# Best cat food? Science Diet? Need advice



## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

Ok, first off, I have read many posts on the subjet but I'm still confused. Hopefully all of you wise cat owners can set me straight.

I want to give my cat only the best cat food. I don't care about the costs because I've been buying the expensive *Science Diet* since day 1. We bought her the kitten formula at ffirst, then the adult formula when she turned 1 yr old. 

Charlee is 19 months old. She is a short hair "tortoise" colored tabby. She was a feral cat and her mother was wild - from what we can tell. She has been spayed and has all of her shots. She is an indoor cat, but goes out with us into the yard for a quick walk around during the summer. She is slender and long, and in perfect physical condition according to the vet. We assume that she will never be a "fat" cat and that she will always be lean. (except for that tummy gootch that dangles a bit :lol

Back to food. I've read the posts about Science Diet being mostly fillers. Sure enough, this brand was recommended to us by the vet and I've the many posts on this subject as well. Today at the pet store, the clerk re-iterated the same thing to me and suggested Royal Canin for indoor adult cats. He mentionned the fillers and by-products in the SD brand. He went as far as saying that my cat will have more energy, have a healthy coat and shed less. 

Please help me make sens of all the brands; and please do not hesitate to suggest what you know from experience. This is my first cat, and I want only the best for her.

PS: She also doesn't care for treats. She won't even eat real fish. She only seems to like her cat food. We've tried most typical brands. Does anyone know of good treat for fussy eaters?

Thanks in advance, :wink: 
Phil


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## RockysMom (Jun 27, 2005)

I've learned by reading these posts, articles and from my newer vet that canned is better than dry. Before this I fed Science Diet dry, now I feed my cat Wellness canned . I'd recommend going to a smaller pet store (other than petsmart or petco) to get the better quality food for pets. I actually get my cat food at Dogma. I do feed her a little of Chicken Soup for the Cat Lovers Soul dry so she is use to it if ever we go away for a few days and she has to eat dry. She loves that too. Also have used that as a snack. I'm sure everyone has their favorite food they feed their cat. Look at ingredients, you'll want a meat to be listed first. And then see which your Charlee enjoys eating. On cats keeping lean or not , I think it matters on what and how much you feed them and how much excercise they get as the years go by. Outdoor cats get better excercise than indoor cats but I won't let mine outdoors for many reasons. I have her run around inside the house. Rocky will be turning 15 yrs old in April.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

I think the best way to choose a cat food is to think ....

cat=obligate carnivore=major meat eater=must have meat....

Then choose a cat food with lots of animal based protein of the best quality you can find and the least amount of plant fillers and grain. Companies that rely heavily on by-products and use a lot of plant based ingredients as filler are considered to be the lower quality cat foods. Why Science Diet continues to dominate the veterinary community, I have no idea. Their dry foods in particular are heavily corn based, much of their kibble is yellow looking(means it's made mostly of corn) and why can't they use other protein sources besides chicken by-product meal and corn gluten? If you call the company they will teach you to go by nutrient analysis instead of ingredients. But ingredients say a lot about the sources of these nutrients. Nutrients should come from high quality sources. For example, you can get protein from shoe leather, that doesn't mean it's a high quality protein. Not that pet food has shoe leather in it, I would hope not. Vets seem to care much less about ingredients than the nutrient analysis(My goodness, they're like chemistry majors). Read the ingredient labels and the nutrient analysis and you decide what you want to feed because you will get a hundred different responses from different cat owners and the subject of cat food can easily turn into a debate. For example I have my cats on this diet. 

Dry food-Natural Balance Venizon and pea

Canned food:
Nutro Natural Choice
Nutro Max Cat
Avoderm
Merrick
An occasional small can of Natural Balance(the canned food I would most like them to eat but frequently ends up in the garbage disposal)
Pet Gold
Iams(I have no problem with feeding the canned food, it's meaty and by-products aren't the only protein source, but there are people who think Iams is a poor quality food, see what I mean by debate?)

Foods that a lot of people on this forum consider the highest quality:

Innova
Innova EVO(that's a new dry food that's low in carbohydrates but still high in calories)
Felidae
Natural Balance
Wellness(I would feed it if they take out the garlic)
California Natural
Merrick
Nutro(Natural Choice or Max Cat) (some people here might think it's terrific and others might disagree)

I'm sure you'll find something that both you and your cat(s) will approve of.


