# Don't understand why dry food is bad?



## fredboy (Aug 30, 2011)

I dont get all the hype, we have been feeding our cats Go-cat since forever and our cats usualy live problem free untill the age of 15+


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## fredboy (Aug 30, 2011)

If this is true then why do my cats live very healthy lives until around the age of 18?
My nan had a Siamese cat which died in its mid-20's and I believe she only fed it dry food.


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## Ted (Aug 28, 2011)

My cats (childhood, etc.) have also lived long lives with dry food.

I think, however, that perhaps STATISTICALLY (being the key word) cats lead healthier lives with wet food.

Of course, there are exceptions for both (wet food cats having terrible health, dry food cats having wonderful health).

My opinion: It's your cat... feed it the best food in the best manner you can provide. If that's dry food, then so be it. If it's wet food, then so be that. 

I, for one, refuse to tell others what they should/shouldn't be feeding their cats. We can only make suggestions. 

In other words, don't feel guilty (or less of a person) because you are making the choice of dry food. I would suggest that you can perhaps choose the highest quality dry food your pocketbook allows.


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## fredboy (Aug 30, 2011)

yeah, i just couldn't really see that it makes much of a difference - I know our cats are very keen hunters and eat a lot of mice/birds as well as the dry food. They've always been healthy (apart from Simba who has long term internal damage due to falling into a bucket of Creosote and almost dying) But even she seems relatively healthy.

Although for the past year we have been feeding them a bit of a mix - they get maybe half a pack each a day


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## Ted (Aug 28, 2011)

Well, I think the primary benefit is reduced chance for urinary tract infections...and of course that's due to the larger percentage of moisture/water in the wet food.

If/when I get a kitty, I think I will eventually go to wet food... because I do want to reduce those chances of UTIs, etc. 

To each his/her own.


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## Abbie (Jan 13, 2011)

One of my cats got chronic constipation from eating dry food (she was on wet/dry at the time). Her fluids were dangerously low (close to renal failure) when we took her to the vet (bearing in mind it had only been 2 days). She had to be operated on and now has to have lactulose to prevent it happening again. All this is highly unlikely to have happened had she not been fed dry food.

I'm not trying to say dry food should not be fed in all circumstances, I'm merely telling of one of my experiences. Nearly losing a cat to something so easily preventable, I just won't take the risk now.


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## laurief (Jun 22, 2008)

Long life doesn't necessarily equate with healthy life. I, too, have had cats who lived to ripe old ages fed exclusively cheapo kibble, but I wouldn't presume that their bodies were as healthy during those lives as they would have been if I'd been feeding a higher quality, more species-appropriate diet. Only extensive and ongoing veterinary testing can evaluate health status of a cat throughout the animal's lifetime, and I don't know anyone who has put their cat through that. 

I now prefer to hedge my bets by providing as appropriate and high quality a diet as possible, even when that means adjusting the diet as more studies and nutritional information become available. Knowledge is fluid, as is the state of being of every living organism. The only mistake is getting stuck in old habits based on outdated and/or inaccurate information.

Laurie


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

I agree LaurieF. It's like humans, we can LIVE on a pure fast food diet and some will live long lives...but it's not an optimal diet. 

So much research has gone in to cat food since the old days of "just pick up some kibble at the grocery store" and it's a shame not to feed our pets an optimal diet just because "that's how I always did it, and it worked fine." Yea, it may have worked fine...but it could be so much BETTER!


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## cooncatbob (May 27, 2011)

I think Blur Buffalo uses the line "You Love them like Family so treat them like Family"
You wouldn't feed your kids cereal 3 times a day 7 days a week.
I feed Chiquita dry as well as wet, but I feed her the best dry she will eat.
Kids don't always want to eat what's good for them and cats in many ways are like children, if Chiquita had a choice she'd eat nothing but Friskies "Party Mix" snacks.


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## catloverami (Jul 5, 2010)

_fredboy_, well you mention you're cats were hunters and ate birds/mice, so the cat really wasn't on a diet of dry kibble, but supplemented it with high quality protein. Also Siamese are known to live long lives. I feed my cats the best diet I can afford that is as close to a 'natural diet' as possible, and since I prefer that they are indoor cats, they can't supplement their diet with mice and birds.


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## saitenyo (Nov 28, 2010)

It's a matter of risk factors. There are humans who smoke all their lives and never get lung cancer, or live off fast food and never get heart disease or diabetes. Does that mean we shouldn't be concerned about smoking or poor diets in us or our children? Of course not. We still worry about those things even though it's not a 100% certainty they will have those issues. 

Genetics play a major role in health and if a cat or person has gotten genetically lucky, they may be just fine on all sorts of less ideal diets. The thing about genetics though is, you can't predict what problems your cat might be predisposed to. If your cat is genetically unlucky, and has a particularly low thirst drive or is predisposed to kidney issues, diabetes, or urinary blockages, a daily diet of dry food could cause one of those problems.

So not feeding an ideal diet is basically a gamble. There's no guarantee your cat will have any issues on it. They may be perfectly fine their whole lives. But there's also a chance they could develop problems. I've known a number of people, either unaware of the risk or willing to take the gamble, who ended up having to pay several thousand dollars to have surgery performed on their cats to save their lives due to urinary blockages (ending in the vets telling them the cat needs to be on wet food for the rest of their lives anyway). Costly vet trips and the risk of losing the cat are enough to convince me that's not a chance I want to take.


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## hal1 (Jul 16, 2011)

It's been mentioned, but I'll reiterate.

Most cats do not have a big thirst drive. The key with canned food is that they get much of their liquids with the caned foods. With Dry food they don't get the water they need.

There are other reasons, but I think the lack of water in a dry diet is one of the main factors discouraging dry.


