Oh, poor kitty. So many of us can related to this problem and know how miserable she must be.

I have found with my pets that there is usually a number of things you can try, and some will work and some won't. And usually there are yahoo groups or other groups where people discuss what they have done.

When our cat developed kidney disease and needed more water, we injected water under her skin with a hypodermic needle.

I went looking for a yahoo group on this topic. On the way there, I found this site with things you can try. Still looking for a yahoo group.

Here is a link that might be useful: petalive.com

Thanks for the link!

Since all of our cats for the past 5yrs have been ancient I've always kept a bag of fluids in the house w/ needles. Our last 3 kitties all went into kidney failure but lasted a long time w/ supportive care.

I noticed last night that Autumn was a bit dehydrated and I'm going to pick up broth for her tonight before giving her fluids. This was a suggestion by the vet if the dehydration isn't too bad. Autumn is one of those cats that has to have fresh water every 5 minutes so I keep a glass for her by the sink. I swear if her water is more than 5 min. old she won't touch it!

Too bad that she doesn't like wet food.

We give our new kitty Wellness canned and I add extra water, stirring a bit, to make a gravy. She always laps up that part, first.

Wet is definitely better than dry for cats prone to UTIs. To encourage her to drink more, I suggest putting water in different places around the house. One other thing cats generally seem to like is a pet fountain . . .we have this one, and the cats love it:

The people at http://www.catforum.com/ are very helpful, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Drinkwell Fountain-- Platinum

It turns out that you cannot link to a yahoo group on GardenWeb. If you go to yahoo and search the groups with the words "cat urinary" there is an active group on the subject.

Have you given any thought to cooking for your cat? Finding a home made diet with the right balance of stuff for a particular problem can be difficult, but it's the kind of thing I would try if my dog had a chronic problem.

My parrot's vet recommended going to bottled water for her. Apparently even good clean city water can have low levels of Giardia in it. I don't think Giardia is causing your cat's issues, but maybe something else in the water?

It's like throwing darts at a board.

Since you're already giving her grain-free dry food, you're probably aware of the Innova EVO line of cat foods (even if that's not what you use). You might want to try their EVO 95% Chicken and Turkey (or other 95% flavors) wet food; not the regular canned EVO, and then add some hot water to it to make it a bit soupy. We used to feed only dry EVO, but added wet food to their diet at our vet's recommendation. They didn't like the regular EVO wet, but do like the 95% version. They get some dry food, and some wet food. We usually mix some water into their wet food first, then put some of their dry food in the same bowl, along one side of the bowl (one of our cats still prefers dry food, so this is our way of coaxing her to eat what's there).

Good luck!

I know you said no SD prescription, but here's my experience.

My neutered male cat developed a UTI at age 2. The vet put him on meds and suggested SD canned and dry. I used it for a year or so with no problems, then switched to a commercial food. Result: another UTI. After the third experience, I kept him on SD maintenance for the rest of his life. For the first year or so, I'd intersperse a can of SD prescription after 4 or 5 cans of regular. I left SD dry in his bowl all the time, and gave a spoon or so of canned at mealtimes.

At 12 he developed diabetes and I made the decision not to do shots. I'd had the experience of giving him shots once before, and knew he'd just run whenever he saw me, so I thought I'd just provide multiple bowls of water and multiple litterboxes and let him enjoy however much time he had left. To my amazement, he lived another 7 years.

Good luck with your kitty.

Anele - thank you for the fountain suggestion. I will absolutely look at that.

Funny - I can talk about dog food until the other persons turns a deaf ear but I guess since cat food isn't as big as dog food I never give it a 2nd thought. I go in I buy my food and never really keep looking at the ingredients.

Evo is the dry food that she was normally eating unless we were really tight on money then I would have to get something different. I'd also regularly sell the Wellness cat food when we had our store so I will have to pick up a few cans for her. I'll have to check the store I go to for the Evo wet.

