Share your stories of transitioning to wet food

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carolynandlatte

carolynandlatte

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I was just thinking, and maybe this has been done before and the post is lost in the deep, dark sea. ;-)

Wouldn't it be nice to have one place for people to share and read about personal experiences of switching cats from dry to wet food, and what a difference it made in the cat's lives (insulin needs, digestive, dental issues, etc)? There are so many stories out there, but all scattered about in hundreds of posts. If we could keep a long running post on the subject, it could be a great source of knowledge and inspiration for those who are new and unsure.

Who would like to start?

(and please spread the word to others on the board :mrgreen: )
 
KT had eaten dry food most of his life with an offering of a small bowl of wet food twice a day. He'd lick at it eating some and leaving most of it. I figured out that he didn't know HOW to eat soft food other than licking it. When a cat eats hard food, they lick which pops the hard piece in the edge of their mouth allowing them to close their teeth and capture it. I started giving him boiled chicken bits, again he'd try to lick it and didn't get any. One day I left it in bigger pieces, piled it up as high on a saucer I could get it - he actually 'bit' into it then looked at me with the most shocked look on his face! He 'bit' another bite then the same amazed look. He ended up eating the whole saucer using his teeth to pick it up, totally different than he'd ever done before. That afternoon (and ever since) when I give him his wet food, he eats with his teeth, tongue and mouth. He still goes thru spells of desperately wanting hard food - I have EVO dry to feed that want. He's not nearly as interested in hard food now as IT is harder to eat this new way.

When I say not all cats KNOW how to eat soft food, people tend to look at me really wierd...but that's never deterred me before...I'm totally convinced this is a HUGE issue with changing our cats from hard food to wet.
 
:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'll join in!!

Binks and my GA civvie free fed on dry with am and pm feedings of canned (the gravy style, cuz I thought it looked 'yummier') their entire lives.
We moved in with the 2 AdoptoTorties who had only ever had dry, and two months later found the FDMB and got edu-macated.

Transition for Binks and Smudge was instantaneous...enthusiastic acceptance from the get-go...
though in true contrary cat style, now that kibble is 'forbidden fruit' Binks will go to great lengths to get his lil paws on it! :-D

Annie- Fannie on the other hand...has been a struggle. She nibbled on the canned, but staged hunger strikes daily when no dry was available.
She has a "Long Tall Sally" build...and weighed in at only 6 lbs with an ideal weight of 11 lbs- so not eating was an issue.

But I am tickled pink to report that after a 19 months of compromise, my shy lil multi-colored girl now weighs 10 lbs...
and we've been a kibble free household for 2 months :RAHCAT .

I still have to feed Annie separately because Smudge is a Bully Girl and drives Annie away from her dish...
but all three babies are sleek, glossy, healthy and happy with LB results that put a big grin on the bean's face :mrgreen: :lol: .

Smudge had horrible gas and smelly puddingpoo when we became a family...but healthy feeding resolved that within a month.
Which is pleasing in MANY ways, as she is a total velcro cat, and I find it much easier to enjoy cuddles when my eyes aren't watering from the stench :lol:

All 3 kitties have gone from disappointing and scary exam results (life-threatening for Binks and Annie :sad: ) to shiny gold star vetty report cards :-D

And of course...the most wonderful result...Binks is approaching 1 year as a diet-controlled diabetic...
with a two month return to insulin last year brought on by... wait for it............ACCESS TO KIBBLE !!!!!!!! :roll: :shock: :oops:

Thanks FDMB!
and thanks for starting this thread, Carolyn!
What a great idea!

As an apology for sharing embarrassing Smudge info, i'll add this to ease Smudgie's wounded pride...

[youtube]R1byGtdrNS4[/youtube]
 
I am convinced that dry food caused Beau's FD and he loved the stuff so much his nickname was Mr. Crunchie Man. As his weight increased I switched him to Iams Weight Management dry food and left it down all day. I had three cats and split one 6oz can of wet food between the 3 of them per day. (where's the "banging head against wall" emoticon?)

When Beau was dx, I asked about diet and my vet said we had to get him regulated first before seeing if his diet needed changing. Absurd (banging head on wall again). Another vet there kept trying to sell me the "Catkins" diet - Hills dry DM. (now I have a headache from all the head banging). After 6 months of no regulation to speak of, high doses of vetsulin (my gut told me he needed less), I started searching for a better answer and read everything I could here. I vowed to start testing and changing his diet.

