Dry food vs wet food vs raw food..help?!

Question
Hi Ms. Connell,

I have a 5 y-o, neutered, indoor-only, vaccinated and inbred male cat. He has a bit of an issue with urinary 'difficulties'. Mainly he was straining and crying and was urinating pink-tinged urine for awhile. We'd take him to the vet, and they couldn't find anything, but suggested we put him on urinary dry cat food. So for the past 2 years, we have fed him Purina-One Urinary Health Formula, and an occasional can of cat food.

But I have several questions bout this. First off... Purina is the ONLY UTI formula I see. So if it was that 'great', wouldn't other brands have it too? All the foods have different quanties of protein, carbs, ash, fiber, fat, calcium, and magnesium listed. I can't seem to find anything that says "Go with a higher percentage of THIS, but a lower percentage of THAT", so I have a clue what to look for. One food I found was almost double the protein and the calcium... and it's a store-brand. *blank look* IS that good or bad, you know?

Some have suggested going to a RAW diet... but I work a minimum wage job, am paying off debts, and to be bluntly honest, can't afford to feed my cat this all the time. I love Squeaks, but I can't be shelling out $30 for a little tube of paste that will maybe last a week. I can't justify it, not when that's 2 weeks worth of gas to get to work, you know?

We've tried feeding him more canned food (thinking that canned food = higher water content = weaker urine strength), but he gets VERY bad diarrhea from that. And he starts following me, screaming and clawing and twisting around my feet whenever I'm home, apparently in hopes that I'll feed him.

So yeah. All this, to ask:

-What's the general guidelines I should be looking for on dry cat food labels? Especially for a cat prone to UT problems.

-Am I a horrible fur-mom for not getting him the raw foods?

-Is there some way to get him on canned food and not have a gagging-litter box? Or is canned food even a good idea for him?

I'd ask our vet, but we live in a very rural area, and he's a farm vet. He doesn't see the problem in any dry food, let alone a special one.

Thank you so very much for your time and patience, and please, have a great day. ^_^

Answer

guide to switching foo I had to get a fresh cup of java to answer this one...
You are a great pet owner Amanda for looking at alternatives for your cat. Don't think that because you won't feed a raw diet you are a bad mom.. no way.

I don't know of one single vet that will promote a raw diet, especially the way they make them now. I went to many seminars on these diets and I asked the vets after the talk if they promoted them and not one said yes. Human error was usually cited as why as well as the dangers of salmonella poisoning of course.

You are correct about the diet, and there a many, many diets on the shelves now that claim to be for Urinary Tract Health. The question is, which one really is?

While the Purina food might be good for that, anything labeled Purina I steer clear from. While I know that Purina does its research, I also know that they do not use very high quality ingredients in their diets. They use an open formulation and that means is that they buy whatever is cheapest on the docks that morning, usually going in on quantities of foods with other smaller food producers.

As a result of this, the food you buy for your pet will be different from batch to batch, which can cause anything from mild to severe gastro-intestinal problems.

Years ago most cat food companies got on the Urinary Tract diet bandwagon and started to produce foods to reduce these problems, especially for male cats. The problem with this, however, is that not all urinary problems are food related. Diet is merely once aspect of the circle to keeping your cat healthy.

But diet IS a big part of it.  Cats, by ancestry, are desert dwelling creatures, so they don't require as much water as other animals seem to. But wild cats eat raw, wild food- whole rats, squirrels, etc. So they get moisure from what they ate, just like other desert dwelling animals do today.
House cats are just that, however, domesticated cats. They are not wild, and unless you want to start feeding your cat whole rats from the pet store, (at $3 a piece or more) then you need to find a food that fits your budget and your life style. There is nothing inherently wrong with dry food, unless it is not formulated correctly and the cat doesn't get enough moisture to offset the dry.

Vets used to tell folks to salt their cats food to help them drink more water. Some people use fountains, which the cats seem to like more. My cat drinks plenty of water and lives on dry and a small amount of canned food daily. I have had 4 male cats make it past the age of 13 with not one single urinary infection. One lived to be 19 years old.

I have been feeding and recommending Science Diet foods for many reasons, and one is because they have over 50 years of veterinary research behind their food. As a result, they were one of the very first companies that created wellness foods for cats and formuals that promoted urinary healthy. It may not say it all over the bag, but every food SD makes for cats is formulated this way. Science Diet is also a fixed-formulation, so it never changes from batch to batch. They create and test, via feeding trials, all of their foods to make sure they provide optimal nutrition and do indeed keep the urinary tract healthy. Their ingredients are all grown here in the USA, not overseas or in China.
So if this were my cat, I would get him on the SD indoor cat formula and give him just a teaspoon of canned in the morning. I like to give it to them then because you can look your cat over really well while they are eating and check them for any issues. Just remember to start the canned very slowly, by that I mean little bits at a time until his system can handle it. Only use the SD canned that goes with the dry you buy. One can can last a few feedings. Just pop a top on it and stick it in the fridge.

I hope this answers your questions Amanda. You have a great day and feel free to ask me anything else.

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