Greywings - as a matter of fact last night while I was sitting w/ her I was thinking about boiling and shredding a small chicken breast for her to see if she'll go for it and then consider cooking for her.

What a beautiful kitty. I went through what we thought was constant UTI with Alex (female) for years. Urine tests always showed she was "getting a UTI." For over a year she was on meds - on two weeks/off two weeks - trying to prevent them.

Then I changed vets - new vet insisted on getting a "clean" urine sample. Withdrawing from her bladder with a needle. Like a biopsy, but not. They don't have to put them under to get the sample. I would drop her off in the morning (early) with a full bladder. None of the draws showed UTI infections.

Turns out, there was nothing wrong with her. Over 2 years, countless trips to the vet, etc. She would go in the litter box the majority of the time, but ever so often (like every 2-3 weeks) she would get caught squatting away from the box.

Not saying your cat does not have UTIs, but if your vet has never done a clean draw of urine straight from the bladder, I would ask him to do so!

Good luck!

One potential problem with EVO . . .it can be very hard on the kidneys since it is all protein. I know that, common thought is that cats should only have protein, but for some cats, it is just too much, esp. if they are older. Oddly, one of our cats LOVES carbs . . .she will eat peas, corn, and bread if she finds any crumbs. Kidney problems are found even among the big cats in nature . . .so maybe an all-protein diet is not quite as ideal as we are led to believe.

I searched for a year for a food for one of my cats (he vomited daily). EVO was terrible for him, to my surprise. The only food I found that was fine for him was Blue Spa Select (we used the turkey/rice formula since he had sensitive skin . . .and it even helped his skin).

Here is a link that might be useful: Blue Spa Select

Coming out of lurkdom to respond... :)

I have a cat who's 10 years old, and for at least half her life has struggled with UTIs. She'd get one, go on antibiotics, be ok for a few months, then get one again.

I tried every food possible, from cheap to expensive, and finally found that Friskies Special Diet canned twice a day, mixed with a pretty large amount of water, with some Purina Pro Plan Urinary Diet dry food to munch on during the day is working. The Purina One urinary diet worked as well, but didn't agree with her stomach or with her allergies (yeah, she's kind of a sickly thing).

In addition to the food change, she also gets a Cosequin capsule sprinkled on her food once a day. It's usually used as a joint supplement, but my vet said that studies have shown that it has anti-spasmodic properties for the bladder.

I also found that if I changed the brand of litter she would get an infection. I have no idea why, but I've stuck with one brand for a few years now.

It's a whole lot of trial and error (and frustration!) to find out what works for your cat. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. I wish you luck!!!

Oh, what a beautiful baby, so lucky to have you as her mom.

One of my new kitties was having bladder trouble, though no infections. We were on episode #3, and at $400-$500 a pop, crying for mercy at the vet's office. I went to work on getting info out of my vet -- that something must be different, as I'd had her for a couple years with no problem. She's very overweight, so can't clean herself. The vet felt that was the problem, though I had adopted her that way. As we talked about various causes, what it seemed to come down to, was that I had moved the litter box to the bottom of the stairs because I couldn't breathe at night with it up there in the hall. So, she was holding it! Not good for these conditions. Once I moved the box back and it was at her convenience, it stopped. She also has a problem with dry food, which I felt was the early trigger.

My kitty had xrays done which showed three small stones. So she was put on a special diet for a month which dissolved them. I was also told that getting more water into them will help flush and dissolve whatever crystals and stones they are prone to forming. So, adding some additional water to the wet food is a good idea. Good for any cat, actually. They also flushed her with fluids when she was sick.

Later on, one of my cats had a low allergen dry food prescribed, and it turned out to be bad on the bladder. My two sensitive kitties both got sick on it. Once switched over to an appropriate selection, they have been fine. Dry food is a real precursor to trouble with those two birds. So make sure whatever you're giving her is formulated for that.

