Mimi gets sick on wet food.
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What wet foods have you tried, and what sort of symptoms does she have? Many cats get some loose stools during the transition to wet as their intestinal bacteria adjusts to new food. This goes away after a bit, and can be helped with the addition of probiotics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kikimau
The vet told us to do this.
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Vets are generally not very knowledgable about what felines should and shouldn't be eating. They're subjected to a great deal of propaganda from the pet food industry (even in school, their "nutrition" courses are taught by pet food reps), and unless they do some independant research on the subject, I would take anything they say with a big grain of salt.
What cats should be eating is meat. Not corn, not rice, not potatos, not oatmeal. They have no need for carbohydrates, and the extreme amounts that we keep pouring into them via kibble results in diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, dental disease, and yes, allergies.
Then there is the lack of moisture in dry food. Cats were designed to get their water needs met through the juicy prey (60-80% moisture) that they catch. When they eat only kibble (which has moisture levels of 10% or less), they are chronically dehydrated. They have a low thirst drive and by the time you see your cat drinking, she's really really thirsty. There is no way for them to drink enough water out of a bowl to make up the deficit. This chronic low-level dehydration results in bladder and urinary tract problems and later down the road, kidney disease.
I really think you need to try wet food again, but a good quality one like Wellness, Innova Evo 95% meat, Nature's Variety Instinct, By Nature Organics..... None of these have any "dyes", so that should satifsy your vet's assumptions. Do a slow introduction, using probiotics and slippery elm bark powder to help with the transition. If you don't feel comfortable with a raw diet, that's fine, there are some decent commercial canned foods available. And please read the link I gave you. It has a lot of worthwhile info. Oh ya, and it's written by a vet, one of the ones who actually knows a thing or two about feline nutrition.