I don't feed a lot of canned food to my cats, but when I do, I avoid any with "gravy". I used to get a lot of pet food donated to me when I rehabbed, and I always fed the Wellness brand to my cats. I feed them Purina One for the dry food.

I had a cat that lived for 21 1/2 years pretty much on Purina one.

My last cat had a grain allergy. He loved Sheba perfect portions. All the "dr.-good-for-you" cat foods from PetCO or PetSmart were yucky tasting, he said. ☺

• - Made without grains, corn, wheat, or soy- plus, no artificial flavors or preservatives, so you can feel good about the wet pate you feed your feline

Our cats are living on Friskies, pâte only, they like seafood only but not salmon. They also get a bit of grain-free kibble. And if course 3 Temptations treats every time the girl gets her pill. The boy cat knows the sound of her pill and comes sauntering in for a treat, too!

I have the same problem, Annie. Our cats are so persnickety, like very few cat foods and the one they like best (a store brand) has been discontinued. 😡. Almost all the cat foods available now have gravy and many are weird flavours, like chicken, asparagus and kale or some such nonsense- I can only conclude that the makers don’t test them on actual cats because I’ve never had or met anyone else who had a cat that didn’t just suck out the gravy and leave the meat bits in the bowl.

Mine are on raw for the most part, but I still entice them with good canned food when they get picky.

Mine love Performatrin Ultra. The Turkey Salmon and Duck pate. They'll eat the Stews but prefer pate.

Pet Valu is my go-to pet store, that sucks that they're going out of business! Is it across the States, or only your franchise store?

Dr. Lisa Pierson (DVM) is a wealth of information and very respected in the area of feline nutrition.

https://catinfo.org/

Jasip it is all stores. https://www.petvalu.com/us

Yes jasdip, they've been eating the performatrin and the whole place is going out of business. They are no longer accepting on line orders. I went to the store today to buy as much as I could. The gal there said that she thinks they'll still be getting warehouse deliveries through early Dec. but who knows what they'll be delivering.

I asked her if there was another brand that used the same food and she said not that she knew of. This stuff is made in Canada. It always seemed good and my girls thrive on it. Never had to worry about plastic or other toxins in food made in China.

I agree about the stuff in gravy. Neither of my girls will touch it. They want the pate stuff.

Some persnickety cat owners research food needs and make their own cat food.

All my cats have always eaten Purina ONE salmon and Fancy Feast canned and most lived till late teens and two , 20.

My cats like Fancy Feast, they make a pate in addition to shredded varieties. I tried switching them to Friskies once and they informed me NO WAY. LOL

Boy, I get it about having picky cats. Both my cat and dog were/are picky and it's a challenge. I think more so for cats than for dogs.

Can you contact the makers of the food to see if they will be selling anywhere else? It might have PetValu's name on it but it must be made somewhere else. You said Canada?

Yeah, Lucille, I thought about that... my cousin makes food for his dog all the time .... but it's so much easier just to have the cans stored to be opened, especially when (if we ever can again) we travel and just leave the cans out for the cat caretaker.

I was looking at some of the purina varieties and I really want my cats eating protein....but you look at the cans and they add rice or yams or pumpkin or cranberries and blueberries...really high carb stuff that I don't think is healthy for cats. So I'm looking for something that doesn't add all that stuff.

Annie, I found this. https://www.petsupermarket.com/searchresults?Ntt=performatrin&No=0&Rdm=886&Nr=product.active:1&N=2766602416+874480611&Nrpp=28

It's Petsupermarket.

Thanks mdln, I think I've seen her stuff before. IIRC, I may have even put together a spreadsheet so I could calculate the protein content they way she says to...I'll have to look for it.

murraysmom...that's really helpful. Good to know the product is still available!

How about Chicken of the Sea, Starkist, or Bumble Bee. lol

Please be sure to check the recall listing before trying new products. It's surprising how many of the expensive brands have been having recalls. My friend went through a similar situation and talked to her vet he recommended a Purina product Purina one. She is having good luck with it so far.

