Canadian Canned Food Question...Again.

Lazy Orange House Cat

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So...I took Montgomery to the naturopath last week. To make a very long story short, the veterinarian believes that his random but very scary sneezy hyperventilation thing, among other things, are diet related. So his advice was to get him off dry food and onto a different canned food, or, ideally, raw. Raw is out. The little hairball goes everywhere I go and toting around a bag full of raw chow in hot weather isn't a good idea. As far as wet food goes, he recommended Tiki Cat, Weruva or Instinct. Tiki Cat and Weruva are having some bad supply chain issues, and Nature's Variety...There isn't a lot of information, even on their own site, and from what I can see, the food is only sporadically available. Can anyone here in Canada help with this one? I'm looking to find something similar, but reliable. It has to be a pate, and chicken should be the only protein.
 

cylon.descendant

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I'm in Canada as well, and I empathize regarding the supply chain issues. In my experience, certain proteins have more supply issues that others. My cat can only eat duck at this point due to intolerances, and that one tends to get really hard to find in any brand on a kind of seasonal basis (worsened by the pandemic and other factors). I've heard rabbit can be tough at times too. Thankfully in your case, chicken is a more common protein and seems to be a bit less prone to these shortages (not saying it will never happen, but probably not as much as some of the others).

In terms of the different brands, I don't know as much about how they do with supply of chicken formulas. I did used to feed my cat Nature's Variety Instinct a few years ago (usually chicken or turkey), before his IBD and intolerances came to light. I never had problem finding it, but world circumstances were different, of course.

If you and your vet are thinking that allergies might be at play for your cat, you may want to try foods that are limited ingredient and use only one protein (this can help you eliminate allergens and figure out what the cat reacts to). Rawz is a brand with canned food (that is not raw, despite the brand name lol) with some good limited ingredient recipes. It is on the pricey end, though, and I have had issues with the duck being out of stock in the past (chicken might be okay). Some foods will be called limited ingredient but still have more than one protein source or more filler than you'd hope, so ingredient lists are useful, if this is relevant to your kitty's situation.

You could potentially also look into Merrick and Koha; not 100% sure how they're doing supply-wise right now, but you can find some relatively limited ingredient formulas from them.

It may be worth deciding on a couple options that look good for your cat's needs and then contacting a local store to get their insight on whether those brands are reliably stocked. The workers there probably have a sense of which things are hard to come by and which things are always on the shelves. Good luck!
 

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The little hairball goes everywhere I go and toting around a bag full of raw chow in hot weather isn't a good idea.

Freeze dried or air dried raw are easy to take when travelling. It's fine to fed mainly frozen or homemade raw and also feed freeze dried or air dried raw. Many cats who are used to eating commercial cat food won't touch raw anything.

I doubt diet has anything to do with sneezing and hyperventilation :dunno: Can you get an opinion from a "regular" vet? Does the sneezing and hyperventilating seem triggered by anything in particular? Intense playtime (running around at top speed, jumping / launching across furniture, etc) can result in panting but that's because the intense playtime gets the heart racing and panting is the body's way to slow the heart rate down, no different from athletes or an average person needing to pant after exercise.

I don't know about a NV supply issue in Canada. There's no supply issue in the US. Pet stores have plenty of NV food available.
 

Purr-fect

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So...I took Montgomery to the naturopath last week. To make a very long story short, the veterinarian believes that his random but very scary sneezy hyperventilation thing, among other things, are diet related. So his advice was to get him off dry food and onto a different canned food, or, ideally, raw. Raw is out. The little hairball goes everywhere I go and toting around a bag full of raw chow in hot weather isn't a good idea. As far as wet food goes, he recommended Tiki Cat, Weruva or Instinct. Tiki Cat and Weruva are having some bad supply chain issues, and Nature's Variety...There isn't a lot of information, even on their own site, and from what I can see, the food is only sporadically available. Can anyone here in Canada help with this one? I'm looking to find something similar, but reliable. It has to be a pate, and chicken should be the only protein.
Also in Canada.