Fish is another culprit, as it contains a lot of minerals and such that can form the crystals and stones. She has been eating canned salmon recently (Natural Balance) and seems to be able to handle it. She's been doing great now.

Many years ago, I knew someone who was told to add salt to her cats food because it would cause them to drink more water. I've never been told to do that and don't know what the current thinking is, but you might ask about it.

Constantly going in and out of the box, and maybe not going at all, is a sure sign they are irritated. My girl was a mess on the back end because she couldn't clean herself and was only dripping while going.

They also shaved her fanny to keep it cleaner.

I fed my cat Sceince Diet C/D cat food, it helped alot and in the long run, with the Vet. visits and frustration, it was worth the price.

A lot depends on how she's been managed in the past.

There are many underlying diseases that can make a cat prone to UTIs. Diabetes, kidney disease, bladder stones, congenital abnormalities, neurological issues, chronic pain (especially back or rear leg pain), etc. Diabetes is easy to rule out with a routine urinalysis since the dipstick tests for glucose. But the other diseases require additional diagnostic procedures. One of my patients had chronic lumbar-sacral back pain and would hold urine for as long as possible before urinating. Because of that, she would develop UTIs on a fairly regular basis. I "cured" her by providing chronic pain meds, after clearing the infection.

Any cat with more than 1 UTI needs to have a urine culture and sensitivity at the beginning of therapy to make sure the correct antibiotic was being used. Then they need the even more important post-therapy urine culture to make sure the infection is cleared. This is where most people fail. The symptoms abate because there is *less* bacteria and less irritation on the bladder, but the infection is not cleared until the culture says so. Most people (either because vet doesn't recommend it or they don't want to pay for it because kitty is doing much better) don't do the post-therapy culture. The infection festers until the cat becomes so uncomfortable that the symptoms return, erroneously considered a new infection where the previous infection had not been resolved.

However cats are special. Over 50% of cats with urinary tract disease do NOT have infections. They have idiopathic lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD). Cats can be VERY uncomfortable with FLUTD but antibiotics are not indicated because there is no infection. They get over it themselves within a few days. Stress is thought to bring on episodes of FLUTD. Anything can stress a cat- new routines in the household, new family members, new pets, loss of family members or other pets, a cat hanging out in the back yard.... I've "cured" cats with anti-depressants, no antibitiocs. Wouldn't necessarily know that a cat doesn't have an infection without doing a culture. FLUTD cats have RBCs, WBCs, crystals, etc. in their urine just as a UTI cat would. It's impossible to differentiate bacteria present on a slide from bacteria present in the urine when examining sediment. A culture separates that out because 1) most environmental contaminants don't grow in cat urine so they won't survive getting to the lab and therefore won't grow in culture 2) we know what colonizes kitty urine so we can recognize contaminants in the rare case they do grow. You can't tell that just by looking at a bunch of cocci bacteria on a slide. There have been many cases when I thought kitty had a UTI but cultured the urine and nothing grew, so I was wrong.

As far as diet, unless there is an underlying problem, any high quality canned food provides the most important ingredient- water. I personally believe ALL cats should be on canned food only, so you can switch you other cats to a canned diet without fear. Most cats will eventually eat the canned food if nothing else is available. Some cats won't because they're cats and they'll do whatever they want. But given a choice, most cats continue to eat what they are accustomed to eating. So you can't give them the choice.

Sorry I wrote so much. Without knowing what has already been done it is really difficult to give advice, especially without seeing the patient. So all I can offer is general information. But hopefully something will help. Good luck with kitty.

PS- I wouldn't feed any of my pets Science Diet either, with the exception of SD when my dog Max had struvite stones. I've prescribed only one Science Diet prescription food in the year I've been practicing, and that patient refused to eat it and has been doing extremely well on a particular commercial diet that happened to meet her special needs (Natural Balance veggie formula for liver failure).

Meghane, What is wrong with Science Diet?

