Dr. Elway's Dry food

[Willowwombat]

My overweight cat is still refusing to eat canned food of any kind. I've been feeding her half pouch food and half dried, but my vet wants her off the high-carb pouch and commercial dry food and onto a high-protein canned food.

The trouble is that I have tried literally every single canned food available here, and she just won't eat it. I'm getting awfully tired of throwing food away and the cost is enormous.

I bought a bag of Dr. Elway's dried food as the protein/fat/carb ratio is very good. She will eat it most of the time, and my other cat hates it, so it could be a good solution to the problem.

I keep hearing here that any canned food is better than any dried food but having looked at the nutritional profiles of various foods posted here, it seems to me that she'd be far better off on the Dr. Elway's dry than on her pouch food, which is nutritionally not nearly as good.

Given that she is a very good water drinker anyway, wouldn't it be better to feed her the Dr. Elway's dried than keep her on the low-protein, high-carb pouch foods?

 

[pearl99]

IMO, the best cat food is as high of meat protein as you can get/afford plus what your cat will eat. I have one that is not at all fond of wet food, but she will eat a little, so she gets 90% dry kibble and what she will eat of wet food.
I do think wet food is better for cats than dry, but if they won't eat it not much to be done except trying toppers or similar on the wet food to entice them. Have you tried toppers or other goodies in smaller amounts on/in the wet?

I've used Dr. Elsey's temporarily (it's Elsey's, Elway was a quarterback for the Denver Broncos ) and it's great food, but high in calories (544 calories per cup) so with being overweight would she eat less to compensate for the high calories? Also some cats don't tolerate it due to the high protein, but that's individual. My cat loved it but it's too expensive for me for continued use. It was a bridge till I found another dry for her.
Yes I think a good dry kibble would be better than the high carb pouch foods. And wet food best of all but...it goes back to what they will eat.
TikiCat brand is another brand that's higher in meat protein than other kibbles and less $$ than Dr. Elsey's.

Good luck, it's sometimes trial of different things till we find what Our Highnesses will eat!

 

[Willowwombat]

I tried the Tikki and she won't eat it.

Every now and then I buy one can of a wet food that she'll eat. I buy more, and she won't eat it ever again.

When she was a ktten I fed her a brand of canned cat food I can no longer find. It had rabbit, and lamb, and venison. First she only ate the rabbit, then she only ate the lamb, and then it was the venison, and then she woudn't eat that any more, and I switched to Taste of the Wild, which she ate for a couple of years, and then started to refuse it. So now she's on the Natural Instinct pouches, which are obviously pretty lousy nutrition-wise because she doesn't eat much and still gained weight.

I have literally tried every brand of non-pate food. Neither of my cats will eat pate, even FF, which rules out most canned food right off the bat.

 

[Maurey]

Any wet is going to be better than the kibble — wet food is generally a lot more satiating and filling, due to the protein, fat, and moisture content.

Your cat sounds like a kibble addict and is very unlikely to start eating wet food unless you start significantly restricting access to the dry food. Make sure you don’t have kibble freely available, use timed feedings, and attempt to gradually reduce the calories you provide via kibble. You can try enticing your cat into eating wet by crushing up kibble and sprinkling it on top of the wet, or using a pinch of Fortiflora, which contains the animal digest that attracts cats to kibble.

Supermarket brands are popular for a reason, even if they’re not the best quality — cats love them, generally. That might be a good point to jump off. Fancy Feast Classics (non fish) are popular with many cats, has a pretty damn good composition for the price point, and is considered a pretty decent food for weight loss. If your cat won’t eat FF, I’d honestly transition to any brand of wet food she’ll eat, completely remove kibble, and go from there.

That said, I think your issue is that your cat is holding out for kibble, rather than being picky about wet food. If you’re on Facebook, the Feline Nutrition group is very experienced with transitioning cats from kibble.

 

[Willowwombat]

I'm not on FB.

She won't eat ANY wet cat food. Just commercial dry food and the aforementioned Natural Instinct pouches, which are both high-carb.