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## Cat Daddy (Aug 3, 2005)

Yep, they've mgot me staying away from corn stuff too.

Chicken Soup for the Cat lover's Soul light and Natural Balance plus a Special Kitty indoor formula mixed in 50/50 the Chicken soup for the dry.

And Fancy Feast for the canned, because they usually suck up the gravey and leave the meat no matter what, for the most part.


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## CatDad (Sep 7, 2005)

My kids now only eat .... 

Innova - canned 
Natural Balance - canned 

they're both very highly rated


CatDad 

why vets push the other stuff i just don't know.


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## littleraven7726 (Sep 11, 2005)

Phil said:


> Today at the pet store, the clerk re-iterated the same thing to me and suggested Royal Canin for indoor adult cats. He mentionned the fillers and by-products in the SD brand. He went as far as saying that my cat will have more energy, have a healthy coat and shed less.


de-lurking to share my experience with Royal Canin Indoor 27. it was not good. :x i was mixing it 50/50 with their regular Sensible Choice adult from mid december to about 3 days ago. my cats eat a mix of wet & dry (probably 60% wet/40% dry at this point) and the poor things were throwing up hairballs several times a week with the RC indoor just mixed 50/50 in their kibble. previous to the new food, hairballs were rare. it was awful. so we went back to Sensible Choice for dry & gave the RC to a co-worker for her barn cats. the whole experience really turned me off to any food with claims of "hairball control." (the whole reason we tried it was my big guy is 17 lbs and the vet wanted him on low cal kibble, i am going to concentrate more on wet food-getting them to eat more wet- and leave the dry alone)


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## Argent (Feb 15, 2005)

Eukanuba Indoor Cat formula is what my cats love -- and reading labels at the local PetSmart the first three ingredients are all meat. It is a bit more expensive ($20 for a 9# bag) but my girls love it.


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## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

littleraven7726 said:


> Phil said:
> 
> 
> > Today at the pet store, the clerk re-iterated the same thing to me and suggested Royal Canin for indoor adult cats. He mentionned the fillers and by-products in the SD brand. He went as far as saying that my cat will have more energy, have a healthy coat and shed less.
> ...


Does anyone else have negative comments about Royal Canin? Should I just go back to the Science Diet for now and until I find something better?


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## RockysMom (Jun 27, 2005)

I wouldn't go back to Science Diet. That isn't a high quality food for your cat. Moggiegirl in her post above gave you names of alot of good foods. Also about.com gave a list of really good cat foods, canned and dry . Here are some articles to read:

http://cats.about.com/od/catfoodandnutrition/


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## Lisa 216 (Oct 25, 2004)

MoggieGirl gave you a list of some excellent brands.

I used Science Diet at one time, until I learned that there are much better choices. My cats didn't even like SD that much.

I feed two of my cats Natural Balance dry and canned. The third needs a special diet per the vet and eats Sensible Choice Senior. All are available at Petco.

When choosing a food, avoid any food that does not list meat as the first ingredient. Avoid brands with a heavy grain content (corn especially is a known allergen) and meat by-products.

Some pet stores offer small sample-sized bags of foods. Also, if you have to buy large bags of dry, ask if they will take back any foods that your cat doesn't like -- the Petco near me does this. It will save you from ending up with bags of useless food.


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## manitu22 (Apr 25, 2003)

My Willis is on the royal canin made specifically for cats with urinary crystals (prescribed by my vet). I hate having to feed him it. I don't see where it is any better than science diet. Same with Iams....they charge a high price so people think it must be good. Moggiegirl gave a good list of healthier foods. I feed my other kitty Innova Evo and Merrick canned.


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## Gudewife (Jun 27, 2004)

I always considered Royal Canin to be somewhat equivalent to Science Diet...both are no-nos in my house because of the corn. I have no really negative comments about RC, except that I don't think it's really much better than SciDiet, which isn't much better than much cheaper foods.