Meghane, is FLUTD what they're calling feline interstitial cystitis these days? Random-kitty had constant urinary tract issues from the time she was 2 or 3; ruined a LOT of stuff by urinating in the oddest places even though at one point we had a litter box in every room, round after round of antibiotics and even animal behaviorists with the notion that it was a psychological issue rather than a physiological one. It took years for someone to come up with the possibility of IC instead of the more generic UTIs. The diagnostic cystoscopy/cystometry was a bit spendy but it showed the textbook indicators for IC such as sloughing of the bladder lining, ulcers, a very distinctive type of bruising, and nary a crystal to be found. Out of ignorance we had been making the poor girl feel worse for years with the usual high-acid "urinary tract health diets", since acid in an IC bladder is like lemon juice in a paper cut multiplied by a thousand.

We managed her primarily with Elavil (which is as much an anti-inflammatory and analgesic as it is an antidepressant!) and Prozac when needed in high-stress situations and trying to get as much fluid through her system as possible to dilute the urine concentration. She did quite well foodwise on Wellness Super5Mix kibble (no longer made); she out-stubborned us to the point of making herself sick on the nibbling-vs.-separate-meals issue, so wet food wasn't feasible.

(There are only two species known to get IC, cats and humans. Both Random and I had IC. How weird is that?)

Thanks for all of the info. I have an appt. w/ her at the vet on Tues. Sometimes I know that she has it because of blood in her urine droplets and a short course of antibiotics always seems to clear it but other times I do think that it is idiopathic. Since this does seem to occur so freq. w/ her the vet and I are going to explore it further than just antibiotics this time around.

When we moved we out her on emotion meds but her stress levels seem to be way down as she is now 1 of 2 cats w/ only 1 dog instead of 1 of 5 cats and 2 dogs and doggie boarding.

I just don't care for SD and there are other foods out there even for spedial diet needs that I know I can get. My vet doesn't even sell food at his office.

I moved one litter box to the upstairs and I'm getting another 1 Sat. since someone here mentioned the 1 more litter box than cat thing.

I've been trying to coax her to eat more canned food but she's not having it. She's a stubborn one. Even during times when I've run out of dry food and just had wet on hand for a few days she will still only nibble on the wet here and there. I've had too many cats end up w/ fatty liver from not eating for a sometime that I don't want to play hardball w/ her to get her to only eat wet.

Her hydration is up. She'll be fine - we need to make changes though and re-evaluate what may be going on.

Thanks for all of your info meghane, especially about the cultures!

Update

Just got test results back - no crystals. The antibiotics seem to be doing the trick. It's been 3 days on them and she's peeing up a storm. Downside - litter box is sort of still an issue. I see her using it, I also see her using the corner of the floor in a few rms. I will have to keep my eyes open to see if there is a pattern somewhere to combat this.

The vet suggested that we try prozac if it continues to try and get her back on track after I watch her for awhile and weed out other things.

We have 1 cat (out of 4) who suffered with UTIs. At the vet's recommendation, we put all the kitties on the Purina Pro Plan Urinary Tract dry food. That was 5 or 6 years ago, and not one cat has had an issue with it. The kitty with the UTI problem has not had one since. This food makes them more thirsty than usual, so be sure you always have fresh water available. For us it's been great. Remember though, when you switch a cat's food, if you do it all at once, they will have digestive problems. Start by giving her just 1/3 of each bowl with the new food, mixed in with the old food. Over a period of two weeks, work up to all new.

ttodd- Glad kitty is doing better. I've never used prozac on a kitty but other happy drugs seem to work just fine.

Mari- yep, FLUTD = chronic interstitial cystitis. But saying FLUTD (fluted) is much more fun than saying CIC. Is it "sick" or "kick" I don't know! I can't remember which one came first.

Almost all Science Diet foods have artificial flavors, colors, and/or preservatives, some of which are suspected carcinogens but otherwise aren't needed in the diet of any species.

