Wet v. Dry Cat Food Poll

[RadioNate]

I'm curious as to how your cat can be 24 pounds and not considered obese. What breed is your cat? I had a cat that got up to 18 pounds and he was most certainly obese. Is your cat a large breed? I have two domestic shorthairs, average in size (around 10-11 pounds each) and they eat the same as your cat (combined). They share a 5.5oz can in the morning and again at night. I toss about a half cup of dry food in their bowl once per day.

I was wondering the same thing. I have a 15lb cat and my vet was very concerned about his weight. He definitely categorized him as obese. I was recommended low calorie food, limiting food and attempting more "exercise." He was concerned about diabetes.

2 cans + a cup of dry food sounds like a ton of food for a cat.

I think mine eat about a cup a day together. I've had cats my entire life and the ones who ate wet food only ate 1 can a day total.

Anyway these cats eat dry. That is what they were started on and I'm sure one wouldn't touch wet food even if I tried. That and wet food is gross. Neither will eat 'people' food so I'm not even sure they'd switch.

 

[KristaTX]

Wet food that is low in carbs is much better for your cat than dry. Most dry food contains grain and your cat is a carnivore with no use for grain. Most cats don't have much of a thirst drive either so need the water in wet food. I didn't know all of this until my cat became diabetic from being overweight and he'd been fed dry all of his life until then. He still gets some dry but I feed him mostly Friskies canned. I give him a little bit of dry but try to find one without grain listed as the first ingredient. Believe me, you don't want to end up with insulin injections twice a day and blood testing like I've been doing for 5 years now.

Yep - diabetes can become an issue especially if they eat dry food all the time.

We used to feed our 2 cats dry food only and would just leave it out all the time. But earlier this year, one of them was diagnosed with diabetes which required insulin shots twice a day. That particular cat would "graze" all day from the dry food we left out, and he developed a weight problem. He was a "crunchies" addict.

So now they mostly get wet food with an occasional treat of crunchies. Luckily the change in diet and a few weeks of insulin helped him, and he was able to go off the insulin. I do still check his blood sugar periodically, though, and recently had to do a couple of weeks of insulin again. I had gotten bad about leaving dry food (albeit a higher protein type) out again for them. Now that I've mostly taken dry food away, his blood sugar is normalized again.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Guys, cats are like people. They are not made in China according to a spec: some are itsy, some are huge. I've currently got a 4lber who is perfect at her current weight and at 16lber. The vet thinks 14lbs on him would be a good "fighting" weight and we're working our way down to that from his starting weight of 22lbs. I've seen 24lb cats who were NOT fat, just big. I've also seen 11lb cats that were seriously obese.

Like people, cats come in all sizes and shapes.

 

[Help Please!]

Our last vet recommended wet food, and my husband had a lengthy discussion about how wet food is much healthier and closer to a cat's natural diet. He actually gave my husband many online references and studies related to this...I think it was something he knew a lot about. Before that, we fed our cats dry food, upon doing our own research (and talking with the vet), we switched to wet food.

Studies show that wet food = healthier cats! I couldn't live with myself if I knew that feeding my cat dry food (when I knew better) led to my cat being sick or dying. We have good friends who had one very overweight cat...the cat had some sort of UTI related blockage, they paid about $400? for the cat to have surgery. They told us what was going on, and we recommended wet food...they didn't switch and a few months later, the problem happened again, they decided that they couldn't afford the surgery, and put the cat to sleep. Made me SO angry!

 

[MushyMushy]

My kitty is 11 and we're trying to switch her to wet, but she doesn't like it at all. We found one that has gravy and she loves to lick the gravy, so maybe she'll take to this particular brand.

 

[Luv2Roam]

I did not vote because I use both.
We recently adopted two young sisters.
Prior to them we had not had cats for at least three years. But we had three cats that lived to be old. (Two esp old.)

The cats foster mom only gave all her critters dry. I think mostly due to having them (hopefully) short term, and having so many.

So when they came to my house, I think they decided they were in heaven with canned food.

But these two could eat me out of house and home. They seem to have bottomless pits for stomachs. The two of them eat more than the three I use to have. I attribute that to them being young, active and playful.

