The war of Zara's diet change begins

[iloveeverykindofcat]

According to every possible test and insepction (thanks Petplan), Zara has no parasites, bacteria, infections, illnesses or any other reason for loose stools. She presents as a 5 yr old cat in rude health. So, the war of the diet change must begin.

Bear in mind, this is a cat who gets huffy about me using the wrong bowl for her food. Round one commences tonight.

Oh Gosh. Good luck.

(What do you have planned for her?)

Nature's menu, same as Bibi.

This is truly one of those thing only cat people understand.

My mum has dogs. She does not know my struggle.

I've had a dog here for the past week.

You put any old food down and they eat it. (Well hoover it up really.) Then I have to deal with 'persuading' Seniorboy to ingest a small gold-plated morsel. Sigh.

Good luck! Our cat is looking at her food with disgust at the moment and not wanting to eat it but is interested in any crumbs my DD has dropped on the floor.

Well, we can excuse a gentleman of his maturity some foibles . I don't know what Zara's excuse is though. Royal lineage maybe.

I'd say the first thing you need to be investigating is a grain intolerance, so go for something guaranteed grain-free. That solved the problem for our fur baby immediately. Grain intolerance won't show up on tests, I believe. Good luck on convincing the Boss, though.

What will you do when she does the hard done by plaintive miaow?.

Oh god I don't know. And the face that goes with it...

Remind me - how old is she? ( I have a vague memory that she's pretty young but memory could be at fault.)

1. An absolute darling, and very spoiled.

Our girls are now about 8 months. Still haven't found a food that they will a) eat and b) doesn't cause slightly loose stools and the most terrible wind you can imagine!

A young cat indeed then That gives you lots of 'wriggle room' I would have thought. (And you don't need a food fusspot around for the next 15 years. It's one for sorting right now. )

I'd be sticking to a rigid food schedule with smallish portions - so that they stay fresh - and any old food simply removed after a set time. (Grazing is all very well but not so much when you have a fusspot.)

How many times a day is she fed? And does she go outside at all and eg hunt or thieve/beg?

Wolfie you could try a probiotic like prokolin - we sometimes have good results with it.

Yes I'm sure it can be done - I'll just have to be strict with her (not my strong point). She goes out in the yard but no further and is a pretty terrible hunter. It takes her about three minutes of very obvious gearing-up before she attempts to pounce on anything. I think she caught a moth once. But it might have been dead already...

She'll know if you don't really mean it!

Think thoughts full of willpower. After all, you're Topcat aren't you?

No Bibi is

Ah.

"I'll just have to be strict with her (not my strong point)."

To nick a line from the human parenting section here, 'fake it till you make it', just pretend to be strict by going through the motions. Seriously persevere, just don't look into Bibi's mournful eyes or you are lost and will cave in. When Archcat first came to us he wouldn't go near canned food at all, however good it was, but would wolf down the cheapest nastiest stuff in pouches. It took many months, and much tail-swishing, but now we've got him eating high-quality food he can tolerate without farting. The compromise is that he needs a wide variety of brands and flavours so he won't get bored. So I think you can respect a few minor quirks as long as you win the major battle.

The other thing you can try if going grain-free doesn't work is an exclusion diet - go for food with only one variety of meat until you work out which sort is causing problems.

Well, this is about the time she'd normally have her second meal. She has sniffed the nature's menu and is now looking at me suspiciously and grooming herself.

Arch - she's already on grain free. We're going for all natural raw now. It sorted out my other cat, but she'll eat anything so it was no problem to change her.

Have you caved?

Ah, sorry ilove, didn't realise that Nature's Menu is a raw brand. Did she eat any of it yesterday or today? Did you warm it up a bit before serving to make it smell more appetising? Is nature's Menu pre-minced, or do they have to actually chew lumps of real meat, which can be a struggle with cats who've never done that before (but it's great for the teeth)?

It's going better than I expected! Nature's menu is chunks, but you can easily mash them up, which I do for her. She's eating quite a lot of it now, mixed with a bit of her old food to get her going. And I have to say....stool looks good. I think it's the bone that firms it up. I never thought I'd be proselyting for raw, I thought it was a fad....but you can't argue with results.

That's positive.

Is the willpower holding up or has it not been truly tested?

That's really good. I was expecting her to be on go cat with a side of kit e kat!.