For example, here's the ingredient list for c/d dry:

Nutrient
Dry Matter1
% Protein 36.1
Fat 16.7
Carbohydrate (NFE) 41.1
Crude Fiber 0.5
Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Chicken, Chicken Liver Flavor, Fish Oil, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Iodized Salt, Potassium Citrate, DL-Methionine, vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Taurine, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract.

It doesn't contain any artificial preservatives any more (other diets still have BHA, BHT, and/or ethoxyquin), but cats cannot digest plant-based protein, so the #1 and #2 ingredients are useless. You're paying to have your cat poop the stuff it can't digest. The protein level is low for a cat (36%), and the food is processed so much it would probably be just as nutritious to feed the cat a slice of white bread, beef jerky, and a vitamin pill.

Compare to Wysong's version of CD (for cats and dogs)
GUARANTEED ANALYSIS
Crude Protein (Min)
50.0%
Crude Fat (Min)
28.0%
Crude Fiber (Max)
2.8%
Moisture (Max)
3.0%
Ingredients: Beef, Beef Liver, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Ground Beef and Chicken Bone, Fish Oil, Cranberry, Bilberry, Uva Ursi, DLMethionine, Ascorbic Acid, Milk Calcium, Lecithin, Coconut Oil, Plums, Lactoferrin, Lactoperoxidase, Barley Grass, Wheat Grass, Desiccated Sea Plankton, Artichoke, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus lactis Fermentation Product, Dried Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus oryzae Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus niger Fermentation Product, Phytase, Natural Extractives of Rosemary, Natural Extractives of Sage, Choline Chloride, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Manganese Proteinate, Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Proteinate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Acetate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement.

This diet is more appropriate for Carnivores (as cats are), contains probiotics, is non-thermally processed which preserves the nutrition of the ingredients. Now THAT'S what I would feed a cat with crytalluria.

Meghane - "But saying FLUTD (fluted) is much more fun than saying CIC. Is it "sick" or "kick" I don't know! I can't remember which one came first."

Just IC - as in "eye-see", since by definition IC is chronic. Sounds like FLUTD is a catch-all term, though... but I am sure very few people are going to bother having a cystoscopy done on a cat to see if it has the characteristic bruising and ulcerations of IC that (at least in humans) don't appear in other forms of chronic cystitis.

Random did very well with Prozac. It was impossible to pill her (she'd hork 'em right back up) so we had a flavored liquid version made up by a veterinary compounding pharmacy. Many meds (including Prozac) can be made up in liquid form in fruity flavors by most ordinary pharmacies but they contain artificial flavors, colors, and sweeteners, and the ordinary pharmacies won't make flavors like cheese and liver. LOL Elavil is viciously bitter so we had that made up as a transdermal gel that was rubbed into the bare skin inside her ear (that was just the coolest thing).

I guess z/d is carp too. Is there a good alternative for a cat that has both allergies and is also prone to crystals (no infections)?

Just a couple of other tips when reading pet food ingredients:

Whenever it says 'Meat (literally meat) whatever' it can be any kind of meat. Typically it is what is cheapest on the market that day. It can be chicken one day, beef the next and so on. Obviously if you're feeding a pet that has allergies make sure that the word 'Meat' is not listed anywhere on the ingredient list. Consider it Mystery Meat.

A biggie (but not a hurtie) is when when one sole meat is listed as the 1st ingredient. The ingredients listed are listed in order by weight, however, if a whole meat is listed, say chicken, it is a pre-cooked weight and we all know what happens when we cook meat. So what they do is take a whole bunch of whole meat weigh it, list it in the ingredients and then cook it. What may have once been the most of an ingredient can drop it down on the ingredient list after cooking but by law it can still be listed as a heavier ingredient. So if chicken was ingredient #1 pre-coked it may actually end up as ingredient #3 after processing and cooking. Anything listed as a meal (chicken meal, lamb meal etc. - minus 'meat meal' because we always want to avoid that) is weighed AFTER being processed and cooked and that is the order that it is listed. Meal is not a bad thing. The 1st 3 ingredients on your pet food bag are some of the most important. Ideally you will have a meal along w/ a meat (not Mystery Meat) included as 2 of those 3 ingredients, the meal being #1.