I too have had several cats live to be in their late teens and 20s. I have always fed Friskies pate along with a dry foot. I stopped using the bits/shreds when the problem with corn gluten from China happened. I used to buy Meow Mix until they stopped eating it and now use Naturals and IAMS Healthy Adult.

I bet Fancy Feast pate will come closest to what they are used to and it’s surprisingly high on Dr. Pierson’s list.

cattyles: Fancy Feast isn't grain free. It's full of rice, a filler.

Annie...I'm impressed by the quality of your old cat food. I'd not come across it before now.

I feel for you, we have to rotate cat food all the time because they turn up their noses after a few days. Our 19 year old only eats Fancy Feast Classic Pate with gusto, she turns her nose up at everything else. The classic pate is grain free and no veggies. I don't give her the other kinds because of wheat gluten.

With the other kitties, we've had good luck with Tiny Tiger (Chewy brand), comes in pate and gravy or extra gravy. They like both. And American Journey, also a chewy brand. They like both the canned and kibble. Also Wellness, Dave's Pet Food, and Tractor Supply's 4health Grain-Free Chicken Recipe in Broth for Cats. It has decent ingredients and no carageenan, which one of the kitties reacts to.

I and love and me has too much fish, as does BFF. We tried Evangers and Almo naturals and Hounds and Gatos and none of them liked either, but you might have better luck. They like Weruva, but it is very low calorie, so only suitable for supplemental unless they have a big appetite and you have a fat wallet. :)

I certainly feel for you :-( Our cat, who is a formally feral cat has a sensitive belly and now decided that the only thing she will eat is Iams dry kibble. Mice. She'll eat mice and other rodents, along with Iams kibbles. I've bought every kind of wet food and she may take a bite, maybe two, then looks at me like I served her garbage. She gets so offended. Seriously. Maybe the wet foods are not as tasty as they used to be. I've sent so much rejected high quality canned food to the animal shelter I feel like a donor at this point. Yesterday I decided I'm not buying anymore for her. She has told me as best she can that she does not like it and will not eat it. She likes her Iams and I have to let her be the boss on this. She's doing well on Iams except for normal aging and the wear and tear from her early years living feral with harsh weather and times.

I did have her on the Blues type of kibble for a while. Blue Buffalo and something else Blue dry kibbles. She eventually accepted those, but she had trouble with the shape of the kibbles. These were round and Iams is oval. She does better with oval. Plus, without all the grains in these Blues kibbles she lost a lot of weight and that bothered me. I gave her back her beloved Iams in the orange bag. She's happy. And healthy. I have to let it go...The Queen has spoken.

I've often dreamed of making my own cat food, but for now just make a point of NOT doing the math of how much per pound cat food costs. That being said, Tucker only likes gravy (yay, paying more for water!) and routinely snubs flavors he used to prefer. I remind myself that when the kids were small I would try to make meals that would please, but would not be a special order cook. If they are hungry they will eat. LOL Maybe I can hold that line with the cat. ?

It's interesting to me that nearly all cats are finicky!! My old cat, Rico, ate Tender Vittles for over 12 years until they stopped making it. I don't remember what I ended up with feeding him after that. He lived to be 19 years old. He was an orange kitty.

I make my cat's food with chicken thighs & canned carrots. I cook the chicken in my pressure cooker. Then I run it through the food processor with some carrots, a little salt & a little powdered magnesium. The skin & fat from the chicken is what she loves so I try to chill the chicken after cooking it. Then I can skim the fat off it & add it to the food. She is 16 & has been on this food for nearly 10 years. Once made I spoon it into snack zipper bags & freeze it. I do 10 lbs. of chicken at a time. I pull a bag from the freezer as needed.

Good luck with your search Annie. My cat only ate one flavour of Wellness Signature Select. He was so picky that he would only eat Beef with Chicken and he turned his nose up at Chicken with Beef. Is that like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich which only tastes right if the jelly is on the top???? Anyway, after awhile he decided he didn't like any canned food, so now he is on a kibble only diet and seems very happy.

