Thumbs up for Maxi Zoo.

Maxi Zoo’s own brand, Select Gold, used to have a small amount of grains in it but now they make their wet food completely grain and gluten free. On the tin they call it sensitive. I call it common sense. Every cat should be eating grain and gluten free food. For dry food, Applaws is still the best option. See my blog entry on cat food.

Fat Cat

Last week I was back home in the Netherlands for a short week of mainly family visits.

I stayed with my niece and her family. They live on a nice, fairly quiet street, with a lot of cat owners. Every now and then I would meet one of these felines, walking from or back to their house. What struck me was the number of obese cats, not just in their street, but also in other streets. These are cats that are allowed to go out, so at least they’re not stuck inside all day. So how do these cats get so fat? Overeating? Wrong food? Or is it just a suburban cat thing? But that doesn’t seem right as I also saw normal, healthy looking cats. I would love to chat with their humans to find out. I’m just curious. I do know that some people have the notion that it is “gezellig” – a Dutch word that is hard to describe, but cosy comes close – to have a fat cat lying in the windowsill. Personally I think that a combination of wrong food (mostly dry food with a lot of fillers) and a constant supply of it could be the reason for these cats getting so fat. There’s no need for a constant supply of food. Feed at regular times a few times a day. If you can’t be there yourself, get a timed pet feeder. You can get them for up to 5 feeds. Weigh the food so they don’t get more than they need for their body weight (So you need to know the weight of your cat to start.)

Our two started looking for food in between mealtimes, but they’re outside a lot and it is getting colder. They’ve filled out but they are still lean, mean, killing machines. They are so active, always chasing flies, leaves, toys, each other and catching mice, rats and shrews. Somebody commented on the fact that we don’t let the two out at night. He said: “that’s the time they want to hunt”. He’s absolutely right but that’s the compromise in our house: inside at night. We don’t have a cat door and don’t want to leave the window open at night for them to go in and out and maybe bring prey back with them. Other cats could come in and go for their food as well. Then there are also foxes around and I don’t want them to get into a scrap with a fox. From about 6.30 am until 6 pm they normally can come and go as they please. They then go for naps and get some playtime in between as well. No constant supply of dry food. Dry food (grain free) is given as a snack every now and then and for the rest they get their regular meals of wet food. That and plenty of exercise will keep them in good shape.

I really feel for those obese cats. It’s not nice for them to have to carry all that weight around and it could cause all sorts of health problems in the long run. Cat owners: wake up. Don’t let your cats get fat. If you really care for your pets, you watch their weight. It can also save you a lot of money on vet bills.

 Picture through Google image search.

Thanks to the original uploader.

Feline food (with a lot of important information)

When we decided to take a cat again, I had already done a lot of research on-line and come accross several interesting sites and forums.

The one that I found a real eye-opener was catinfo.org, a site by an American veterinarian who really cares about cats and did a great write-up on feline food. Read if you really care for your cat or cats.

The main message of the site is: Feed your cat canned food as a main food, not dry food.

Dry food contains only about 7 percent moisture. Canned food about 80 percent.

When I told this to a pet shop owner in the Netherlands, he replied with: "canned food contains too much water. They won't get enough nutrients from it" BULLSHIT!!! What an idiot. Muscle meat is about 75 percent water, 2/3 of our human body weight is water.

Good brands of tinned food contain mostly meat: muscle meat and innards and often a few percent of grains. There are also added vitamins, minerals and taurine which is important.

Dried food on the other hand, even the better brands, don't have a meat content that high and contain a lot of plant-based fillers like maize to bulk up the food and make it cheaper so the profit margin is higher. They also have added vitamins, minerals and taurine, but the fillers are bad for your cat's kidneys.

Dry food has been boiled and dehydrated. Canned food is fresh meat that has been canned and hasn't had the crap boiled out of it.

Cats don't really have a thirst thrive. That means that they don't drink enough. In nature cats get most of their moisture from their prey, which contains about 75 percent of moisture. You never see a cat dry his food before eating it, so dried food is not natural to a cat.

This means that on dry food they would have to drink a LOT more to compensate, which they don't. Even cats who drink quite often only get maybe half of the moisture they need.

 Their urine is already concentrated. With dry food the kidneys have to work really hard to process all the plant-based fillers and there isn't really quite enough moisture to flush it through properly. NOT GOOD!

"But my cats really love dry food" Yes, the food industry makes it smell and taste nice.

Your kids probably love McDonalds, but do you bring them there every single day and give them junk food a few times a day? Because that's what it is. Dry cat food is junk food.

"But dry food is better for their teeth" That's what the industry likes you to think. Most of it is swallowed whole as cats can't chew. They don't have molars. Their teeth are made to rip and tear. The food is so brittle that the bit they do crunch, isn't in contact with their teeth long enough to have much effect.

"But in the wild they don't eat canned food either" No, they don't but it's the closest you can get to their natural food if you don't want to go make your own raw food. With a cat living in a human environment, you have to make food compromises.

"So what do you give your cats?"

 I give my cats canned food from Maxi Zoo's own brand (Real Nature and Select Gold)

Thinking of changing to Grau's grain free which you can buy at zooplus.ie

 I also give them some fresh chicken fillet every now and then. They love it. Chop it up as fine as they need it but let them tear at it if they want to. Chicken wings are great too. They can crunch the bones.

 Don't be squeamish about that. Our Cato once brought in a dead bird and insisted on eating it inside, on the kitchen floor. He devoured it feathers and all, only left the tiny head behind.

Now, I do give my cats dried food as a snack every now and then. Applaws makes dry food that has no grain fillers in it. It is the best dry food you can get because of the high meat content. You can buy it at zooplus.ie

There is a lot more information at catinfo.org, so please take some time to read it (downloadable versions available on the site) if you really care about your cat's health.