We have three indoor cats (and one outdoor cat, but he's not immediately relevant to this topic)... one of our cats, our 6-year-old matriarch Jasmine, has had urinary-tract problems twice now; the second was kidney stones, requiring $1700 in surgery.
The vet prescribed Science Diet C/D (of course), and we've been giving them that several months now. However, in addition to the cost, and the inconvenience of obtaining it, I've been reading about feeding issues, here and on catinfo.org. It sounds like C/D isn't the greatest thing to give our cats, nutritionally, but I have some problems with the other suggestions.
So, I wanted to describe our situation here, and see what advice folks might have in our situation. I've gotten wonderful advice on other problems in the past here, so have come to trust your inputs.
The arguments for switching entirely to wet food are pretty compelling. However, all our cats share the same spaces in this house, and ironically, Jasmine is the least interested in soft food!! I know this because in the past we were giving medications to the outdoor cat via wet food, and we gave the others a little at the same time... but Jasmine would typically take a few licks of it and then walk away, leaving it to the others. The only way I can think of to get soft food into her regularly, would be to lock her in the garage all day, but she doesn't like the garage that much, and I'm sure my wife wouldn't go for that much more than Jasmine would...
So for now, I'm thinking of switching them to a Urinary-track dry food such as Purina One Cat Adult Urinary Tract Formula Cat Food (or Purina UR; I don't know the difference between them). That is more readily accessible, and in reading various messages on this forum, a number of you seem to lean toward those specific brands (that is, those of you who didn't vote for sticking with C/D !!).
Anyway, what do you think about my thoughts on this? Is there some simple solution to the soft-food problem that I'm not aware of? If not, is the Purina an adequate solution for all of our babes???
Derell Licht
Fremont, CA
owned by: Rocket (age 15), Yoda (age 7), Jasmine (age 6), Alana (age 3-ish)
The vet prescribed Science Diet C/D (of course), and we've been giving them that several months now. However, in addition to the cost, and the inconvenience of obtaining it, I've been reading about feeding issues, here and on catinfo.org. It sounds like C/D isn't the greatest thing to give our cats, nutritionally, but I have some problems with the other suggestions.
So, I wanted to describe our situation here, and see what advice folks might have in our situation. I've gotten wonderful advice on other problems in the past here, so have come to trust your inputs.
The arguments for switching entirely to wet food are pretty compelling. However, all our cats share the same spaces in this house, and ironically, Jasmine is the least interested in soft food!! I know this because in the past we were giving medications to the outdoor cat via wet food, and we gave the others a little at the same time... but Jasmine would typically take a few licks of it and then walk away, leaving it to the others. The only way I can think of to get soft food into her regularly, would be to lock her in the garage all day, but she doesn't like the garage that much, and I'm sure my wife wouldn't go for that much more than Jasmine would...
So for now, I'm thinking of switching them to a Urinary-track dry food such as Purina One Cat Adult Urinary Tract Formula Cat Food (or Purina UR; I don't know the difference between them). That is more readily accessible, and in reading various messages on this forum, a number of you seem to lean toward those specific brands (that is, those of you who didn't vote for sticking with C/D !!).
Anyway, what do you think about my thoughts on this? Is there some simple solution to the soft-food problem that I'm not aware of? If not, is the Purina an adequate solution for all of our babes???
Derell Licht
Fremont, CA
owned by: Rocket (age 15), Yoda (age 7), Jasmine (age 6), Alana (age 3-ish)