Ours won’t eat more than a bite or two of people food. They beg for it while I’m cooking, but if I give them some, they sniff it then look at me like, “Is that it?” and walk away, leaving it for me to pick up.

My daughter has two very finicky Siamese cats who she has to beg to eat. I, on the other hand, have three pigs who every time I go into the kitchen they appear for food. I don't know about filler but Fancy Feast fish and shrimp looks and smells good enough for me to eat, There are flakes of white fish and tiny shrimp. It's my cats' favorite.

My friend was just saying that her cat's favorite food is impossible to find now. I'm pretty sure it is the Fancy Feast Pate' type. She's been all over looking for it and can't find it on line either. She bought something else and of course, her cat will not touch it. She will only eat the pate' type, but is very picky about the flavors that she will eat. How frustrating!

Cats absolutely need taurine in their diet, plus bones and organs for a balanced diet.

My cats are my taste-testers. They come meowing when I take meat out to prepare for dinner. I cut some and give it to them (chicken, pork, hamburger, beef etc). If they eat it, and it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me :-)

My 4 cats get Fancy Feast and one of them loves the FF Pate. I also offer Dry Natural Balance Original or NB Tuna Limited Ingredients.

I've tried several times to upgrade them to a higher quality food but after 1-2 days they will refuse to eat the new stuff. So we now stick with FF. 2 cats are teenagers and 2 are under 6 yrs., and none of them have ever had major health issues.

Don't read any further if you are squeamish.

Just in case anyone would be up to the task, which I am not...

I used to have a friend who made her own pet food.

She would go to the butcher and buy raw whole rabbits and frozen mice. Brought those home and sent intact, through her hand cranked meat grinder. She would place each day's meal size portion in containers and add some cooked rice and small portions of cooked veggies, stir, then freeze. She would not cook the meat portion of the pet food.

I could not do this as I am squeamish. But she said it was one way to be certain her pets had wholesome food and no more of these finicky problems we seem to deal with.

Before our cat retired, she was a busy huntress in the backyard and sometimes in the house. She would eat the rodents whole with no issues. Now she's a much older senior and only does this if a rodent actually comes up to her while she is napping outside and all she has to do is put her paw on the rodent then eat it. In nature, this is how cats ate for centuries.

I have other friends who, like the poster upthread, cook several lbs of chicken thighs, then adds cooked rice and some veggies and makes her pet's food for the week. She does supplement with some dry kibble.

Just an FYI if anyone got this far.

Nicole, here’s the ingredient list for Fancy Feast Chicken Classic Pate. No grains, rice or fillers. It’s good protein, often recommended for diabetic cats. The gravy flavors and newer stuff contain more carbs, grains and fillers but the classic pate’ does not. It’s not the best food you can buy but it’s a good value for the price.

Arkansas Girl, Chewy still carries the Fancy Feast Classic Pate’.

cattyles, I will tell her! Thanks!

I've sent an email to the Performatrin company asking if they are going to find a new retail outlet in our area...

arkansas girl,

In addition to Chewy carrying the FF Pate, you can also find most of the FF Grilled & Pate at Petsmart.

We give our fluff butts Beyond grain free pate. No corn, wheat or soy. No poultry by product stuff. No artificial stuff. Get at Wal-Mart or Amazon.

Salmon, liver, chicken fish broth carrots and egg broth. They 'll Love the wild salmon pate.

I use Blue Buffalo and Tiki Cat. Tiki Cat is veeeeeeeery popular with my girls.

My last girl lived to be 18.5 and she was allergic to corn so all of her food was grain-free. That was quite a challenge in the early 2000's but pet food has come a long way since then.

I recently ordered a 24 x 5.5 ounce pack of Amazon's house brand canned cat food, Wag. The kitties all liked it and the ingredients are pretty good, except some of the flavors contain carageenan which I avoid. It's made in the USA too. So far, they've tried, and like, the turkey.

As murraysmom recommended, I have started ordering their food from Pet Supermarket...same stuff. Fortunately they still carry it.