I really appreciate your clarification.
What bothers me deeply about some of the responses on this particular thread is the defensiveness and the comments that make anyone - including myself - fearful of reminding people that feeding water-depleted diets does cause a lot of suffering. I intellectually understand the defensiveness but it is not how I would respond to the comments I made in my first post. My personality is such that if I had read what was written above about "cats suffering" I would not have gotten defensive but would simply have learned from the fact-based statement.
The problem with getting defensive is that it serves to make other board members reluctant to remind people to think past the **dietary carb**issue and to remember that the problems associated with **water depletion** are VERY common and VERY significant.
Unfortunately, this is a fact and there is just ***no sugar-coating it.***
As i have stated on other threads, I will bet that if anyone ever had to deal with a cat with a urethral obstruction, +\- subsequent bladder rupture, and their very painful cries, they would be just as passionate as I am about this subject.
To a comment made above - no, it is **not** necessarily "common knowledge" that canned is better than dry so you are very much mistaken about that issue. In fact, many of my colleagues who refuse to utilize the common sense part of their brain still recommend dry over canned so it is not "common knowledge".
What IS "common" is cats ending up with urethral obstructions and other UT issues.
Because of this sad and dangerous fact, it is very important that when dry food threads are brought up on this board, urethral obstructions, as well as basic urinary tract health, are mentioned. Just saying "canned is better than dry" without mentioning some specifics is not going to make much impact.
One other option to typing out the important urinary health issues is to just recommend that the person asking about dry food visits my Urinary Tract Health page.
To the comment that "millions of cats have lived well on dry food".... the six blocked cats I just dealt with over the past 10-14 days won't find much solace in that.
Again, and I don't think this can ever be repeated too often, I really do sympathize with anyone dealing with a diabetic cat. I know that you are all incredibly stressed. Plus, many of you do much better than I would at dealing with this disease!! I have also acknowledged many times that switching a diabetic dry-food-addict is harder than a non-diabetic.....no doubt about that. And, there is no doubt that cat owners will vary with respect to their commitment to getting their cats switched to a water-rich diet but none of these are reasons why any board member should refrain from repeatedly discussing the very serious urinary tract health problems that arise from the feeding of water-depleted diets.
Also note that I work with a lot of rescuers who feed feral cats and who, obviously, cannot afford to feed much canned food. Therefore, I recommend that they soak the dry food before feeding. Yes, this wii increase the bacterial content but that is a risk that I willingly take rather than risk a urethral obstruction. Of course this method backfires for dry food addicts that are fixated on the **texture** but it helps people who are feeding a lot of cats on a budget.