Avoid by-products if at all possible.

But then one pet may do awesome on a super grade expensive diet while the next may not do so well on the same diet but will excel on a brand that can be bought at the grocery store.

PS: I know there are alot of "O's" missing but my keyboard is acting up again.

Why must it be so complicated. Especially when vets develop or approve a lot of this stuff. We should be able to rely on their expertise and education for feeding our pets, rather than trying to figure things out ourselves (which is sketchy at best, imo).

My old vet (retired now) said Science Diet was a good food as it had a proven record and was developed by vets. We were talking about the special needs type of foods she prescribed, while I was wanting to get away from the by-products and other gar-baj.

Isn't it complicated though? Until I started dealing w/ diet in my cat I never realized how little I knew about feline diet. I've found it hard to translate what I know about canine diets to the feline realm.

I've had more than 1 vet not say bad things about SD but wished that at the time there were alternatives (like there are now). One BIG difference I've noticed in vets is what food they sell (or do not sell) in their office. I've gotten more 'sound education' about feed by vets who do not outwardly sell pet food in their office.

My current vet since moving to this area does not sell food in his office and told me that he can order some if I'd like if they found crystals. I feel good about a vets intentions on diet recommendation when they come across to me that way.

I call that the "Everything Must Have A Name" rule. None of this "poultry fat" stuff - gotta tell me if it's chicken or duck or whatever. Just "animal fat"? Run away screaming.

On the "meal" issue... if your pet food contains fish meal, make sure it is specified as "ethoxyquin-free". Not that the entire pet food in total is ethoxyquin-free, but that that particular ingredient is. (Pet food manufacturers are not required by law to tell you what may have been added to an ingredient before it comes into their possession if they don't want to, so all kinds of preservatives, contaminants and such can be in there. They just have to tell you what THEY do to it.) By US law, fish meal not intended for human consumption must be preserved with ethoxyquin. A very few processors have been granted waivers to produce fish meal preserved with something other than ethoxyquin and usually it's trumpeted loud and clear as a marketing point when a pet food manufacturer uses ethoxyquin-free fish meal - Wellness is one of them, and it took some digging but Natura Pet Products (Innova, EVO, California Natural, Healthwise, and Karma Organic) is on board there too.

"Digest" must be avoided at all costs even if it does have a species name although more often than not it's just on there as "animal digest". It's gods-only-know-what waste material chemically or enzymatically broken down - predigested - into a slurry in order to convert it into supposedly-bioavailable protein that a less-than-scrupulous pet food manufacturer can use to raise the "crude protein" content on the label. Not only does the animal usually get little actual nutritional value out of the substance but what can legally go into "animal digest" is gruesome to say the least - there is no control over quality, source, or contamination.

I do have to nitpick just a little bit though - by-products are not necessarily always bad, but it's a case of Know Thy Manufacturer. See, people go on and on about by-products being whatever junk swept up off the factory floor when by legal definition it is just the stuff that isn't "striated muscle" (either skeletal muscles, diaphragm, or heart): "lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, stomachs and intestines freed of their contents" and specifically excludes "hair, horns, teeth and hoofs". If you've got a food company that gets that material fresh and handles it properly so it doesn't spoil, it's very good stuff. C'mon, people eat kidneys, brains, liver, blood (usually made into sausage - black pudding being a famous variety), stomachs (tripe), and intestines ("chitlins" and sausage casings), and many of the frozen-raw-diet manufacturers are all over the stuff. A hot trend in natural pet food is "green tripe", which is cow stomach without the contents removed, just ground up semi-digested grass and all. (The smell of it will clear a house though. Whoooo-eeee!) So really it's more a question of knowing your manufacturer than avoiding an entire class of ingredient. Many of the better pet-food manufacturers are avoiding brains entirely these days though, because of worries about BSE.