Sometime ago (precovid) I switched my cats to merrick from instinct. The reason was I wanted to give them variety and have options if I couldnt get the particular food or the cats decided one day they didnt like it. The instinct was good food but only came in chicken, giving the cats no variety.

Most of the merrick are a pate, including the chicken.

Greg and Arnold will eat the merrick: chicken, turkey, duck, rabbit, thanksgiving day dinner (I remove the peas and squash and mush the chunks with a spoon), the limited chicken and limited turkey cans. This is the one brand, with many flavors they will eat.

I also give them weruva paw licken chicken.

Pet Smart does carry the merrick cans mentioned above. They also put them on sale, both 3 and 5.5 oz. I wouldnt bother with the salmon flavor, I see it is always available when the other flavors have sold out. I did try feeding the cats merrick samon once, they both refused it.

But beware, after feeding the boys merrick, they refused to eat the instinct chicken which had been a staple part of their diet.

I can sometimes find the weruva paw licken chicken at pet valu and global pet foods. They will order it for you if its not in stock.

Note, all the above foods are being mentioned in their canned wet versions.

When you find the food, (you might have to make return trips to several stores) it may be best to buy it in larger quantities.......several cases at a time. The store employes and my observations indicate most buyers are doing this.
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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His regular veterinarian shrugged off the fits as nothing, but when the cat can't breathe, is foaming at the mouth, shoving his hands in his mouth and flinging foam across the room and getting all red in the face, its frightening for everyone. Its very unpredictable. He can wake up out of a sound sleep with that fluttery weird sneeze that seems to start it. He can be sitting in the window. He can be riding in his stroller. Anything. It doesn't happen at night, though, which is interesting. He'll do it a day, two, then not for weeks.
Allergies are not a concern. He prefers chicken over all other proteins and is most likely to eat that. I don't like Merrick. They're really sketchy at the best of times, with a lot of variation from one batch of food to the next. One time I found a chunk of blue plastic in the food. Production problems that began a few years ago have been worsened by shortages and I don't want to go there. Montgomery has a great deal of difficulty adjusting to diet changes, so I need to find something reliable that he can be gradually weaned onto.
So far, we've decreased his dry food. He is less gassy and seems to have an easier time going to the bathroom. As per the veterinarian's recommendation, he is having egg in his wet food. He is not fond of chopped egg, but if I hide it underneath his pate, he eats it.
 

cylon.descendant

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His regular veterinarian shrugged off the fits as nothing, but when the cat can't breathe, is foaming at the mouth, shoving his hands in his mouth and flinging foam across the room and getting all red in the face, its frightening for everyone. Its very unpredictable. He can wake up out of a sound sleep with that fluttery weird sneeze that seems to start it. He can be sitting in the window. He can be riding in his stroller. Anything. It doesn't happen at night, though, which is interesting. He'll do it a day, two, then not for weeks.
Oh gosh, that would be scary to see! Poor guy (and poor you for having to go through the stress and worry). I had meant to mention in my initial reply that my one cat has asthma, which sometimes causes her breathing issues like wheezing or heaving breathing. She also goes through periods of being very sneezy (potentially related to allergies since it seems to be seasonal, but also potentially flare-ups of the feline herpes virus which presents as a cold). I have no knowledge of where the foaming would come from though and so I'm really not sure if asthma would be relevant to consider in your cat's case. I know my other cat has foamed due to the taste of meds, but I'm not sure what would bring it on spontaneously. I'm sorry your first vet wrote it off! Even if it turns out to be a manifestation of anxiety or something, that is still an upsetting thing to see your kitty go through!
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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Last time he had a fit, he threw up twice, too. He isn't nervous. He's absolutely bomb-proof. His pancreatic enzymes and tylan are in capsules so that he doesn't have a reaction to them, and he doesn't react to his Oval. This can occur ages before or after a meal, too. Someone I was talking to last night said her cat was coughing. They switched him to a hypoallergenic diet and it stopped. After three months, she tried him with a small amount of his old food and it started again. Just a cough though, in Bogart's case, not a fit like the Atomic Tangerine.
I've been looking at Koha, which cylon.descendant mentioned and it looks good. I just have to look into how reliable it is, coming from New Zealand and all.
 
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