Over the course of a month I switched him to all wet food, learned to test "all the time :mrgreen: ", and lowered his dose from 3.5u sid to less than 1u bid. He wasn't an easy switch and didn't want to eat the wet food so I would put 7-8 kibbles in the top of it, pushing them down until only a tiny tip of them stuck out. That worked as he had to eat the wet food to get the kibbles out and I ignored his pleas for more dry food (that's always tough) . I put fewer and fewer kibbles into the food, ending with a sprinkle of about 2 crushed up on top of the food. I had always fed Friskies pate food, so that was easy to just give them more of that. Now I feed a mixture of Wellness and Sophisticat low carb. Sophisticat has been rebranded as Great Choice (PetSmart brand), but it is comparable to Friskies in quality, and costs a little less. Friskies has Menadione Sodium Bisulfate (synthetic Vit. K) in it - an ingredient that I avoid because of it's toxic and carcinogenic potential. Read more here:

http://www.naturalnews.com/024244_food_pet_sodium.html
and here:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=menadione

I believe that Jeddie was also fed a dry food diet as he had all the signs of it, but he came to me one month after dx and already on Hills DM canned food, which I phased out in favor of the Friskies (this was 2-1/2 years ago before I learned about MSB).

Changes I can attribute to the wet food: softer, shiny coats, feeling good, active, oh, and OTJ for Beau! I h ave two 4 year old cats that have been on wet food their entire lives and they have perfect body weight and build and don't get that winter paunch all my other cats have had.
 
Our transition was pretty easy, for the most part. Ruby had a bit of trouble learning how to eat the soft food. If we leave in in the "puck" form (straight from the can) she has no idea what to do with it. She would just sit and stare at it and occasionally poke it with her paw. Once its mushed up with some water, its easier for her. She does have a bit of trouble in that while she's eating, she ends up smashing it down with her schnoz so I have to keep stirring it up. When she was first diagnosed the vet gave us dry DM. She ate that for a couple of days before I found FDMB. I tried the canned DM and she wanted nothing to do with that. I called the vet to find some alternatives and what did she do? Gave me a copy of Janet's & Binky's list! It took going thru a handful of brands and flavors before we hit on the winners of FF Chopped Grill and Beef & Chicken Tender Feast. Now we're good to go! One thing is that she seems to be really carb sensitive. If she eats a flavor that is 5%, her BG will jump quite a bit. We stick with mostly 2% - 3%.

Our civvie, Midgie, is an interesting case. She's a skinny little thing and always has been. While they were on dry food, at least a few times a week, she would eat and barf. While she was eating it sounded like she was chewing, but when she'd barf, it would like she swallowed it all whole. There would also be a huge circle of crumbs around her bowl, like it was flying out of her mouth while she ate. Since we switched to canned, no more barfing. She eats more than she ever has and has maybe gained an ounce or two. The only downside is that she is the LOUDEST eater you've ever heard! Its just crazy. You would think eating canned food would be quiet but not with Midgie. She'll be over there chomping away, making NOM, NOM, NOM noised the whole time. :razz:
 
had a pretty good transition with patches, he took to it very well no issues with any flavors etc, my civie molly is another story, it took opening at least 15 different flavored cans of food to even get her to touch it, she would go really close to the food, stick just the tip of her tongue out and tap the food she would stick her head up and walk away....now she LOVES wet food ...in the beginning i dont think she would eat an entire day but now even a can being opened she runs in....

will never ever put a morsel of dry food in molly and with the next kitty i get when i feel its time to get a new friend for molly since I lost patches almost a month ago.
 
Scooter's was more of a jump than a transition... he was a carb junkie at first and I tried switching him with little success... but after about 3 days he just suddenly decided he LOVED the canned food. I used Fancy Feast and didn't have to dress it up with tuna juice or Fortiflora or anything. And even though I still left dry out for him, he would sit and cry for his wet before he would touch the dry again. :lol: I am so thankful that he is such a good eater... I can tell how he is feeling by how enthusiastic he is for his food. Seafood, beef, chicken, turkey, SPAM... if it's smelly and somewhat resembles meat, he will eat it. He even loves raw food. The day Scooter stops eating is the day the world stops turning :lol:

ETA: After the removal of the dry food, his excessive drinking and urination was back to near normal levels within days. He eventually gained about 3 pounds and his coat became thick and soft and the greasy clumps went away. He became incredibly more active and actually wanted to run around and play for the first time since we'd had him. He really became a completely different cat.
 