My personal experience has been as follows:

CANNED: Wellness canned: Loved it, cat loved it, but no longer tolerates it as well since the pancreatitis bout. Innova canned: Ditto. Am now feeding Innova Lite canned as a compromise, she seems to be doing okay on it, but not quite as well as she did on normal food. I wish Wellness would make a canned version of their senior food. 

DRY: Wellness dry: Good experiences with their Super5 and (more recently) Super5 Lite. Also like Innova Lite dry, I think I prefer Wellness, but the Innova has lower phosphorous and I'm in the middle of a 6-month feeding trial with the vet, so I'm stuck with it for a while. Cat loved Innova Evo as treats, but I don't want to chance messing up her balance now. Tried Chicken Soup dry, but the second bag I bought was really icky (a rancid fat, I think), cat wouldn't touch it, I never bothered to try again...and at this point, it wouldn't be a good choice for Assumpta anyhow._ Given the choice, in a young, healthy cat, I would probably try Wellness or Innova dry for treats and supplemental feeding, and high-quality canned for regular meals._
Hills: Have used Hill's prescription R/D (weight loss) and SciDiet Hairball Lite in the past. Major shedding, dandruff, cruddy coat, matting, hairballs, and general poor appearance. Once I moved to a corn-free diet, that all went away. No corn in cat food is my deeply-held opinion (though I do use corn-based cat litter :wink: ) I had to use prescription i/d for a few weeks when we were working on the pancreatitis (ever try mixing panacur in i/d food?? :roll: ), and immediately saw coat and skin problems, which all cleared up again as soon as I transitioned to the Innova Lite canned.


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## Aussie_Dog (Jul 27, 2005)

I tried Royal Canin for a while last year. Willow looked GREAT but I heard that there's an ingredient in the food that's supposed to do that, like the junk dog foods have an ingredient that makes poop nice. So Willow looked good, nice and shiny and soft, but Buffy looked horrible. Her coat was dull (shocking, because she normally does well on any food) and flat and she just looked and acted terrible. I moved them onto California Natural and they improved and never had a problem. I'm now feeding Felidae because the new kitten I took in has some problems with CA Natural, but all 3 are doing good.

I'm partial to CA Natural because I always get good results, whether it be from the cats or my dog, but that's the dry food. For wet food I'm all over Merrick, lol. The cats are too, they go nuts when I crack open a can (the new kitty can't eat any of the beef flavours, unfortunately, since she appears to be allergic to it). They didn't like the Felidae wet, though; only the new kitty would eat it, and only a little bit of it if I added some warm water to it. But every other canned food they've had, they liked.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

A lot of cats don't like the Felidae wet. Neither do mine. Since it is allowed, I will go ahead and say that I don't like Royal Canin. One criticism I have is that their Royal Canin Oral Sensitive Formula is just like Science Diet Oral Care, full of corn. And I had to criticize the fact that the company wouldn't tell me what kind of by-products are in their IVD canned venizon and pea formula. I have found that Iams did share this information with me, what kind of chicken by-products are used in Iams foods, so I couldn't understand why Royal Canin couldn't do that. Of course the Eukanuba line has gotten lower in quality, their new canned formulas do contain meat by-products and I never called them to ask about that. I once got into a lot of trouble for saying bad things about Royal Canin on another cat forum(I'm not going to mention the name of it.) It was my stupidity to speak badly about the pet food company that is sponsoring their website. I really did get scolded over PM and they defended Royal Canin like their best friend in the world. But over here I think we can say what companies we don't like if we want to, we've all said a bunch of negative stuff about Science Diet. I mean this forum has adds and lots of them but no specific message saying, "The cat forum is proudly sponsored by "pet food company name." 

Anyway regarding hairball formulas. I had really great results with a formula that's not even designed to be a hairball formula. Ever since I've been feeding my cats the Natural Balance Venizon and Pea dry food I have found that my cats have significantly less hair balls. What's taking care of it? Is it the pea fiber, the omega 3 fatty acids, the salmon oil? Or could it be something in the various canned foods I feed contributing to that as well? I've read that there are 2 things that generally help control hairballs, fiber(try mixing a little canned pumpkin in your cat's wet food) and oily foods such as oily sardines(fed once in a while) or fish oils in cat foods, mineral oil, petromalt hairball remedy.


