A little online research shows me that Blue Buffalo brand can be bought at Petsmart, and Natural Balance at a local health food market. Any opinions on these brands--which one should I head for? Most importantly, does your cat like them?

I've just started feeding Wellness Core dry. My cats LOVE it. I don't think it's available at Petsmart, but I like to shop the local independents. Wellness also has some grain-free canned foods that we haven't tried yet.

Natura Pet offers canine and feline diets free of all grains. Check out the "Evo" line. I haven't read on their other lines of food, but I know that Evo is grain-free.
It has been hard to get in my area in the past but more and more seem to be carrying.
I am grateful that this thread was started because in researching I found a Natura supplier closer to home!

Good luck to all, in caring for your fur-kids!

I feed my cats dry Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul food. It contains NO wheat of any kind.

Laurie

I feed dry Chicken Soup also, it doesn't contain wheat, corn or soy - my dogs get the Chicken Soup for dogs, no fillers. real ingredients and both dogs and cats are thriving.

I feed Chicken Soup also the coats on both the dogs and cats improved.

My elderly cat has been showing signs of kidney failure for over a year. Lots of drinking,large amount of urine,poor appetite, losing weight. The only food she likes is Fancy Feast. I continue to give her this brand,but I watch to avoid any containing wheat. It is expensive at sixty cents a can, and she eats two cans a day. My vet recommended a dry food called Innova. I will buy a bag next week when I get to the pet store.

I just bought and fed my Emma some Blue Buffalo. It is rather pricey, but she loves it and until this mess gets cleared up I will be getting it for her exclusively. Good luck to all. -Cheryl
p.s. Em is rather finicky.

Just to report that I bought some Blue Buffalo--both a package of dry food and a couple small cans of wet as a test case. The cats--both of them!!--loved them. Yes, it it pricey but I think I've found my new brand, at least for the time being.

Why does it have to be from Pet smart? I'm not sure I understand the obsession on this board of only feeding pets really expensive food. Cats and dogs have lived very healthy long lives just being fed food from ANY store. My brother-in-laws cat lived to be like 22.
I feed my boy purina one for urinary tract health.Says the main ingredient is chicken. He loves it,and wont eat anything else...and I have tried IAMS and all that other stuff from pet smart.Seems like the more I spent on the food the less he liked it.
He is a very muscular cat...not over weight or under.At 6 years old he still acts like a big kitten,so he has lots of energy.

Well, I am not changing my food based on the recall. None of the food I feed my cats is on the recall list. However, based on more research I've been doing lately on cat nutrition, I am looking into introducing canned food into the mix as a replacement for about half of their dry food. I'm still doing research - reading labels, comparing ingredient lists, etc. So, no final conclusions yet.

I think I read somewhere that wet cat food serves almost no nutritional value.It is mostly like a dessert for cats.However,it has more moisture,so I notice my cat isnt as thirsty as he is when he only has dry. It certainly couldnt hurt,I've never known a cat to not like the wet/canned food better.

Actually - a lot of people out there recommend against dry food for cats. Personally, I'm still collecting data. But they say that the dry food for cats is like feeding them fruit loops every day. It is filled with grains that they don't need, leading to obesity and digestive issues. I did check my dry food, though, and it has one of the highest levels of protein as I compare it to other brands. There is an interesting (to me - lol) equation where you can take the dry amount of food in canned food and divide by the amount of rough protien to come up with an amount of protein in canned food to compare against dry. I.e. so the dry particles in canned end up with more protein than the dry particles in dry food. I keep coming back to the fact, though, that there is a LOT of water in the canned food. Plus, although the canned food we have now has no grains at all in it - it has meat by-products as it's first ingredient and that has never sat well with me.

coolmama, I go to Petsmart just because it is two blocks from my house and I can walk there and back for cat suppliers. No other reason.

