Would this be a cruel thing to do to our cat?

[Dieu]

Hi everyone. Your thoughts would be most valued, as I'm not so much a cat person ... my children adore our cat though! We have had our rescue cat for around 4 years now (picked by my ex, who has now left!), and he's a lovely boy on the whole. When we brought him home from the rescue, he was on 3 Felix pouches a day. Soon after, I thought it would be better for him (and my purse!) if I cut it down to 2 pouches a day, but with a bowlful of good quality dry food for in between times. So that's what I've been doing since way back then.
He absolutely loves the Felix pouches, and therein lies the problem. The stuff is like cat cocaine to him, always has been. I can't go into my kitchen without him following me, crying for more, sometimes only an hour or so after the last pouch. I am fond of him, but he's doing my head in with this. It didn't used to be so bad in our old house, but we're now in a much smaller flat with the main living area right beside the kitchen, so it feels like there's no escape from his begging!
So here is my evil thought: would it be ok, do you think, to cut them from his diet completely and replace with a top notch dry cat food (one that's highly nutritious and tasty - it's pretty much Iams at the moment, but I assume there's better out there?)? I could jazz it up sometimes with a bit of tuna, his most favourite thing in the world (beside Felix ).
I understand that rescue cats may well be a bit more food fixated than the rest, but this is something else. And I find it so difficult to ignore the crying - for me, it's quite frankly the equivalent of nails down a blackboard.
I want what's best for him, and he deserves that, but don't want my relationship with him to suffer. I know it sounds daft and dramatic, but that's what I feel is happening, in my role of feeder. He has no other health issues.
What do you think about this? My reasoning is that he would get used to the change in diet; he is a big boy so probably does have a voracious appetite, but is looking porky, so it may even be good for him? And he would probably beg for more Felix no matter how much I gave him, so in a way I might as well remove from his diet??
Oh, and if you concur that this might be a good way forward, some dry food recommendations would be very welcome.
Sorry, didn't realise this would end up so long, and many thanks in anticipation.

Our cats are rescues and they are very food oriented. They get fed twice a day and nothing inbetween because they will never leave food uneaten.

They are on an all wet diet because of bladder issues - a mix of pouches for convenience and tins for economy. But we also found they beg for food less now than when they were on IAMS dry. Dry food is very concentrated, it's a bit like having the the wet food with most of the bulking out water removed so it's physically less in their tummies. (The cheaper stuff is bulked out with ash etc but that of course has its own issues.) My worry with putting a food-centric cat on dry food only is that they will be hungrier.

I know they are cats and not people, but would you feel satiated and healthy on a diet of crisps, biscotti, crackers and beef jerky?

One trick we've used in the past was to use dry food and soak it for a few minutes. Our cats accepted that and it was a bit better than completely dry.

We have three cats and two large dry food dispensers which they go through regularly. They get wet food twice a day but as the girls never finish theirs, boy cat minesweeps the cat bowls finishing their leftovers. He will demand food even when he has some in his bowl. I think he's just showing me who is boss attention seeking.

He's a huge cat compared to the other two but not fat. He's just big. And very active.

Have you tried alternative wet food? I give my cats 1/2 a tin of Butchers classic a day and Iams in between. 6 tins is normally about £2.60 ish.

My friends rescue moggy was similar to yours, he was obsessed by food and would steal off peoples plates he once dragged half a cooked chicken through cat flap as well

OP it seems you asked for advice, people said don't stop his wet food ...but you'd already made up your mind and will anyway 😐

because after 4 years of owning him, I feel it's time to change things a bit and try something new. I've ordered him the best food I can afford and hey, if it doesn't work or makes him unhappy, we can just go back to how things were. I am not necessarily signing him up to a lifetime of dry food .

Dry food is a cause of kidney disease. A dry only diet, IMO, is completely inappropriate and the likes of IAMS have a lot to answer for with their nonsense adverts.

Thanks Sleepy. Yes, that does seem to be a popular view. What I can possibly see myself doing is continuing with some wet food, and replacing my other dry food with the Millie's Lionheart. Hopefully the latter will keep him full, so that he will lose his fixation with the wet stuff. I figure it's worth a try, as he doesn't seem particularly satisfied with the current format anyway.