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## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

Wow, thank you all for the replies. 
Should I keep "free feeding" Charlee with dry and give her wet maybe once a day for dinner?

Is anyone here from Ottawa Canada? I am not familiar with any private pet stores. All I really know is Petsmart, Percetera and PetValue. 

For example, Petsmart only sells these brands. I would like to try the Natural Balance and Chicken soup, but I can't find them.

Authority 
BLUE 
Eukanuba 
Fancy Feast 
IAMS 
Natural Choice 
Nature's Best 
Nutro Max 

Pro Plan 
Royal Canin 
Science Diet 
SophistaCat 
SophistaCat Supreme 
Whiskas


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## RockysMom (Jun 27, 2005)

Here they list Chicken Soup retailers in Canada if you scroll down:

http://www.chickensoupforthepetloversso ... butors.php

Usually if you go to the petfoods website they will list retailers. Also do a yahoo search to buy online.


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## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

What does everyone think of Eukanuba? My vet was recommending this brand as well as the SD.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2006)

Some of y'all are making me take a second look at RC. We started feeding it as soon as we got Ginger(7 month old Ocicat) thinking it was a high quality dry food and she has thrived on it so far over the last two months but I wasn't aware of its corn content  

We feed it(about 20% of her daily intake) and a combo of Natural Balance, Merricks, and Wellness wet food. I just got the Wellness canned food and its dry food, Super5Adult. She scafed up the dry like it was M&Ms............... Or should I say like 'I' would scarf up M&Ms  Wellness may take RC's former place due to y'all.

Dan


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

> Should I keep free feeding Charlee and give her wet maybe once a day for dinner?


Whatever works out best for you and your cats. There is no set rule. Some people free feed, some people feed their cats twice a day or multiple times per day. Free feeding can lead to obesity in many cats, especially if there is an unlimited quantity of food available 24 hours a day. I feed my kitties wet food twice a day and dry food twice a day so they get fed 4 times a day, Rosie picks at the dry food and gobbles up the wet and Spotty grazes on the wet and the dry food. You'll get as many different opinions on how often and what method to go by in feeding your cats as you will on the subject of dry food versus wet food versus wet and dry versus canned only versus dry only(I believe cats need canned food.) The important thing to remember when it comes to feeding commercial cat food is that the product meets AAFCO(Association for the American Feed Control Officials) standards for complete and balanced nutrition. AAFCO means minimal standards and each pet food brand is open to interpretation and criticism and praise by individual pet owners. You are completely in control. You make the rules.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

Phil said:


> What does everyone think of Eukanuba? My vet was recommending this brand as well as the SD.


Better than Science Diet. I like the dry version. It's certainly meaty, very rich, high in calories. Some people might critique the by-products and the grain fractions.


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## The Cat Whisperer (Jul 23, 2005)

Phil said:


> What does everyone think of Eukanuba? My vet was recommending this brand as well as the SD.


My cats really liked Eukanuba and I liked the ingredients but I found out when I joined here that Eukanuba is made by Iams and Iams does animal testing, so do with that what you will.

I have 6 cats ranging from 9 months to 15 1/2 years. One vomited a lot and one had to have lower fiber and there were other issues too... after reading a lot on this site and researching and trying lots of foods I finally settled on a couple of different foods. Mainly the difference has been made by Science Diet Sensitive Stomach dry. Though not a big fan of SD, it has worked wonders!! Puck hardly EVER throws up now!!!! She was throwing up 4-5 times a week! And Sebastian is no longer constipated - all their coats look great and they love it. So for ME that is the best food at this time. I give them the dry in the AM and cans at night - ProPlan for 5 and Waltham's Renal L/P for one.

I think whatever works for your cat and meets their needs is the best food. And that is probably going to change over the lifetime if the cat as their needs change. 

Good luck!


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## Argent (Feb 15, 2005)

Phil said:


> What does everyone think of Eukanuba? My vet was recommending this brand as well as the SD.


I feed my two girls Eukanuba Indoor dry and they love it.


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## Aussie_Dog (Jul 27, 2005)

Phil said:


> Is anyone here from Ottawa Canada? I am not familiar with any private pet stores. All I really know is Petsmart, Percetera and PetValue.