I feed my cat Wellness as well, dry and canned. It is not full of fillers and contains no corn or wheat. The Wellness website has a zip code searcher to lookup where it is available in your area. A vet near us carries it as well as Pet Quarters, which is sort of like Petco but not national.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dry Salmon Ingredient List

My sister told me (so I dont know if this is really true or not,cuz she doesnt always know what she's talking about) That canned cat food has ASH in it as a filler.

marita40,that's cool.I just noticed alot of people on the forum would only shop there and I just wondered why...wasnt saying what I do is best.Just wondering if there is actually any proof that the stuff there is better.My cat is just too darned finicky,LOL.

ASH is listed as not more than 6.5% of Wellness dry cat food on their own webpage.

I refuse to believe that's a good thing to eat.

I'm giving my pets whatever I have until I get this sorted out. I just spent the last 2 days reading stuff online about pet food, and if a tenth of it is true, it's disgusting beyond all belief.

ASH in cat foods isn't ash like from a fire. It is Magnesium.

It is dry food that is cat candy, not wet.

I feed my cats Wellness, Innova EVO, Natural Balance and Chicken Soup for Cat Lover's Soul, all canned with no wheat or corn. There is some rice flour in some flavors but the Wellness and Innova EVO have no grains at all.

Innova EVO , Wellness and Nature's Variety have formulas of dry foods without any grains.

Here are many cat nutrition articles, many written by vets:

http://www.api4animals.org/facts?p=359&more=1cat=286

http://www.littlebigcat.com/?action=library&act=show&item=whycatsneedcannedfood

http://www.catinfo.org/zorans_article.pdf

http://www.blakkatz.com/dryfood.html

http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: Really good info on Switching Foods

Read the labels on the foods you feed.

Is meat the first ingredient? What about the first five ingredients?

Are they grains?

Here is a link that might be useful: calculating percentages of protein etc.

Hi buyorsell - I have been doing exactly that during my food evaluation (calculating percentages of protein) so that I can have a good discussion when I see our vet next week. However, I discovered the Hill Vet food doesn't have the moisture content on their web page. They try to do the dry calculation for you but obviously are not basing it on the max/min label information. Aarghh. Some of the articles you posted are the ones I've been reading, but I'll have to check out the others.

Thanks

I own a copy of this book: "Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats".

Written by a veterinarian who talks about the types of suspect ingredients that are in commercial pet foods and how to make your own at home.

Not a bad thing to know, at least, until the pet food poisoning problem is contained.

In answer to the orginal post question, an 8 year old cat with symptoms of throid issues is fairly common. Cats are living longer and now have diseases associated with age.

You need to start thinking of a treatment route or your cat will not survive this disease. It's also uncomfortable for the cat to have a constantly racing heart, constipation issues and the other associated aspects.

Treatment is either daily pills (methamazole, ie: tapazole) or radioactive iodine treatment (one time and its cured). My recommendation would be the radioactive iodine. If money is the issue, treat with pills and save the money until you can pay for the iodine treatment.

Untreated thyroid disease --and even long term treatment with Methamazole -- progresses to kidney failure, enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy) and ultimately thrombosis problems - all of which will eventually kill your cat.

Regarding a diet for a cat who is in kidney failure, the cat needs to be on a LOW protein diet - which eliminates 99% of all store brand cat food. If you continue to feed protein enriched foods to your cat, you are effectively killing him/her quickly.

The main food of choice is K/D by Prescriptives (Hills brand and NOT on the recall list). Your cat will feel 100% better by eating the right food for this illness. Also, if you can, switch the water to DISTILLED water - definitely not tap water.

Kidney disease is also a terminal illness, but if you treat it effectively, your cat will live a pleasant life for the time they have remaining.

I know from experience as my 18yr old cat has both of these issues, but is content and doing very well.

saintpfla, I have a cat with renal failure and he eats the K/D. The vet never said anything about distilled water instead of tap water. We have well water. Does the distilled water make much of a difference? The cat has been doing well for a couple of years, but has started to decline lately. He's on weekly Epo injections, blood pressure medicine, Pepcid and daily fluid.

saintfla, I have posted on another thread about my hyperthyroid cat. He had the I-131 treatment yesterday and is now on the second day of his two week kennel stay. I'm so glad we caught this thing fairly early.