I never fed my dsh cat that I had from my age of 17 almost thru my 40th birthday anything but wet food - the occasional tender vittles pack but mostly 9 lives wet food. When I got my first Maine Coon (our civie) the literature said that because of their large jaws etc. they enjoy crunchy food - so I gave her a free feed bowl of dry (half hairball remedy/half IAMS) and she loved it and half a can FF in the morning and half a can at night - when I got Robbie (my current sugar kitty) he ate the same thing - he was about twice her size frame wise and ate a lot more of it so I filled the bowls of dry move often and split one can FF in the morning between them and one at night. Robbie suddenly weighed in at almost 24 lbs at the vet one day - so we got the "dry food for over weight cats" (hairball remedy) and cut back on the IAMS. From about the time he started gaining weight (3-4 years old) he also started having the worst snarls. We called him RASTA CAT cause he literally had dreadlocks - he hated to be brushed or combed so I would have to cut these CLUMPS out of his fur- he'd had such a lovely coat - this was a cat that should have been a blue ribbon winner - he was from champion stock and would have gone on to be a show cat if his breeder hadn't retired. But he had this messy coat and it wasn't very shiny as time went on either. When he started drinking bowl after bowl of water and peeing platter size clumps I knew something was wrong. He was diagnosed and our vet suggested we cut way back on the dry food - we did somewhat but he still got a good bowl and some handfuls a day. Than I found this forum and I pulled the dry food for him - than for both of them. Not only did his BG start to shoot down (eventually going OTJ after about 3 months) but his coat got gorgeous, silky and NO SNARLS. Even our vet was astonished - said he'd never be so casual about suggesting people take their cats off dry food. It was night and day - he was so much healthier it was amazing. I will never feed a cat dry cat food ever again. I don't even like giving it to our dog.
 
Multicat household : I have 21 cats, yes 21. All from adoption with age 13 to 5. They were fed dry all their lives since they all came from shelters & the shelters fed them dry. I was having free fed of differnct types of dry buffet with caned food for breakfast.
Since Rosy was DX during Christmas last yr; yeah, what a Christmas gift! ohmygod_smile I took her to 3 different vets since her condition deterioated within a mth, all the vets asked me to let her eat all she wants & regulate with the use of insulin. Her dose went quickly from 1u to 3u BID. Condition still not controlled. Rosy was eating & drinking non-stop, peeing river!
I looked up the net & found my way here.
A mth ago I stopped all dry food for Rosy & my other 20. Oh yes, a lot of resistance & protest from the 3 - 4 dry food junkies.
I am feeding them 3 fixed meal of canned food with additional steamed chicken filet for dinner. As for those refusing wet, they will be "granted' dry food after everybody finished off the canned. I do see their "touching" on the wet has increased too. Hope one day, I can get all of them on wet food.
As for Rosy, with the transition her condition improved. She's now on 1u BID, though jumpy with her bg figures, she's much more comfortable now. No more excessive crave on food & drinking. I hope to get Rosy regulated soon.
With the transition from dry to wet, within a month I see a smooth, soft coat. No more dandruff. They're all drinking less & peeing more because of the water content in the canned.
Although a lot of my friends are still faithful believers of dry food, I see for myself this is the way to go.

Transition from free fed to fixed meal is not easy for multi cat household, and not to mention from dry to wet. Can you imagine those 84 dishes piled up at night? :lol:
 
Due to financial constraints, I had a nearly 2-week delay between having Sebastian's diabetes diagnosed & his first insulin shot. I took that time to remove kibble from his diet & feed only wet food. It wasn't a difficult transition, thankfully. He's always been easy going when it comes to food. He's also asthmatic, and I'd been using teaspoons of wet food to administer his medications for that.

I was also anxious to fully swap over his food prior to starting insulin. I'm so glad that I did.

At diagnosis, Sab's number was 640. By the time he went on insulin, his scans were in the 100's and lower. His two shots of insulin made him very low. So for now, he's diet controlled. I am so grateful for that!!!! I feed him Wellness grain-free. He also gets 5 pieces of cat treats at supper. I must give him this so he'll leave his sister's food alone. She gets her arthritic supplements in treat-looking form. Sab's so worried about not getting EVERYTHING that she does that he'll eat her supplement, and it states right on the label to KEEP AWAY FROM DIABETIC CATS. So, he gets treats every day now lol
 
Before reading over Binky's Page, I switched to a higher protein dry - Taste of the Wild. Even using the percentages on the bag (not the dry matter basis), it was clearly a bit higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate. After finding Binky's Page, I shifted again to Wellness Core (well hey, 11 cats, free feeding - it was easier!).

Once I found FDMB and changed the pride of 12 over to low carb canned (WalMart Special Kitty until they changed the formula, then PetSmart Sophisticat until they changed that formula), 2 obese cats lost their excess weight within 2-3 months. I was concerned at first, but they both stabilized at new healthy weights with no additional efforts required.

I didn't notice anyone not eating ... but when I pulled out the Wellness to use as a treat after testing, the others magically appeared for their treats too. I only used 1-3 pieces per cat. During a short period when Spitzer was on a zillion doses of pills (ondansetron, Pepcid, cyclosporin, metoclopromide, doxycycline), pill pockets replaced any dry food.