There appears to be 4 stores in Ottawa that sell the Natura foods (Innova, Innova EVO, California Natural, Healthwise)

Critter Jungle 
(613) 729-7354 
1405 Carling Ave
Ottawa, ON K1Z 7L6 

Natural Pet Foods 
(613) 321-7282 
337 Churchill Ave N
Ottawa, ON K1Z 5B8 

Rainbow Foods 
(613) 726-9200 
1487 Richmond Rd.
Ottawa, ON K2B 6R9 

The Pampered Pet 
(613) 521-6272 
2446 Bank Street
Ottawa, ON K1V 1A4 

Check any of those stores if they're nearby and you might find even more foods, though I think the Natura foods are good enough


Edit: There's also a Global Pet Foods in Ottawa. I have a GPF in my city and they sell the top-of-the-line stuff too

Global Pet Foods 
Address: Ottawa
1675 Tenth Line Road, Unit 2B
Ottawa
Ontario
K1E 3P6
Canada

http://www.globalpetfoods.com


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## Tagster (Oct 19, 2005)

The best food that I've found that my kitty loves is Pro Plan. It actually has more protein that Nutro and Nutro Max and chicken, not chicken by product, is the first ingredient.

While on other foods (Natural Balance, Nutro, etc.) kitty had bad gas and didn't seem to be too fond of the food. He loves the ProPlan and his gas has all but stopped!

I guess this post just goes to show you, that whatever works and it healthy is what you should feed your kitties!!


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## threecats (Jan 8, 2004)

Our fussy and unfussy 5 like:

DRY:

Precept
Royal Canin
Solid Gold
Felidae

CANNED:

Merricks

I also boil and slice up some chicken fillet (remove skin) for them, which takes no more than 5 minutes to cook. This supplements the dry and canned food we feed them. 

Their daily meals consist mainly of dry. 3x a week they get canned food or boiled chicken. My concern is tartar build-up which leads to gingivitis, which can be fatal for cats (kidney and liver damage).

Hope this helps and all the best!


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## Gudewife (Jun 27, 2004)

moggiegirl said:


> Anyway regarding hairball formulas. I had really great results with a formula that's not even designed to be a hairball formula. Ever since I've been feeding my cats the Natural Balance Venizon and Pea dry food I have found that my cats have significantly less hair balls. What's taking care of it? Is it the pea fiber, the omega 3 fatty acids, the salmon oil? Or could it be something in the various canned foods I feed contributing to that as well? I've read that there are 2 things that generally help control hairballs, fiber(try mixing a little canned pumpkin in your cat's wet food) and oily foods such as oily sardines(fed once in a while) or fish oils in cat foods, mineral oil, petromalt hairball remedy.


I can tell you this: Assumpta used to be the hairball queen, bringing up several a month. It was worst on Hill's R/D, which has a _ridiculously_ high fibre content (enough fibre to completely constipate her), and somewhat better on SciDiet Hairball Lite. But, she had a cruddy, dull coat, terrible dandruff (especially around the base of her tail), and just looked blah, though I didn't really know it at the time....compared to the condition she was in when she came to us, she looked really good.

Then I switched her to all-canned with occasional dry snacks, and cut corn out completely. The higher fat content, better hydration, and no corn did it...glossy, shiny, and soft, no dandruff, no itching, no hairballs. When she was on Wellness, the vet absolutely RAVED about her coat and skin, and demanded to know what I'd been doing differently. Now that she's on Innova Lite, I've noticed a slight reduction in coat quality from the (significantly) lower fat content, but she still looks quite good, and none of her problems has returned.

I see an occasional hairball in spring and fall, and after we first start up the woodstove, but it's maybe 3-4 a year instead of 3-4 a month. I think good hydration and adequate high-quality dietary fat go a long way toward reducing shed (and hairballs). If I have to leave her a dry meal or two, I can see the difference pretty quickly in her coat and skin...just not as soft and supple as usual. Assumpta has a tiny pinch of psyllium husk fibre in her food, but I'm really careful to not overdo it because I need her food to be as easily digestible as possible for her now (I removed it entirely when we were testing for EPI several months ago, and it's a delicate balance). Laxatone, vaseline, and petromalt are my last resort, for when she's having a hard time moving a hairball.

