Indoor cat on dry food only, what is your experience?

[Idratherbewithmycat]

My cat is a female BSH (neutered), 1 year old. Breeder (very experienced and I trust him as he has been doing this for 15 years) has advised to only give her high quality dry food on an unlimited basis now she is an adult. Reasons behind this are:

• cats are natural grazers and tend to develop eating disorders when "forced" to eat at meal times or when food is not always made available to them. If dry food is available all the time, they will self regulate
• wet food is appealing to them so they will often eat it also when not hungry, on top of the dry food hence why they will eventually gain weight

Now I have tried both approached and I have to say that my cat just doesn't seem to like wet food that much. I have spent a lot of money on it and tried very good brands like Canagans, Royal Canin, Hi Life and a few more and she has pretty much rejected almost all of them (she mainly licks the liquid as soon as I put it down and then leaves most of the food there to dry out). I have also tried different types like shreds, pate', jelly etc etc.

She does love her dry food and I have been using the Royal Canin British Shorthair which is specifically designed for her breed. I am thinking I should just stick with this as she seems to like it and eat it and it is what the breeder had recommended. My main fear is the lack of hydration so wonder if I should have multiple water bowls or a water fountain (live in a small space so that's a bit of an issue).

Is anyone else feeding their cat dry food only and have they developed issues over time?

Re the self regulation, she is definitely a grazer, seems to have a few bites here and there throughout the day (I know this isn't feasible with some cats but she doesn't have a labrador appetite like some!)

I had long haired Persians on RC Persian food. They would t eat wet food at all. They did really well on that. I only swapped as my next cat couldn’t tolerate it. She had Iams for a while before swapping to Amazon lifelong grain free, which completely sorted her sensitive tummy out. Current Persian is the only one I’ve had who will eat wet food. She has Amazon lifelong grain free and a tin of thrive.

I have an indoor cat that has dry food constantly available, and she’s thriving. She doesn’t gorge food because there’s never a scarcity, just has little and often. We do have water bowl downstairs and another upstairs where she sleeps, she does like her water. Especially lapping noisily away at 3am!!

she’s recently had her annual jabs and the vet said she was ‘perfect’ weight-wise/coat/in terms of visible indicators.
So in our experience its absolutely fine.

we’ve had her three years and she’s been fed like this all her life. I’m not sure it would work with a cat used to being ‘fed’ (as opposed to ‘food always available’) my mums cat for example would just immediately wolf down whatever is put out and he’d either have none left the rest of the day or just continue eating up the refills and become a very large cat!!

Most cats I have had have been on available dry food. I’m yet to have a cat who actually eats all the wet food and I have tried many brands.

I only had issues with one who would gorge from a traumatic upbringing so we needed to manage what he ate as it wasn’t good for his bladder/kidneys.

My cats have always eaten both plus cat soup. One was half Siamese though rest moggies and all went outside.

One water bowl should be fine and a fountain if you have room.

My 6-year-old moggy is just the same, OP - she’ll lap up the juice from wet food but always leaves most of the meat. I’ve had her for nearly 2 years now & she’s been fine on just dry.

I have tried cat soup too. She will lick it if ai give it to her with a spoon but completely refuses it from the bowl. It’s expensive (I tried a good brand) so feels very wasteful to give it to her daily when she won’t have it!

I need to figure out where to put it… I am already aware that water should be kept away from food but I live in a small house and don’t really want to have cat food in the bedrooms or front room so options are limited

I have a 2 year old bsh and we switched to dry only about 9 months ago. She was barely eating the wet food and it was just going to waste. She has a water fountain so gets as much water as she needs. I tend to top up the dry food once a day when it gets low, a big bag of the royal canin last for ages. Vet was happy with her weight in summer.

I’m in a one bedroom flat so not much space here either. We have food & water on separate sides in the kitchen which is apparently okay.

recently changed to Katkin which is human grade cat food - arrives frozen to lock nutrients in - takes up space in the freezer but OMG. Our cats used to lick gravy like you said. We now have completely clean bowls. They love it and it’s pure meat. I thought I was doing ok before with Sheba- turns out it’s only 4% meat 🤮 . So the cost is a lot more but I have much happier cats who eat their food

cats in the wild only eat creatures they’ve caught, basically only consuming meat & bones.
Manufacturers of pet food have only been producing dry pellets for cats for about maybe 20yrs, cats digestive system hasn’t had any time at all to evolve to live off bone dry overcooked (so it achieves total dryness & hence apparently desirable ‘long shelf life’) manufactured stuff.
The long heating produces ‘Advanced Glycation End Products’; these are basically deformed amino acids (parts of proteins) which are known be involved in humans with alzheimer’s , diabetes & kidney disease.
Cats saliva is only going to clean the protein off its teeth. Any carbs in pellets /biscuits will stick to the teeth with nothing to remove it just lead to decay, which is why so many cats have tooth problems today.
Personally I prefer to feed a good wet food, or raw meat. Though I do occasionally used freeze dried meats/liver as treats.
sorry if i’ve gone on abit!

