Best dry food for a 19-year-old cat?

[firecat88]

My cat, Chloe, turns 19 this year. Within the past year, she has gotten into this habit of crying at all hours of the night and quite a few hours of the day. My dad suspects that it might be partly to do with the dry food we've been feeding her. The stuff we've been feeding her now is Royal Canin Renal LP 21 Modified-C, which we got from her vet. However, I'm beginning to worry if this stuff is actually all that good for her. The first two ingredients, after having looked at the bag, are rice and ground corn. A little further (but not much) down the list were things like corn gluten and wheat gluten meal. None of which sounds like what she should be eating a lot of.

[Kaylyn]

Grains aren't good for kitties at all; they can't digest it, and it's just used as filler to lower the cost of the food. Neither of my cats have kidney problems so I don't know what your cat's specific needs are, but I've had excellent luck switching mine to a grain-free indoor formula. They don't inhale their food like they used to when I was feeding them cheap cat food from wherever I happened to be shopping at (and before I did my research and learned what to look for in a cat food), and they generally seem to be perkier and in better health (not that they were sickly to begin with, but they have more energy now). They also have far fewer hairballs than before. I was cleaning up two or three a week, and I've cleaned up two TOTAL since we switched the food a few months ago.

Best advice I can give is look for something where the top ingredient is protein of some sort, and preferably the top two or three. Within the first five ingredients, you should stay away from anything that has more non-protein ingredients than protein, and steer as clear as possible of anything with brewer's rice anywhere on the ingredient list. Better fillers for cats are potatoes and peas, not corn or wheat or rice.

Of course, prioritize whatever is needed for your cat's health issues, such as her age or kidney problems. Also, here's a good site that covers what's best to avoid in pet foods (covers both dogs and cats): http://www.optimalpetfoods.com/index...ients-to-avoid

I'd warn you about the cost of decent cat food (a 5 lb bag of what I feed my cats is about $15 US) but if you're buying specialty food from the vet, you're probably accustomed to the price. Even so, I can eat one nice meal or two or three fast-food meals for $15, whereas the same amount of money will keep my cats fed for a few weeks, so once I learned to think like that, I didn't mind the cost so much.

[EricKei]

What Kaylyn said -- for my cat, he does seem to like foods that are meat-based better, but that's all I can really say for sure. Note that you want actual MEAT as the first few ingredients, not meat "by-product". That's code for "ground-up random animal parts."

I can speak to my experience when my husky was still around -- I wasn't always able to feed him primarily-meat food as often as I'd like simply because it's expensive ($50 for a 20lb bag, easy), but when I was: He became sated on less food, he had more energy, and his poops were smaller, firmer, and not as stinky. Totally worth it, all around, if your budget allows for it.

Check the ingredient lists carefully, as many "premium" (read: overpriced) brands are still corn-based and/or meat by-product based; as with people food, if it has to use the word "Premium" in the name, it probably ain't. Groceries mostly carry a bunch of cheap brands, several premium types that ain't so healthy, and one or two kinds of the better ones, simply because they don't sell as well. I can't recall the name atm, but there are some "compromise" brands available that are grain-free, and have real meat as ingredient #1 (they tend to use fruit and other veggies as filler instead), but they're more like $6-7 for a 3-4lb bag (where a cheap one might cost $3 and the really good stuff would be $10); they're an excellent choice if you can get them on sale. They usually just look like little brown cubes, instead of visually interesting shapes designed to catch the pet owners' eye. If there's a feed store anywhere nearby, check there, as they will often have entire aisles dedicated to nothing but the "good stuff," and will often have at least one staffer who is familiar with them.

[MoonCat]

I use Purina One. I asked my vet about the grain thing and she claimed it's been exaggerated, but I figure if someone is having good luck with a non-grain diet, go with it.

As for the vocalizing, vets tend to say that it's due to mild feline dementia. I don't necessarily agree. I believe sometimes it's because the cat's hearing and sight are not what they used to be (and they're good at hiding this fact) and the vocalizing is their way of saying "Here I am" as well as "Where are you?"

[Sapphire Silk]

As for the vocalizing, vets tend to say that it's due to mild feline dementia. I don't necessarily agree. I believe sometimes it's because the cat's hearing and sight are not what they used to be (and they're good at hiding this fact) and the vocalizing is their way of saying "Here I am" as well as "Where are you?"