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## Buggzter (Jun 28, 2011)

I'd say that since your cats eat a semi-raw diet from their hunting, that would be the main reason they are so healthy - not as much "added ingrediant" in their diets as they get such a bonus from the wild foods.

Have you had an indoor cat only who has only been on that particular dry food that has also lived a very healthy and long life? That would be one test for that food. Your cats are getting the dry food basically as a snack, and the good food for their main meals. 

It's as if you gave your child really healthy food three meals a day every day but gave them sugar cookies three times a day as snacks. The healthy stuff will really help their growth. Yet, you could claim that giving kids sugar cookies whenever they want isn't unhealthy. It all depends on the diet as a whole. Same with your cats - look at the diet as a whole.

My cats are indoor only, so they can't hunt for themselves. I'm working on getting raw food integrated into their diet as that is the healthiest food I can give them for their systems. My cats would envy yours - raw diet and yummy kibble? That is drool-worthy to them!


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## kiesha (Aug 21, 2011)

Nicely put Ted


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

There are two specific factors that cause many of us to say a diet of all dry food is bad. 

1. A cat's "system" is designed to get the vast majority of their water from prey, the consequence is that their thirst drive is very low. A cat on all kibble needs to drink 1.25 cups of water for every cup of kibble consumed. Due to the low thirst drive, a cat will typically only drink half of what it needs. They go through life in a state moderate dehydration. This can lead to urinary infections and crystals causing blockages. And it's hard on the kidneys...possibly causing chronic renal failure or at least early onset than if wet food were fed.

2. The second issue with kibble is the amount of carbohydrates. Cats, being obligate carnivores, need animal protein. They have lived on prey for thousands of years...protein, fat, a minuscule amount of carbs found in the stomach of their prey and approx 75% water. Kibble has only been introduced to their diet in the last 75-100 years, so their digestive system has not evolved to handle huge carb loads. Carbs are the first thing to be digested and are converted directly to sugar. A cat's system can't handle it...the sugars are converted to fat and stored. The protein that follows behind gets excreted in the urine, depriving the muscles of their fuel. And the fats from their meal get stored as body fat, not used to fuel good skin and coat growth. The cat often packs on weight and is subject to all the same issues that overweight humans deal with...the main one being diabetes. 

Diet is just one factor contributing to overall health of a cat, the others being genetics and environment (maybe there's more, but I can't think of any right now). We can't control genetics, we have some control over environment but we have complete control over diet (well 99% for indoor cats). Of course there will always be extreme cases...the 100% kibble cat living to 25 or the raw fed cat dying at 10...those are likely situations not related to diet. But when someone says "my cat ate nothing but kibble and lived a long healthy life till he died at 17 of CRF"...maybe if that cat ate wet food it would have lived to 21 and died of something else.

So I choose to control what I can. I want my cats to live as long as possible so I feed them a high quality, primarily wet food diet. I don't believe that kibble is "evil"...I think we all need the convenience at times and my crew gets 1/8 cup per day. But I limit it, I control their weight, I add water to their wet food (not all the time, but enough to offset the kibble) and I know that I am minimizing their risk of disease as best I can.


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## fredboy (Aug 30, 2011)

True, reading some of this is interesting especialy for Simba, our black half Persian who fell in a bucket of Creosote when she was younger and licked it off and nearly died, she was chemically washed etc but the vets said she would probably have kidney damage.

My mum said she goes through a period of a couple of days every 4 months or so where she tries to pee but nothing comes out and she starts to drink lots and tries to pee but still cant pee. I try to persuade her to give her more of the wet food (shes on a mix) but she dont listen because she says its too expensive.


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## westfayetteville (Sep 22, 2011)

fredboy said:


> True, reading some of this is interesting especialy for Simba, our black half Persian who fell in a bucket of Creosote when she was younger and licked it off and nearly died, she was chemically washed etc but the vets said she would probably have kidney damage.
> 
> My mum said she goes through a period of a couple of days every 4 months or so where she tries to pee but nothing comes out and she starts to drink lots and tries to pee but still cant pee. I try to persuade her to give her more of the wet food (shes on a mix) but she dont listen because she says its too expensive.


 

Please see Feline Urinary Tract Health for a more detailed discussion. The first paragraph on that webpage states:
*If I could have the reader take away just one word from this discussion, it would be "water". If your cat is on a properly hydrated diet of 100% canned food - and no dry food - you stand a very good chance of never needing to read this webpage.*
Cystitis is an extremely common and very painful problem in the cat. Stones are also very common and can lead to a life-threatening urinary tract blockage.
I sincerely hope that these pictures of Opie make a huge impact on anyone who is still not convinced that dry food causes significant suffering in many cats. Rest assured that veterinarians deal with blocked cats extremely frequently which is heartbreaking considering how rarely cats block when on all canned food - especially with added water.


​ 
Cystitis can lead to inappropriate urination (urinating outside of the litter box) and stones can cause a fatal rupture of the bladder by blocking the outflow of urine. 
Any cat that is repeatedly entering the litter box but not voiding any urine is in need of IMMEDIATE medical attention!
This is one reason why it is so important to use a clumping (scoopable) litter. Clumping litter allows you to see just how much, if any, urine is being voided


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## lgnutah (Aug 7, 2010)

Maybe if you have a cat that is genetically predisposed to the type of health problems that dry food can exacerbate, the dry food would be a factor.
My 10 year old Tonkinese was fed only dry (albeit a high quality dry, Evo) and he developed kidney failure and the vet put him on wet food only diet. We must have caught it early or else it was slowed down by the change in food, because when we re-tested his kidney function 3 months after the switch in foods, his numbers fell in the low normal range.


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## fredboy (Aug 30, 2011)

yeah, my mums tight and wont pay for wet food because apparently its too expensive, i will when i have my own place though.


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