Currently, I've been testing various mixtures of Turkey & Giblets formulas: Purina Pro Plan, Fancy feast, Wellness, & Friskies Special Diet (due to an increased magnesium level, the 2011 reformulated regular Friskies now causes diarrhea in my long haired kitties), until I find a good mix that will work best at the least cost.

They won't eat the reformulated PetSmart Sophisticat/Great Choice which now has a consistency of baby mush. Pro Plan Turkey and Giblets (no rice version) is minced and that will trigger vomiting in one cat, so only the crated semi-socialized cat Mason gets it. Merrick 95% was too mushy. Friskies Special Diet, Fancy Feast and Wellness Turkey and Giblets have an "al dente" texture which they all seem to eat OK, so I'll be phasing out the Pro Plan (pricey and in 3 oz cans!).
 
When I changed Akbah to wet food, his insulin need dropped so fast it was dangerous. That day, his insulin need decreased, and after a week, he was off insulin completely. (I reduced his insulin every day thinking at some point I would find the amount he needed, and I did, and it was none). His eye stopped running, his dandruff cleared up, he woke up and started running around the house again, and was in every way back to his old self. I have to have a few flavours available because I have two cats and they take it in turns to go off various flavours. My civvie was oveweight and her weight is coming down to something sleek, slowly. Wish I could say the same thing about myself. Sigh. Maybe I need to eat stinky catsoup too. (I mix the wet food with warm water to make stinky soup, which they prefer to the straight-from-the-can).

Actually the thing that got him OFF insulin was changing to 6 small meals a day, he settled at needing some ridiculous tiny dose, while he was on 2 bigger meals, and had big swings between high and too low. I was going to change his insulin, but first I changed the number and frequency of meals and that was the final peice in the puzzle, for Akbah, (but every cat is different).

And I always need to emphasise when I tell this story, that the first few days for Akbah really were dangerous, his BG got very low and I could have lost him if I hadn't been home testing. So be careful, and don't change food until you are testing (I wasn't testing very well, it was rough going, but we had to test and so we worked out our processes as we went. )
 
I thought I would never be able to change Racci over to wet food and in fact we still are not at the point where she is adventurous about it as there are only 2 foods she will eat and both are fish, Wellness Salmon & Trout and Core Salmon & Whitefish. There is still nothing else acceptable to her but they are wet and she seems to like them as long as I prepare them properly. Racci is over 15 and would never eat wet food even though her mother and my other cat did along with their dry. She acted like I was serving her poison when I gave it to her. :lol: Finally with the help of the very patient people on this board and I don't know how many hundreds of dollars of wasted or donated food, she's eating those two foods. I was told to water it down like a soup and I thought "what? that's nuts! What cat will eat that? Guess what, its the only way she'll eat it. So now I warm her food in the microwave, make it soupy and she'll eat those 2 types of foods.

Since Racci switched over, and it's only been about a month or two, she's much sleeker. She's always been a little fatty and was almost 20 pounds last visit at the vet. Right now I would say she's lost about 2 lbs. What used to be a hanging belly is now just her long fur. I've been able to cut her insulin already by a half unit with 2 reductions and she's in the normal range much of the time with blues, greens and yellows her usual color on the ss. Racci is also eating about 5-6 small meals a day instead of free feeding & it's working very well for her. (a lot of work for me since she's so particular :roll: ) but worth it for sure.

I was a little concerned about all the fish but since it's a good quality and the vet said don't worry she's sees hundreds of cats that are healthy on nothing but fish diets, I guess I'll just keep hoping one of these days she'll accept something else. For now, she's doing great and she eats homemade meat when in the mood.

Another benefit of the wet food has been that her diabetic neuropathy has improved with her improved bg. Overall, I think she's doing great.

Melanie & Racci
 
Let's just say Shiro was a dry food maniac. The day after he had all the teeth behind his canines pulled (Stomatitis) he ate dry kibble! He was also quite fond of those Temptations treats and so transitioning him to wet food has been...a challenge. He'll pick at it, but he doesn't seem to low low-carb food at all.

My mother accidentally (out of laziness is more like it) gave him a Fancy Feast Medley (Primavera chicken and veggies or something) and he CHOWED DOWN. =__= It was only later I told her that was not for him, but for one of our underweight cats. I've read conflicting things on that variety of food so I wasn't even sure how upset to be.

The tragedy is that Shiro's wet food days used to be a huge treat for him! He'd come running...and now he looks like he can't stand the stuff. I may crack and buy him something like freeze dried meat just so he can masticate a little. Maybe sprinkle some in his food? Oh cats...always so finicky. cat(2)_steam
 
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