I also have two senior dogs. One being on a special diet, and both on meds. Meaning $$$$.

 

[PaulaSB12]

Mixture of wet and dry but my next lot of cats will be on a raw food diets. Why are we feeding our cats carbohydrates when they should be eating meat that is what they are designed to eat after all.

 

[hopemax]

1/3 of a cup of dry (Wellness) in the morning, 3 oz can of wet in the evening. He is 14.5 lbs, and even though the vet says he is a large cat (he is big boned), they want to see him closer to 12lbs.

 

[C.Ann]

My kitty is 11 and we're trying to switch her to wet, but she doesn't like it at all. We found one that has gravy and she loves to lick the gravy, so maybe she'll take to this particular brand.

Have you tried mixing the wet and dry together? Then slowly decrease the dry.. Over time, your kitty will probably be quite content with the wet..

 

[themarquis]

Guys, cats are like people. They are not made in China according to a spec: some are itsy, some are huge. I've currently got a 4lber who is perfect at her current weight and at 16lber. The vet thinks 14lbs on him would be a good "fighting" weight and we're working our way down to that from his starting weight of 22lbs. I've seen 24lb cats who were NOT fat, just big. I've also seen 11lb cats that were seriously obese.

Like people, cats come in all sizes and shapes.

ITA -- was just going to post the same thing!

It is completely possible that a 24 pound cat is a healthy weight ... but he would have to be a biiiig cat, tall, long, big head, big bones, massive paws, etc. If we're talking Maine Coon, I have no doubt! (and you've got to add the 2-5 pounds of FUR on a MC!)

Have you folks who think the OP's cat is overweight ever seen a large Maine Coon? Like other cats, MCs vary, so some of the smaller females might weigh 12-15 pounds and some of the large neutered males can tip the scales at 20-30 pounds! These guys are giant. Like think for humans a 6'5''-champion-wrestler-andre-the-giant giant. Put a big MC next to a normal cat and it looks like putting a chihuahua next to a great dane.

So please, if you haven't seen the OP's cat, you have no idea whether or not it is overweight.

FTR, I have a 21 pound male MC who admittedly is a bit chubby, but if he was 18 pounds, he'd be a walking skeleton. He just has a big, big body, longer and taller and thicker than normal cats. And he's on the smaller size for the breed!

 

[DMRick]

The vets that work with our rescue group have always said a mixture, for a healthy cat. That changes, for instance, if we have small kittens, wet doesn't always work, because it gives them loose stools. If we have failure to thrive kittens, we soften hard food, because it will put the weight on faster (we try to stick with 'good' food, but when they get ready to adopt up, we'll also offer, for them to get used to it, something like Purina One, which is the free coupons Pet Smart gives our adoptees and they will prob be using that). For adult cats, most of us in the group give 1/4 to a half can twice a day (depending on size), and leave dry down all the time. If we have all day grazers, we put down half of what the bag suggests, twice a day.
That said, I sometimes have cats that won't eat one or the other, so they get whatever they eat. But as I said, our vets feel they need both. Some of my personal cats over the years preferred one over the other, but I always try to give some of each.

 

[Planogirl]

Our last cat was perscribed a special dry food because he had urinary problems. This cat always drank a lot of water though so he wasn't one of those who didn't like to drink anything. Oh, everything else checked out fine for him before someone assumes that he drank water due to an underlying condition.

Cats aren't all identical. They can have their own unique needs.

 

[NAB]

We do dry food almost exclusively. It is a convenience thing, really, for us. We do limited ingredient dry food, with the occasional "Treat" of canned limited ingredient food.

This is what we do too.

The vet told us it was good that he would eat the wet because some cats when they get old and are used to dry only won't eat the wet stuff and strave themselves.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Hi Everyone Inspired by another thread and the ensuing discussion/hijack of that thread I thought I'd do a poll. I'm new to cats and so, other than the recommendations of my vet who is highly regarded locally, I only have the opinions of my friends, which vary.

My vet says canned food every day, doesn't matter what brand, just make sure it is canned. She also said that if I WANTED I could supplement with a dry food which I do. My cat currently eats two tuna-fished sized cans and about a cup of dry every day. He weighs 24# and is a year old but not overweight. I'm going broke

What do you feed your cat, wet or dry, and why?