(and if you want frustration, try having a corn-sensitive cat temporarily put on Hill's i/d to "rest her GI tract," having her immediately start blowing coat, having hairballs, and not be able to give her any fibre or squash, or even a dose of laxatone...it was a hard few weeks for all of us)


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## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

Well, I bought Charlee Chicken Soup... Adult dry and a variety of Merrick wet canned foods.

I usually give her 1/4 of a can for dinner, and leave the dry out for her all the time. If I give her more than ¼ of a can, she won’t finish it.

So far, she doesn't seem terribly fond of the Chicken Soup, but this could also be due to her having only eaten SD since day 1. She must like it though because the day I bought it, I gave her some from my hand as a “treat” and she gobbled them up. She just doesn’t eat as much as she did the SD.

She seems to like the Merrick wet, although 1/4 of a can seems to be enough for her. The can says to refrigerate after opening, but I can tell you that she does NOT like cold food. If I use cling wrap along with a rubber can cover, can I leave the can in a cupboard for four days?


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## TxnKats (Jun 9, 2005)

When feeding better quality hard foods, cats tend to eat less, not so much because they don't like it, but because the ingredients contain more nutrients for the cat. Less expensive/premuim foods have fewer nutrients and cats will eat as much as it takes to get the nutrients they need.

As for canned food, after opening it needs to be put in the fridge, otherwise it's not so good. If your cat doesn't like cold food, then mix some warm water into the food before feeding her, that'll warm it up for her.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

I put the refrigerated leftovers in the cat's bowl, cover it with a wet paper towel and then put it in the microwave for 10 seconds. All refrigerated canned food must be warmed to room temperature or a little warmer, like lukewarm before serving it to the cat. This also brings out the aroma and makes it smell tasty for them. Either microwave it or add a little boiling water to the food. Or just buy the small cans and split it among multiple cats if you have multiple cats.


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## Phil (Oct 31, 2003)

Thank you for all the replies and helpfull information.


Here are a couple of pictures of Charlee for all you nice folks.
http://www.catforum.com/photos/showphoto.php?photo=15781

http://www.catforum.com/photos/showphoto.php?photo=15782&nocache=1


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## octoberdana (Jan 16, 2004)

I feed my cats Eukanuba. I've tried other foods and they just don't do as well on them. When they are on Eukanuba the litter box smells better, they don't go as often, and their coats are shiny and they are full of energy! When I took them to the vet this month he said my cats look great and that there were very healthy. He said in looking at their teeth he thought they would be a lot younger than they are. 

I know that some people have problems with the ingredients in it but I think if it works for your cat then you have to do what works for them.

I've also fed Nutro Natural Choice, Royal Canin, and Natural Balance.

I have to drive too far for Natural Balance. Royal Canin is too expensive and the Natural Choice has a lot more grains in it than the Eukanuba.


We tried Chicken Soup twice- they hated it both times and refused to eat it! LOL


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

I think the only real way to know the quality of a cat food is to find out, how many cats have eaten it and how many cats have done well on it. If you don't know that then you look for evidence in your cat. If your cat is doing really well on Eukanuba then it's a good food for your cat. It's meaty, that's for sure. 

I often find myself questioning foods that have a reputation for being high quality and superior to other foods. I'm not saying they're not good foods but there are things I wonder about. For example, I don't understand why canned Innova has chunks of potatoes in it. If I had a million dollars I would be able to bet that noone here can give me a good reason why or how chunks of potatoes in canned cat food could be beneficial to a cat. fiber? no, they don't use the skins in canned Innova, carbohydrates? they don't need much of that(most cats get too many carbs). What then? :? 

And carrots in canned cat food(a lot of these superior so called natural holistic formulas have chunks of carrots) what good do they do? Carrots are full of sugar. Cats need preformed vitamin A and cannot obtain it from Beta Carotene like dogs and people can. They need to get their vitamin A from animal sources like liver. It seems to me that some of these companies use the same ingredients to make dog food and add higher amounts of protein and of course taurine to make it nutritionally balanced for cats. :?


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