Cats: Dry vs. Wet - or both?

I know, I think... I might... have a problem... There I said it! I've made it through the first step...

I'm just as bad on animal behaviour and helping people choose pets. There are dogs around my street that won't stop barking so I'm always analyzing why they're barking and what the owners should be doing. It's really terrible.

I just REALLY need a job. 2 years of study, and now there are no jobs available.
But I did get my Natural Choice product manual the other day!

I'm not sure which brand you use, but a lot of the better pet foods actually have a feeding guide so you know what amount to feed each day.
If you are looking to feed each cat specific amounts and are worried about one of the cats eating the other food then feeding them on a regime of morning and night might be suitable.

And yes it is true that they can start to refuse dry food when given wet, they can also refuse to eat anything but fish flavours if they've been eating fish flavoured foods.
Cats are really finicky eaters so they tend to be a bit more of a hassle than dogs. They really go by the smell of the food and will usually choose canned over wet. And they can actually become 'addicted' to fish foods because of the high amount of salt. If you've smelt the fish foods over something like chicken you can tell it's a lot stronger. So changing to something else can lead to food refusal. But with time that can be fixed. And if dry food is left out during the day they will still most likely pick at it, just without the enthusiasm.

As for them going hungry through the day, there is no need to worry, like I said earlier animals are different at feeding to us. In the wild they don't eat 3 or 4 meals a day the way we do. They may have a large meal and go for days without eating (I'm definitely not suggesting you do that though!). Dogs especially will eat tend to eat as much as they can at once. Wild cats have the ability to climb to hide their food so they can come back to it when they are hungry and have eat at their own leisure. Wild dogs can't do that so they have to eat what they can before another animal comes along.
But after the food is gone, wild cats may not get a meal for a few days until they catch something else. That is why dogs tend to eat one or 2 big meals, and cats tend to eat lots of smaller meals throughout the day, but can still go long times without a meal.
If you notice them losing weight then you definitely have a problem, but if you feed them a food that has a feeding guide there should be no problems. Cats have a habit of making you think they are hungrier than they actually are when they come running from nowhere when they hear the can opener and getting all up in your face like they haven't eaten for 2 weeks. Don't fall for it! It's a trick!

xD They act like that any time I get them food.
And they act weird when I take their fountain away and clean it, as if I leave for hours and let them go thirsty. o.O

From what I can tell from the feeding guides, they seem more suited towards when you're using one instead of mixing both. But learning about their eating habits makes me feel more at ease with the thought of leaving a bit and then giving some wet food at night.

I've heard some things about fish flavored foods, I even read something that naturally it's not something they usually eat and I remember reading about the salt content, too.
I generally go for chicken most of the time, but that might be just because I prefer chicken over fish and think my cats should, too? Some weird psychological thing? Who knows. *shrug*

It is true that cats don't eat fish, it's due to the flavour and salt content that makes it so appealing. It's really just a cliche that cats eat fish, just like mice eat cheese, etc.. Chicken is actually better, in higher quality foods you will find that the main source of meat is chicken because of it's higher protein content. And the better quality the food, the higher the nutritional content, the less you need to feed.

The food that I'm currently looking at right now is chicken and brown rice... I remember the very first thing I fed them was rice. We didn't have any cat food on hand, but there was rice left over from the night before.

Amadeus was acting like he was hungry last night, pretty demandingly. He kept knocking one of his toys (one of the rolling balls) in to his food dish, which is stainless steel.
It was loud. ^.^;

This morning I had to literally push him away from his food so he would take a break from scarfing it. I was surprised that pushing him away actually worked though, he wandered off after I did and came back a bit later.

I dont have a cat but my doggie loves his wet food but we cant afford it alot so we mix half the can with the dry and he eats it all :333

I think most animals do prefer wet over dry.
I'm planning to do dry in the morning and wet in the evening.
Amadeus is a snarfer, so there needs to be a bit more control than I've been exercising.

Well when I had to feed my neighbors cats (she has 7 cats) I used both wet & dry, just like I do my dogs. And I find that my dogs are quite picky and like wet over dry or just both together, but most of the time I just give them both together unless we run out of one and not the other

I'd probably prefer wet food to dry myself (if I wasn't vego). When you say chicken and rice, do you mean home cooked or a pet food?

It's a pet food from Drs. Foster and Smith. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...51&pcatid=8951

Maybe technically I should be getting the kitten food... I think they're about one...
The first pictures I have of them are in October... I don't even remember if that's when we got them. o.o;
The vet said they were about 12 weeks when we took them in.
*sigh* They grew up so fast.

At one year they are considered adults so you don't need to get kitten food, just adult/young adult.

we feed our kitties a mix of wet and dry, dry food is left out during the day and they get 1/4 of a can each of wet food around dinner. They are a little chubby but are in good health because they are so active.

My two don't care for people food at all and only one will eat wet food. I only give it to him every other day. And even then, he doesn't actually eat much of the food, he appears to lick/suck off the "gravy" and spit out the food

lol, cats are so weird
Mine like people food, I'm really bad about sharing, always have been.
I haven't fed them TOO much though... I've shared chicken from Wendy's and some fruit loops and saltines.
They only ate the Fruit Loops 'cause there was milk on them. ^.^;

They have a few more months before they hit one year, I think... they must if they were 12 weeks or so in October/November.

Here are my little munchkins, btw:
Edgeworth
Amadeus

Those are pretty old pictures. ^.^; They're all grown up now.

Yes indeed, they do grow up too fast. My kitties were the same age when I got them and now they're 11 months old. The Wendy still beats on them occasionally, and has taken a fancy to holding down the kittens by laying on top of them....They have gotten quite big in such a short amount of time.

Your kittens are so cute.

Here's pictures of my kittens when they were kittens...
Kara - September 09


Dax - Sept 09


The Wendy - Everyday

Awwwww, sooo cute!
lol, I love how The Wendy is all, "... what are YOU lookin' at?"

They can get rough sometimes, too. It makes me nervous... more for Amadeus than Edgeworth, Edgeworth has pretty thick skin so if he gets gnawed on, I don't think it bothers him much.
When they got their vaccinations, the vet actually commented on Edgeworth's skin... because the shot went all easy for Amadeus but Edgey has a lot thicker skin.

I feed my cat daily, mixing a half a can of wet cat food with dry food. I put the other half of the wet food in the fridge for tomorrow. She was heavy but her weight seemed to level off when I started this regimine (about two years ago) and she has lost a pound and a half since then (an ounce a month).

She is perfectly healthy now but with all those anorexic cats on television she probably thinks she still has to lose an ounce or so.

Before we had the kittens, we did that with The Wendy's food and she wouldn't eat it unless we warmed it up first. She doesn't like her food cold. heh.

It's amazing what we will do for our animals.

It's actually that uncommon at all to have to heat up food for cats before they have an interest in it, a lot of cats don't like their food cold. They like to to be warm because it's similar to prey that's just been killed, and because it enhances the smell. If you've ever noticed how a cat will kind of sniff at the food as it goes in to eat it, it's because they are seeing if the food is good enough. Cats with illnesses such as cat flu will actually refuse to eat because the the illness has blocked their sense of smell, if they can't smell the food they won't eat it. That is why warming food up before feeding a sick animal will increase the chances of the animal trying to eat, because the smell is enhanced.

Edgeworth is like that, he sniffs and investigates.
... and Amadeus just eats. -_-
I literally have to pull him away from the bowl so that he doesn't eat until he pukes.