Cats especially drink the fluid around meat as that has high Taurine content, this is an amino acid cats can become very short of as they can’t make their own & is especially necessary for healthy eyes & heart.

Definitely get a water fountain. They come in many different shapes, sizes and colours these days. There are some really cute ones available too. If you do your research, you’ll be able to find a perfect one to suit your space. Also, if you buy one that comes with a rechargeable dock (as opposed to one with a standard electrical plug) it will give you more flexibility where you can place it around the house.

It’s very common for cats to be not very keen on wet food. Many cats also barely drink any water.

They may be absolutely fine until they get to retirement age, but there is a very real risk of kidney impairment, which will get worse as they get older and may ultimately kill them.

Personally I would try and ensure that they eat at least one portion of wet food a day, and this is best started when they are still quite young.

We have tried both over the years but for many years now, both of our cats were happy with dry (one has sadly passed now). Our Ragdoll has a very sensitive belly and we finally found a dry food that agrees with him. Other dry foods didn't and neither did wet food. We also found that dry food encourages them to keep more hydrated. As it is dry, they are thirstier and want to drink more. It is also supposed to be best for their teeth to have dry.

My 6 year old British story hair has unlimited access to dry food, just basic go cat. He also has some wet food, he only like the nicer brands with gravy. I only feed him one dessert spoonful at a time as he is not that hungry, but he does ask for it. He likes freeze dried treats and he drinks from a water bowl. He's,a big boy cat 6kg (neutered) very long but he's not overweight and can go outside as much as he wants. The vet is always happy with him.

Issue is that I also have the litter in the kitchen and food and water shouldn’t be close to that so really limited options!

But how do I ensure she does that? I have tried at least 10 different brands and textures and she used to eat wet as a kitten, just atopped liking it as an adult. Ultimately she just won’t eat it and will let it dry in the bowl for the whole day

Yes but her dry food is complete and also has taurine

I have only ever tried high quality wet food with a very high meat content but nothing.
don’t like subscription services so not keen on that

When my beloved cat was diagnosed with impaired kidney function I cycled through each and every wet food I could lay my hands on. Ultimately we went through a period where we simply restricted access to dry food: she would get one or two small portions a day; other than that just high quality wet food.

She got used to it, but there was a lot of expensive food wastage along the way, and it was clear that she still preferred dry food. There came a point where her days were clearly numbered, so we just let her eat whatever she wanted.

Ultimately, despite drinking lots of water - way more than she drank when she was younger - she needed extra fluids. We gave her subcutaneous fluids for two or weeks, but the process of administering it was distressing for her and her quality of life was deteriorating. So we did what was best for her.

If I had my time again I would do everything possible to get my cat used to wet food early on.

My dry food only cats were all good drinkers. Especially from plastic beakers/ human glasses. I had several around the house. Penelope has a magnificent set of whiskers, so she prefers a wide shallow dog bowl.

I wonder if you could soak the biscuits in mineral drinking water?
and have a look at this cat food specialist?
https://www.purrform.co.uk/dry-matter-basis-calculator/?utmsource=Klaviyo&utmmedium=email&twsource=Klaviyo&twprofileid=01JKX8CP5BXM25YVQY6DWWHQS1&twmedium=campaign&kx=GwHoR-ZtbWkueF7xd-JmTf6EmPhx-XHJHdP6tFiuzSyHGDitlNhYOhEl0mUU4zyk.WL59HL

My cat & I are extremely lucky that our local Vet is a cat Specalist who literally only treats cats. The first thing that’s discussed is making sure cats have wet food.
Pet cats are descended from Desert cats, which get their fluids from their prey, they haven’t evolved to digest & get nutrients even from cooked food, let alone highly manufactured pellets.

I’m so sorry about your cat, @Enrichetta, & thank you for the warning.

I adopted Kitty when she was 5 so her tastes were pretty much formed - we tried Untamed but she still was only interested in licking up the juice.

I think I’m going to start giving her cat soup a few times a week though.