I have just started giving my cat butchers classic after reading the ingredients. Their chicken, beef an game tins say 48% meet which is brilliant compared to most cat foods available in supermarkets (most are 4%) however butchers fish flavours are only 4%. I dint know if there is a nutritional reason for that? or cost saving reason for butchers. I got a 12 pack for £5 in asda. Previously i was feeding asda select pouches for a few weeks after having him on asda tiger dry food. The select pouches are 75% meat and 89p a pouch! But in these few weeks Dcat's condition has gone way downhill, he was having diarhoea and seemed to have lost some weight so i changed to the butchers just yesterday. Hopefully it does him good.

Thanks RudeElf. Have just had a look on the Tesco website, and will probably add some to tomorrow's grocery delivery. Yes, it does look like a good one (tins though, yuk, at least the pouches were convenient!) and I see what you mean about the difference in protein content between the meat and fish varieties. However, the 'really fishy' version has a comparable content to the meat. It's a few pence more and is in a blue can. Hope this helps.

However, the 'really fishy' version has a comparable content to the meat. It's a few pence more and is in a blue can. Hope this helps.

It does help, thank you. Will have a nosey myself next week when cans run out.

I did find the tins a bit gross to start with but am used to them now, i use a bit of tin foil to make a sort of lid for them once opened and keep in the fridge between servings.

Pets at Home often have offers on them as well.

You can get plastic lids for the cans.

My cats only have dry food. I loath wet food it's repulsive fly egg attracting toxic grimness.

Beautiful shiny healthy outdoor cats here.

Some of the cat tins used to come with a free lid 20 odd years ago when i was wee

My outdoor cat comes to me once or twice a week for food and i assume eats elsewhere the rest of the time. She is a big pudding and looks healthy as can be. Its the indoor boy who i am more worried about due to the recent weight loss.

The plastic lids are widely available, packs of 3 in the pound shop or on ebay

We don't even fridge our opened tin, it just lives out on the side in the utility with one of those lids on. They seem catproof.

I find the stuff in jelly much less grim to deal with than the stuff in gravy.

Ooh thanks! Will nip into pound shop tomorrow.

I can't speak for all pound shops everywhere mind... hope you find them.

Mine follows me in to the kitchen and wails for ham/milk/egg/anything bad for her.

I can walk out of the kitchen and fill her food bowl and she stays their wailing, if you didn't know better you'd think she had not been fed for a week.

Have you thought of only using an automatic feeder to cut the association of you being the food provider?

I have my two on wet butchers classic tins in the morning and evening with little bit of Iams in between. Interesting about adding water to the dry... my boy was diagnosed and treated with crystals but I was told by vet to put him on a Royal Canin dry food and nothing else. I started giving him wet food as its seems counterproductive not giving him wet.
I totally agree that the noise gets frustrating when they want wet food.

Annecy one of my cats has urine crystals and she is on a prescription urinary diet. She has Hills c/d wet food pouches (she started on the Royal Canin pouches but I switched to Hills as they have a higher meat content). I think you can also get dry food for urinary problems but my vet said wet food is best. HTH!

i would recommend keeping to wet food always, i know i know, its so much more convenient! but it encourages teeth plaque.

Its a myth that compacted dried food keeps teeth clean, its a strap line is all. bones are the only thing that keep teeth clean, and the type of food being consumed.

i'd be more tempted to go for the butchers wet food, or chappie, yeah for dogs, but it has decent amount of calcium. You'd need to check the contents well and depending on whether it contained the right balance for dcat, maybe supplement with something else more 'catlike', the name escapes me at the moment of the element that cats need, but they need a much higher protein content than dogs aswell.

... but putting the bowl somewhere else would be easier on you! it would confuse dcat so help to break that habit.

What?! Give a cat dog food?! Terrible idea.

Update: cat continues to get wet food, and have substituted Iams/Purina dry food with Millie's Lionheart.
So he's still a fat, whiney bastard and I'm more out of pocket than ever

Our vet told us to only feed a cat dry food (obviously with plenty of water available). I wonder why, if it's so bad for them?