I didn't read all the answers, but if your cat's 24 lbs, and not overweight, it sounds like he/she has at least a little Maine Coon in it. If so, it's possible that your cat, like our Maine Coon, won't eat canned food. Ours will only eat dry. He's turned up his nose at the most expensive canned foods DH and I have tried (DH spoils him a LOT). We've even offered him scraps from turkey, chicken, etc. and had him just sniff and walk away. Our vet is rather weight-conscious, but she's OK with his 21 pounds, and she's pleased he'll only eat dry food.

 

[PrincesCJM]

I didn't vote either. Like others have said, I feed my cats dry food. I attempted to give them wet food but they wouldn't touch it, other than to lick the sauce off of it. I tried several different brands with no luck. They just had no interest in it. They don't really like people food, other than the occasional tuna.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I didn't vote either. Like others have said, I feed my cats dry food. I attempted to give them wet food but they wouldn't touch it, other than to lick the sauce off of it. I tried several different brands with no luck. They just had no interest in it. They don't really like people food, other than the occasional tuna.

Tiggers definitely don't do tuna!

 

[NAB]

Tiggers definitely don't do tuna!

Wow that it a big cat! How old is it?

My cat is the same colour and problaby will big like that too because we fed him table food, wet and dry. We not touch fish of any kind though.

 

[lovetoscrap]

We do dry only. Our first cat had some sort of sensitivity to wet food? It would make her throw up and after only a short time she just refused it. She also wouldn't eat any people food. So we would just leave dry out all the time. She was overweight for much of her adulthood but she stayed indoors and we had a small house so not much exercise. When we moved to a 2 story house with lots of space she quickly lost weight and remained at a healthy weight for rest of her life until we lost her 2 years ago at the age of 17.

Since we have always done dry we just stuck with that for our 2 others we got not long before we lost Abby. We have a high protein formula that we mix with some good quality "regular" food. They are both very healthy and our vet has no problem with it. One is on the bigger size and she is a bit of a piggy so we do have to watch her, the other one is actually very small and thin. One of them throws up right after or during eating occasionally but we haven't been able to figure out which one it is. The problem of having 2 of them! They do like people foodand are constantly trying to steal stuff-- especially pork chops! Have to take the trash out immediately after that dinner.

We also do treats almost nightly. I limit it to 4 treats for each of them.

 

[surfergirl602]

ITA -- was just going to post the same thing!

It is completely possible that a 24 pound cat is a healthy weight ... but he would have to be a biiiig cat, tall, long, big head, big bones, massive paws, etc. If we're talking Maine Coon, I have no doubt! (and you've got to add the 2-5 pounds of FUR on a MC!)

Have you folks who think the OP's cat is overweight ever seen a large Maine Coon? Like other cats, MCs vary, so some of the smaller females might weigh 12-15 pounds and some of the large neutered males can tip the scales at 20-30 pounds! These guys are giant. Like think for humans a 6'5''-champion-wrestler-andre-the-giant giant. Put a big MC next to a normal cat and it looks like putting a chihuahua next to a great dane.

So please, if you haven't seen the OP's cat, you have no idea whether or not it is overweight.

FTR, I have a 21 pound male MC who admittedly is a bit chubby, but if he was 18 pounds, he'd be a walking skeleton. He just has a big, big body, longer and taller and thicker than normal cats. And he's on the smaller size for the breed!

my maine coon is HUGE. He's not obese at all, just a very large cat. I mean.... he's a beast. His paws are enormous. His hair is everywhere. He's bigger than my friend's doxie dog. He only weighs 15 pounds. But 24 seems excessive to me. I couldn't imagine him weighing 24 pounds, I think I'd freak out. ha ha

I've owned cats all my life, all of them have only eaten dry, and not a single one of them has ever had a problem, been overweight, gotten diabetes, etc. from it. And they are all indoor cats. I didn't realize how may people feed their cats wet. I've always been told that it is horrible for their teeth and had loads of fat in it. Anyway... every cat is different.

 

[Planogirl]

My cousin had a short haired cat that was huge. He weighed 22 pounds and didn't look fat at all. He had long legs and a long body and he was just really, really big all over.