At least with the Dr. Elway's she's getting more protein and less carbs. She won't always tuck into those, either. It's just that I'm trying to wean her off the pouches.

 

[Maurey]

Kibble is suboptimal for weight loss, at best. There’s not really such a thing as good kibble, given the nutritional needs of cats, I.e high moisture.

Since she’s eating pouches, you can use them to wean her off the dry. Then you’ll be able to get her on good wet food much easier when she’s not holding out for the kitty junk food, imo.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

I'm gonna be the odd one out as my boy is the same as your kitty. We went thru a whole episode of slowly trying to entice him with anything from fancy feast to tiki cat over the period of months and eventually he started protesting by going on a hunger strike that almost killed him. He's always been a great water drinker and our vet says he was well hydrated even during his health scare where he was vomiting and having soft stool. I also feed my boy Dr.Elsey dry food (chicken). He is going to be 12 soon with the only time he has had a health scare is when I tried to add wet into his diet. I know wet is the best of the store bought food (my other cat gets wet!) But ultimately if he will not eat it then he will not eat it.

Fortiflora might work for enticing, some other toppers can also be freeze dried raw powder, bonito flakes, I've even heard some people use a little bit of cheese powder. My dry food lover has always been happy with Dr.Elsey so I didn't have too much worry feeding it to him.

 

[mizzely]

I would say feed the cat in front of you. The best cat food is the one your cat eats, does well on, and that fits your budget.

My cat won't eat the same wet food two days in a row so I have to rotate all the time, add freeze dried food on top, etc to encourage her to eat. It can be exhausting. She's so much better now than she used to be, but she barfs a lot on dry food so I didn't have a choice.

Just be careful with the calories in Dr. Elsey's as it's at like 554 calories per cup.

 

[lisahe]

I would say feed the cat in front of you. The best cat food is the one your cat eats, does well on, and that fits your budget.

My cat won't eat the same wet food two days in a row so I have to rotate all the time, add freeze dried food on top, etc to encourage her to eat. It can be exhausting. She's so much better now than she used to be, but she barfs a lot on dry food so I didn't have a choice.

Just be careful with the calories in Dr. Elsey's as it's at like 554 calories per cup.

I'm a big wet food advocate, too, but what mizzely says is true: you have to deal with the cat you have.

I do hope, W Willowwombat , that your cat is at least eating the chicken flavor since the others have chickpeas.

On another note, mizzely mentions putting freeze-dried food on top of their cat's meals. Which makes me wonder, Willowwombat, if you've tried putting freeze-dried food or treats on your cat's food. We use this trick, too, and it works very well to entice our pickier cat to eat. We also feed a lot of freeze-dried raw meals -- from brands like Primal, Purpose, and Nulo -- that are very low in carbs. Those keep our cats satiated very well, which is a big plus for weight management. I know not all vets (including ours!) are excited about raw food but it's one of the only ways we can feed our cats enough foods that they like that's also low-carb, high-protein, and lacking certain common additives/fillers (like potato!) that our cats can't eat.

P.S. Another thing we do is to crush some Dr. Elsey's (a meat tenderizer works really well) and put it on top of wet food. Sometimes you can slowly switch a cat over to wet food like this, by getting them used to wet food using the dry food. That worked for us after we adopted our cats, who much preferred dry food.

 

[Willowwombat]

Hm. Some good ideas here.

I do notice she eats less when she's had a little bowl of the Dr. Elway, like maybe one ounce in a measuuring cup. As I said, she really doesn't eat much anyway. The weight gain is literally all about the carbs, our vet thinks.

I also tend to think her general laziness and weight gain is partly depression. My husband is very ill and she always seems very sensitive to our moods. That's one of the reasons we adopted our second cat, Dude. She loves him and that has perked her up a bit.

 

[Willowwombat]

Kibble is suboptimal for weight loss, at best. There’s not really such a thing as good kibble, given the nutritional needs of cats, I.e high moisture.

Since she’s eating pouches, you can use them to wean her off the dry. Then you’ll be able to get her on good wet food much easier when she’s not holding out for the kitty junk food, imo.

