I'm at my wit's end with my cat. She is approximately 7-8 years old, diabetic for a little over 2.5 years. On 2 units of Prozinc twice daily. Her eating habits make me want to rip my hair out!
I have fed/TRIED to feed countless types, brands, textures, and flavors of wet food to this cat and I'm about ready to just give up. I began with the healthiest diabetic-friendly food I could find and have ended somewhere at the end of the spectrum buying any old food that she will at least have a few licks at before turning up her nose. It doesn't matter how healthy or unhealthy it is, she hates it at least 9 times out of 10.
She hates pate, flaked, chunks, shreds, minced, morsels, and anything that isn't small bits of meat in gravy. And then she only wants to lick the gravy and leaves 90% of the meat behind. If the meat chunks are "too big" for her liking then she won't even attempt to eat them. I've tried chopping the bits even smaller and she still ignores them most of the time. I'm about ready to take all of the food I have for her and throw it in a blender to make it all a liquid texture and see if she'll eat that.
She was eating Purina One True Instinct wet food for quite a long time, at least a year or more. I was so relieved. It wasn't the greatest choice for her but I was just so excited to see that she was eating one kind of food and sticking with it for a long time! Back in December I went to the store to buy some more and what do I find? Purina put a new look on the box. Okay, that's cool, I say. Didn't even think to read the box because it didn't say "new look, new formula" or anything of the sort. Well, turns out they changed the recipe and ruined my peaceful life without having to worry about whether or not my cat would eat that morning.
So here we are now. I don't have any of her previous food left over to mix in to any new food I try to get her to eat, so each new food risks upsetting her stomach. She has enjoyed a can or two of certain brands, but as soon as I buy more of the kind she just ate and enjoyed, she stops eating it and I've suddenly wasted at least $20 each time. I now own an arsenal of cat food that I'm slowly but surely feeding to a nice little stray that visits a few nights a week while my own cat tries to starve herself out for no reason!
She is allowed dry food to snack on because if she doesn't have that then she will choose to actually starve herself to death than to sample any of the delicious wet food I try to give her. I believe the dry food is keeping her numbers in normal range because otherwise she'd just stop eating entirely save for a few licks of gravy here and there. I know dry food isn't a great option but I'd rather her eat something rather than nothing and risk missing her insulin shots, and her levels fluctuating abnormally.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated for the pickiest cat in the world who cannot afford to be picky thanks to relying on insulin!
I have fed/TRIED to feed countless types, brands, textures, and flavors of wet food to this cat and I'm about ready to just give up. I began with the healthiest diabetic-friendly food I could find and have ended somewhere at the end of the spectrum buying any old food that she will at least have a few licks at before turning up her nose. It doesn't matter how healthy or unhealthy it is, she hates it at least 9 times out of 10.
She hates pate, flaked, chunks, shreds, minced, morsels, and anything that isn't small bits of meat in gravy. And then she only wants to lick the gravy and leaves 90% of the meat behind. If the meat chunks are "too big" for her liking then she won't even attempt to eat them. I've tried chopping the bits even smaller and she still ignores them most of the time. I'm about ready to take all of the food I have for her and throw it in a blender to make it all a liquid texture and see if she'll eat that.
She was eating Purina One True Instinct wet food for quite a long time, at least a year or more. I was so relieved. It wasn't the greatest choice for her but I was just so excited to see that she was eating one kind of food and sticking with it for a long time! Back in December I went to the store to buy some more and what do I find? Purina put a new look on the box. Okay, that's cool, I say. Didn't even think to read the box because it didn't say "new look, new formula" or anything of the sort. Well, turns out they changed the recipe and ruined my peaceful life without having to worry about whether or not my cat would eat that morning.
So here we are now. I don't have any of her previous food left over to mix in to any new food I try to get her to eat, so each new food risks upsetting her stomach. She has enjoyed a can or two of certain brands, but as soon as I buy more of the kind she just ate and enjoyed, she stops eating it and I've suddenly wasted at least $20 each time. I now own an arsenal of cat food that I'm slowly but surely feeding to a nice little stray that visits a few nights a week while my own cat tries to starve herself out for no reason!
She is allowed dry food to snack on because if she doesn't have that then she will choose to actually starve herself to death than to sample any of the delicious wet food I try to give her. I believe the dry food is keeping her numbers in normal range because otherwise she'd just stop eating entirely save for a few licks of gravy here and there. I know dry food isn't a great option but I'd rather her eat something rather than nothing and risk missing her insulin shots, and her levels fluctuating abnormally.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated for the pickiest cat in the world who cannot afford to be picky thanks to relying on insulin!
I give her dry food in the meantime because I know she will eat it. Not because she's in love with it but because she needs to eat something and she will reliably eat dry food rather than nothing. I hate giving her dry food but at this point until I have a solution I feel like she needs it.