A good place to read and/or ask questions about food is the Feline Diabetes Message Board.

Also click on "Jan and Binky's Food Charts" link on the top of the home page for more food info.

Here is a link that might be useful: FDMB

Mari- I couldn't say it better myself about the food. One of my pet peeves is people yelling and screaming about by-products. Stomach is good. Spleen is good. Well, if you're a cat.

Instead of z/d (preserved with BHA, propyl gallate and citric acid), I'd use a novel protein and carbohydrate source. That's not just me, the dermatologist specialists at school feel the same way. They've seen cats and dogs react to the hydrolyzed proteins even though they are not supposed to detect the hydrolyzed proteins. Most cats haven't eaten rabbit and green peas, for example (Royal Canin, no artificial preservatives). Many cats do fine on Natural Balance venison and green pea formula (no artificial preservatives), available from your big pet stores.

Science Diet *is* well researched and *has* been developed by vets. Many vets stock a little of all their prescription diets, so if the need arises they have the food available. Which means the food can sit on the shelf unsold for months. Which means SD believes they need to use artificial preservatives to keep the shelf life as long as possible. Most artificial preservatives have no *direct* link to health problems (none proven yet, but since the manufacturer does the research suffice it to say nobody will ever find such a link), but I am of the mindset that if it isn't part of a healthy natural evolutionarily correct diet, my pet isn't eating it. Period.

Meg, that's good to know about the preservatives. I would prefer to stay away from those too.

Interestingly, my guy was seeing a dermatologist and that's where the z/d came from. They had started him on another brand, which I don't recall right now, but he developed some bladder issues from it. That's when they checked into another which would not be an issue for him, though it's one that they stock generally. I prefer him to eat all canned food but he does eat some of the dry and it sometimes jump starts him onto something he's not crazy about, if I place the bowls next to each other. Too cute. I tried him on one of the Natural Balance dry foods, duck, I think, and my two bladder sensitive kitties both reacted. I'll have to see what else is out there, with one of the novel proteins.

He loved the rabbit but there seems to be a source problem these days and it's not produced anymore. I did find something at PetValu the other day, straight rabbit meat, to be used as a topper, good for dogs or cats. They've tired of the duck and green pea. Are reasonably happy eating the venison and green pea. Both Natural Balance. NB seems to sit well with his sensitive stomach, even some of the other meats that aren't prescribed for allergies. He usually pukes after one bite, with most other foods. It's amazing how his stomache just chucks it out.

My new vet is very discriminatory about the foods. He does sell Wellness but doesn't sell food to make his money and has no brand loyalty. He thinks all the foods are garbage but that Wellness is the best and his choice at this point in time. He also thinks when they list the by-products, it usually means junk we would not find fit to eat ourselves. Surely, there are some responsible companies, as in exceptions. I'd rather just steer clear and not have to worry about it. He says that once the companies start to get bigger, they try to cut costs, and then you have to be wary of what they're doing. If that happens to Wellness, then he'll move on.

The dog & cat pure rabbit I got the other day is Wysong, which I've heard great things about, I believe. I'll have to run it by my vet to see what he thinks and how best to use it in a balanced way.

I wish these foods weren't so darn expensive! (Four kitties to feed and vet here.) But I guess that's what we're asking for ;)

I would also think that if the 'by-products' used by responsible companies were all that great and were controlled ingredients, that they wouldn't use such a catch-all term. Being specific, as with other ingredients, by using heart, liver, kidney, giblets, brain, or whatever would be preferable and, if necessary, 'might include' could be used along with a list. By-products isn't a trustworthy term, imo.