My girl drinks a LOT of water. She has a fountain.

 

[lisahe]

Hm. Some good ideas here.

I do notice she eats less when she's had a little bowl of the Dr. Elway, like maybe one ounce in a measuuring cup. As I said, she really doesn't eat much anyway. The weight gain is literally all about the carbs, our vet thinks.

I also tend to think her general laziness and weight gain is partly depression. My husband is very ill and she always seems very sensitive to our moods. That's one of the reasons we adopted our second cat, Dude. She loves him and that has perked her up a bit.

Yes on the weight gain, the carbs would definitely contribute to the weight gain. The less carbs the better for a cat since they're essentially empty calories.

Our cats are getting older (they're almost nine now) so aren't really a good comparison but we've always noticed that they're lazier, sleepier, and hungrier in the winter. They're really proving that point this year! We think that's partly because they don't go out on their screened porch, where they spend lots of time (awake and on edge!) tracking wildlife during warmer weather. They pick up on moods, too, and of course things are still really, really weird almost two years into the pandemic but the seasonal changes continue to be an even stronger force.

If you do try to reduce the dry food, here's what we did over the course of a month or two...
-we started with having a bowl of dry food out all the time (our cats came to us underfed and scrawny so we fed, fed, fed)
-then we only left the bowl of dry food out at night
-we gradually reduced the amount of food in the bowl as we also...
-started putting small amounts of dry food on top of their wet food meals that we fed at fairly regular times
-then we kept reducing the dry food on the wet meals
-and then everybody forgot about dry food.

That was back in early 2014. We've brought back small amounts of dry food -- only Dr. Elsey's -- in very limited amounts and uses, for treats, toppers, and nighttime snacks, while also adding more water to the cats' meals.

 

[Willowwombat]

Thank you.

 

[Willowwombat]

Apologies for bumping this but I see no Edit function.

I'm not getting anywhere.

Two days on, and none of the tricks suggested have budged her at all. She eats nothing and at the end of the day I have to break down and feed her a tiny bowl of Dr. Elseys' (like 1/8 cup) so she at least gets some food in her. She's not wild about the Dr. Elsey's but at least she'll eat a bit of it.

For wet food in the past two days I've tried Tiki After Dark and Tiki regular food, Almo Complete and a couple of Fancy Feasts, Dr. Elseys' Clean Protein, ALmo Natural, Taste of the WIld (both flavours), Blue EIlderness and Scrumtious from Scratch Chicken entree, with and without her favourite Orijen treats crushed and sprinled on top. None of these foods got more than a glance. She will literally smell it and walk away. She ate a couple of mouthfuls of the Tiki After Dark and then walked away.

I also tried a raw product from the pet store with some Orijen treats sprinkled on top and she looked at it with what I can only call horror and backed away.

I don't know what to do at this point. I was hoping that she would at least eat one of the foods I bought but she won't even take a bite.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

Apologies for bumping this but I see no Edit function.

I'm not getting anywhere.

Two days on, and none of the tricks suggested have budged her at all. She eats nothing and at the end of the day I have to break down and feed her a tiny bowl of Dr. Elseys' (like 1/8 cup) so she at least gets some food in her. She's not wild about the Dr. Elsey's but at least she'll eat a bit of it.

For wet food in the past two days I've tried Tiki After Dark and Tiki regular food, Almo Complete and a couple of Fancy Feasts, Dr. Elseys' Clean Protein, ALmo Natural, Taste of the WIld (both flavours), Blue EIlderness and Scrumtious from Scratch Chicken entree, with and without her favourite Orijen treats crushed and sprinled on top. None of these foods got more than a glance. She will literally smell it and walk away. She ate a couple of mouthfuls of the Tiki After Dark and then walked away.

I also tried a raw product from the pet store with some Orijen treats sprinkled on top and she looked at it with what I can only call horror and backed away.

I don't know what to do at this point. I was hoping that she would at least eat one of the foods I bought but she won't even take a bite.