Taz does this, and she's a fairly young cat at four. Sometimes when I go to bed, she doesn't realize it if she's been napping. Once I've settled down I'll hear her crying, and when I call her name a few times she'll come trotting into the bedroom to settle down with me for the night.

I feed Taz Science Diet. She's done very well on this. I've had a problem with Meow Mix and my cats getting obese. So I watch what she eats very carefully.

The OP might need to use a catfood formula specifically for older cats. She might also need to take the cat in for a vet visit if this is a new behavior, to make sure there isn't a medical issue that's been missed.

It's also spring. Taz has horrible problems with hairballs this time of year, even though I feed her a hairball control cat food year round. I've added a paste that I get from the pet store that is oil based and flavored. Taz loves it: it's a treat for her. I give her a glob about the size of a pea once a day (not with her regular feedings); she goes nuts for it. It helps the cat hair move down the digestive track instead of being vomited back up.

So I'm wondering if maybe the OP's cat is having a hairball problem.

[firecat88]

After a lot of research, we've decided to see how she does with Blue Wilderness. I compared it to Science Diet Age Defying (which we were feeding her prior to the stuff from the vet) and the Blue stuff looked better. The first three ingredients were all meat, there was no 'gluten' or 'by-product' anything in the list, but it still had about the same lower-but-not-absurdly-low protein content.

As for asking the vet about her crying, we have. They chalked it up to the fact that we'd recently packed up and moved across the state after having lived in the same house for 10 years. They also said that, aside from having mild cataracts and despite the long list of things that have happened to her over the years (everything from skunk spray to being hit by a car), she's in surprisingly good health for her age.

[EricKei]

Cats are "obligate" carnivores -- i.e., they MUST have meat (and especially Taurine, an amino acid -- this is added to cat food, which is why they can't live on, say, dog food for more than a short time in case of an emergency (I've had to ask about that before but not actually do it)). As all of us cat owners know, they do eat plants intentionally from time to time...as an emetic >_< They aren't doing so for nutritional purposes.

This is as opposed to dogs, who are technically carnivores, but with many omnivorous traits.

Was the move recent? I swear by Feliway. You can get a vaporizer (works like a Glade plug-in thingy) for about $25, I believe, with a month's supply of the stuff -- it's a synthetic hormone that mimics the "marking odor" that cats tend to leave on your furniture...but only to them. Humans cannot smell it. I used one of those when I moved a couple of years back, and it quickly got my kitties calmed down. I discovered the stuff when I took one to a vet who used it in the exam room to put the patients at ease. Also, they never marked the place up, because the hormone (theoretically) tricked them into thinking the job had already been done.

[firecat88]

Was the move recent?

Despite having had our rental house since December 2013, Chloe wasn't moved into it until about June 2014 (we hadn't sold our old house at the time and, thus, my mom and I were still living there whilst my dad was at the new house). We have since moved again, though.

[Kaylyn]

After a lot of research, we've decided to see how she does with Blue Wilderness.

Blue Buffalo Wilderness is one of the better-quality dry cat foods out there, so that's a good choice provided it covers your cat's special needs. I use Nature's Recipe Grain-Free Indoor formula. It's also marked for hairball control, which is a godsend for both my cats, as my short-hair grooms my long-hair as well as my long-hair grooming herself, thus double the hairballs.

[EricKei]

Mkay. The hormone could be worth looking into anyway if kitty is stressed out. Speak with yer vet about it if you are considering it (just keep in mind that they're probably the only place to GET it offline, even tho it's non-prescription -- thus, they may have a bit of a vested interest).

[firecat88]

Mini-update: There was a lot less crying last night but, of course, it's too soon to tell if it was just a coincidence or not or if that was even a contributing factor. However, she absolutely *loves* the new food.

[EricKei]

Awesome! ^_^

[MoonCat]

Mkay. The hormone could be worth looking into anyway if kitty is stressed out. Speak with yer vet about it if you are considering it (just keep in mind that they're probably the only place to GET it offline, even tho it's non-prescription -- thus, they may have a bit of a vested interest).

You can buy Feliway at pet stores. That's where I bought it. It might be a little cheaper that way than going through the vet, but then again if they buy it in bulk they might be getting a deal on the price which would mean they could sell it for the same price as a pet store would. Sometimes it's just more convenient to buy things at the vet's, as long as the price is okay for your budget.