turning into a glutton?

[Jim Hall]

HI

I have a 6 yr old tortie named Du who will only eat fancy feast salmon

sheesh Latly she has been insatialble and will eat 4 cans a day if i let her
Her poop looks ok and she is a strictlyt indoor cat and not losing whiight at all so i dont think she has a parasite last vet visit was 5 months ago and she was checked for worms

She is not extremly active but does play a bit maybe 30 minutes a day all told

Any one have any advice ?

[I] would like to find something she can snack on that would not contribute to her caloric intake by much any ideas?

[Winston]

My 2 loved the Orijen...lots of people highly recomend it!

http://www.acana.cz/orijen/orijen/

Cindy

[sugarcatmom]

4 cans a day is a lot for a cat, how much does she weigh? Could be she just has a high metabolism, but you might want to keep an eye on that.

If she doesn't need to gain weight, I wouldn't add any snackables to her menu, and especially not dry. But if you want some good treat ideas, freeze-dried meat such as Real Food Toppers or Halo Liv-a-littles are a healthy choice. Although convenient, they tend to be a tad pricey, in which case just some fresh pieces of chicken or turkey (raw, or lightly boiled if you prefer) make excellent treats. You can freeze a baggie of 'em and take out as needed.

[Jim Hall]

she would eat 4 a day i believe if i let her but i limit her to 3
she was 9.6 and i say she has put on maybe another 4 ounces

This has just started to happen she has been ok with 3 a day
I am thinking maybe

Since she eats one kind of food almost exclusivly, there is some kind of dietary defficiency happening

Or since i have been out a lot some of her old food issues are coming back
it used to be she had to have food in her bowl even if she wasnt hungry
and since i am not around a lot right now she may thinkk she wont be fed again for a while?

She was rescued from the point of starvation after all .

[clm]

Fancy feast cans are pretty small. At least 6 of those a day is what my indoor/outdoor cat eats, plus a bowl of dry. My indoor girls eat 4 cans between them per day, plus a bowl of dry but he's a lot more active than them and prefers to spend most of his time outside, even in this cold. Animals out in cold need more fuel. I have a couple of strays around now too that are always looking for chow, so I'm forever filling up the outdoor dishes.
I would try to find another variety that she likes too, I don't think an all fish diet is that good for a cat, but I know how finicky they can be for sure. Try supplementing with some dry food, mine like orijen, but not a steady diet of it, so I mix it with fancy feast dry.
I buy 3 - 4 cases of 24 cans of fancy feast a week for my crew, but they won't touch any other wet food and the fancy feast isn't a bad food IMO.

clm

[Love4himies]

My senior female who used to be a kibble junkie now gets Orijen as a kibble treat between canned meals. She is a perfect weight so I don't have to worry about increased calorie intake.

[SARAH]

I used to feed Spoutnik II a small can of wet for breakfast, the rest of the day he had unlimited access to dry. There were days when the weather was particularly non-cat-friendly I would comfort him with another can of wet (the half-size!)

Cats generally prefer having food available all day, as they are nibblers (unlike dogs who will gobble up everything in sight, hungry or not; cats know to stop when their belly is full enough).

If she was rescued from the point of starvation, she may never get really fat, or feel full enough. No real comaprison maybe, but I knew a guy who was rescued from a concentration camp just barely more than a walking skeleton with skin and blood. He never managed to get his weight over 50 kilos!! And he ate, believe you me, all day and just about anything. Never got fat.

So her metabolism could be messed up if she had been starving for too long. Leave her one of those dry-food dispensers so she knows there's food (even if it's not her favourite type) and don't run out of what she likes

Another thing, note how people shop for pet food at the supermarkets? Dog owners just grab something (dry or wet) and keep going. Cat owners choose carefully, debating whether to maybe try this flavour this week or stay with the same or try a mix cats are just a lot more finnicky than dogs (remember the commercial with Morris )

[sugarcatmom]

Originally Posted by SARAH

Cats generally prefer having food available all day, as they are nibblers (unlike dogs who will gobble up everything in sight, hungry or not; cats know to stop when their belly is full enough).

Sorry, gotta disagree with this. Obesity in cats is becoming almost as much of an epidemic as in people, and the absolute number one reason is due to free-feeding dry to sedentary and bored indoor cats. Cats in the wild are not 'nibblers', they eat a few birds or mice a day, when they can get 'em. They're definitely not snacking 24/7.

My other big problem with free-feeding dry (particularly applies to multi-cat households) is that it makes it much more difficult to keep track of who is eating how much (those dry-food dispenser thingies should be banned, IMO). People just keep filling up the bottomless bowl and have no idea when one of their cats loses it's appetite, which is often the very first sign that there's something wrong.

And to top all THAT off, I firmly believe kibble has no place in the feline diet:
http://www.catinfo.org/
http://www.catnutrition.org/index.php
http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.ph...needcannedfood

End rant!

[SARAH]

Bored cats get obese. Bored kids get obese. Bored adults get obese. Bored dogs get obese.

Not too many years ago, cats played, dogs ran around after the cats, kids played and biked outside, adults worked in the gardens and went for walks. Everyone ate without thinking more about it. There were very few obese individuals of any kind.

Now we sit. We are bored. We bore our pets. Everyone's nutrition is being scrutenized and analyzed. We get obese. Our pets too.

Is there a trend here?

I used to use only wet for my cats. The trouble was when one would have had a hefty field-mouse-meal and left his canned food to dry and stink! They each went to their bowl, never the other's for fear of a whacking on the ear (from the bowl's owner, not me). Dry solved that stinky problem.

Also, in summer, if all is not eaten at once, I've found flies go lay their eggs in the wet food, and ... so dry in the summer for sure!

At least, for my cats it's worked ok

[Jim Hall]

thanks for all the advice

I always find posing a question here very usefull

As far as Du goes SHe soesnt like dry at all due to a few missing teeth she has to swallow it whole I have tried orijen ans also damn near every other food in the store
I dont relly have a problem feeding fancy feast salmon, it also has meat and liver and such so its pretty balanced
This morning she only ate about half a can and did some zooms and is now napping so i am becoming more convinced it is a behavioral issue more than hunger. I think it also may be related to her hydration levels since she drinks very little free water After i move I am going to have a friend who said she would build me a nice atractive running water device,
I think they are great but the ones for sale are so damn ugly!!
Someone should build one that looks nice and is also safe for pets. I bet it would sell a bunch.

Thanks again for all the input

[Prismom]

There might be an attractive cat fountain reviewed on this site:
http://www.moderncat.net/

That blog has reviews some really nice cat and dog furniture and accessories. Some of them are way out of my price range, but some are actually not much more expensive than ugly items. I've actually been trying to find a Japanese site with pet furniture because I have heard the Japanese make some really stylish, compact pet accessories that are inexpensive.