If vet results are all healthy for your girl, I wonder if it could be mental related? I never found out what happened with my boy who started not eating, but I feel like it could have been a mix of stress from frequent vet visits, feeling my stress/anxiety and the introduction of wet food he just does not know how to eat. I've tried so many brands and textures and flavors just like you and he simply does not know how to get it in his mouth like dry food. It made him depressed and he was no longer affectionate nor energetic. He lost 2 lbs very quickly during this time.

I wish you can just force a cat to switch a food like you might with a human, but sometimes it's just not possible, and the good will might end up being a hazard for the cat who doesn't understand why you're doing this? One night after 1.5 weeks of his minimal eating, he just came over and started purring next to me. I thought he was going to die, but he magically recovered afterwards. Vet was baffled and he's been healthy since for 6 months so far. I let him have his kibble and let him graze a pre-measured daily caloric amount of kibble, because I'd rather he be happy and alive than dead. I absolutely believe wet food is better for cats (my other cat gets it) but for some cats it's just not an option. You can consider trying some other kinds of dry food that's not super low carb (I suspect my boy's digestive system can't get used to eating high protein/low carb food after a lifetime of eating normal kibble). Even something that may be 33% carb 40% protein, on a calorie restricted daily feeding, can help over a period of slow weight loss.

 

[Willowwombat]

It's not that she doesn't know how to eat wet food because she eats pouch food. It's just that most of the non-pate wet foods seem to be based on shredded chicken or disgusting-looking and smelling tuna (Tikki, looking at you), and she just hates it.

At least I've been able to get little Dude, our other cat (the newly adopted one) onto wet food although he, too won't eat the high protein stuff. So I have on at successfully weaned off dry food. But he isn't overweight.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

It's not that she doesn't know how to eat wet food because she eats pouch food. It's just that most of the non-pate wet foods seem to be based on shredded chicken or disgusting-looking and smelling tuna (Tikki, looking at you), and she just hates it.

At least I've been able to get little Dude, our other cat (the newly adopted one) onto wet food although he, too won't eat the high protein stuff. So I have on at successfully weaned off dry food. But he isn't overweight.

Have you tried the brand Rawz? It's best foods are the 96% meat pates and they offer several single protein varieties. The fav in our house is turkey&turkey liver variety but they also have chicken, rabbit, beef, duck and some mixed protein varieties.

 

[lisahe]

It's not that she doesn't know how to eat wet food because she eats pouch food. It's just that most of the non-pate wet foods seem to be based on shredded chicken or disgusting-looking and smelling tuna (Tikki, looking at you), and she just hates it.

Will she still eat the pouch food? Maybe (following on with what Babypinkweeb says and suggests) the best thing for right now is to just let her (this is Willow, right?) eat what she will eat, even if it's not the best food and not what the vet wants her to eat. As with some other feeding problems, sometimes it's best to just go back to what used to work and then try, try again. Even if the pouch food isn't optimal, it's certainly not the worst thing you could feed her.

What Babypinkweeb says about stress rings very true to me: our cats also get stressed when they see we're stressed. And many cats need very, very slow transitions to new foods. Some people have to mix the old and new foods for a lot of meals, gradually increasing amounts of the new foods. We used dry food on top of wet food. The versions of the story go on and on.

Rawz foods are great. I wish our cats liked them more consistently! They usually love them for a while then decide they don't like them. But will then eat them again a few months later.

Here's hoping for better fortune with this in the new year!

 

[Flybynight]

Hi,
I agree, don't offer too many new foods at once. I would do one ( variant/brand) at a time with a break in between of a week or so. Sometimes it takes a little while to accept a new food as food and too many can be overwhelming.
If any are a similar texture to what she ate previously try that while also feeding the previous food.
Often there is a healthier variant that is similar to a less healthy one. For example, chunks in gravy but with real meat & no sugar is still chunks in gravy.

 

[mizzely]

My cat won't touch any of those shredded chicken or flaked tuna foods either. She will eat pate, but lately has been preferring "minced". Her favorites seem to be American Journey. She won't touch the "chunks in gravy" from Fancy Feast or Friskies, but she will eat the Tiny Tiger ones.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but what is the pouch she's eating now?