You Can, In Fact, Lead a Cat To Water

“The reason cats are so pissy is because they’re God’s perfect killing machines, but they only weigh 8 lbs and we keep picking them up and kissing them.” -Dave Thorpe

While most of our pet cats spend more time murdering catnip toys than real mice, it is true that cats are among the most efficient predators in the world.  They evolved in the desert in the Middle East, surviving on rodents, birds, insects, and reptiles.  Take your average domestic housecat and put them in a similar environment, and they would still be able to thrive, even ten thousand years later.  Unlike dogs, whose systems have changed from their wild ancestors to accommodate a dietary shift from living with humans, the kitty sitting on your couch is digestively identical to the wildcats that still roam in Africa and southern Asia.

This means that they are still adapted to desert living, and are meant to take in most of their water requirements from their food.  Cats naturally have a lower thirst drive than dogs or humans, and often won’t seek out water—especially still water, which their instincts tell them may not be clean and safe—until they are already a bit dehydrated.  Cats are also what’s called obligate carnivores: they require an animal-protein based diet in order to thrive.  This is another way they differ from dogs, wolves, coyotes, and other members of the dog family, who can easily not just survive but thrive on a far more varied diet.

What does this mean when it comes to feeding our feline friends?  In a word: moisture.

There are a number of common diseases and illnesses in cats that have been linked to eating a low-moisture diet (i.e., dry food or kibble).  Kidney disease, bladder stones and bladder inflammation, even diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease, are all much more prevalent in cats fed a partly or entirely dry-food diet.  Even grain-free dry diets, made with primarily animal protein, still increase the rates of these conditions.  

When researchers looked at the effect of diet on total water intake, cats eating dry food and offered a constant source of fresh water only took in about half the moisture of cats eating canned food—even though they spent far more time at the water bowl.  It turns out that canned food is generally between 70-80% moisture, and dry food is only about 6-10% moisture on average.  That is a huge difference, and cats are inefficient drinkers who, like their ancestors, think that water is at best to be regarded with deep suspicion.  Feeding canned food helps them take in the feline equivalent of their 8 glasses a day.  This is why we use high-moisture diets as a major component of treatment for a number of medical problems.

So what do we recommend?  It’s simple: feed a high-moisture, balanced diet.  Canned food is the most common and easiest, but some cats may do better on a home-cooked fresh diet (balanced by a nutritionist, please!).  Think about dry food as a treat or enrichment tool, rather than a dietary staple.

“But my cat won’t eat anything but her dry food!”

Yeah. Cats have a number of unique and wonderful traits, including managing to behave as both a liquid and a solid, leaping five times their own height directly in the air, purring, being soft and sharp at the same time, and making persistently bad personal decisions.  They also form food addictions like nobody’s business, and there are many cats out there who are extremely difficult to convince to eat something other than their one specific brand, flavor, and texture.  To top it off, if they starve themselves, they can really upset their metabolism, their liver, and pretty much everyone around them.

If you have a kitten, we strongly encourage introducing a wide variety of flavors, textures, and brands of food, as strong food preferences are often formed in the first six months of life.   Offering a variety of foods can help make their palate as broad as possible.  Stick with mostly chicken and turkey, as poultry has a lower risk of heavy metal contamination than fish. Incorporating some fish, lamb, and/or beef is fine to keep them guessing.  We also encourage feeding as little carbohydrate as possible, which means mostly feeding diets which contain little to no grain (which cat bodies do not know how to process properly).

If your adult cat isn’t picky, you win!  You get to do what I do, which is buy as many different brands and textures as your budget allows.  Avoid unusual or “novel” proteins, like venison or rabbit, in case your tiny murder-buddy develops an allergy to something in their food and needs something special, but otherwise go wild.  I have at least half a dozen different brands of cans in my house on any given day, and I love subjecting my two to taste-tests to see what they find tasty and what’s not.

If your cat is one of the aforementioned kitties who has managed to form a food addiction, take several deep breaths and get ready for a worthwhile challenge.  Dry food is sprayed with a highly-flavorful coating that many cats absolutely love, and sometimes canned food just can’t compete.  Think fast food versus a healthy home-cooked meal.  Plus, some cats are texture junkies, and intensely dislike either the smoothness of the patés, the chewiness of the chunks, or both.

Some tips:

1. Start by limiting their dry food intake.  Many people leave dry food out all the time, so the kitty has a never ending buffet.  Set mealtimes, and put down a measured amount of dry food at each meal.  For most cats, this would be ¼ to ½ of a cup, twice daily.
2. Once they have adapted to that, and hopefully are a little more hungry, set out a little scoop of canned food on a plate or bowl adjacent to their dry food.  This allows them to start adapting to the smell, which initially can be a source of aversion for many cats.
3. If your kitty is still not interested, start putting that dab of canned food at the bottom of their dry food serving.  Once they start to nibble at it, you can slowly increase the canned amount while decreasing the dry, until one day voilà!  They’re eating their canned food!
4. Always feed canned food at or above room temperature.  Some cats prefer it slightly warmer (think mouse body temperature, or around 100 degrees F), but it should never be hot.
5. Try adding Fortiflora, a probiotic that is healthy for cat intestinal tracts anyway and contains the same flavoring agent added to dry food.  For some cats, mixing it in is appealing; for others, sprinkle it right on top.
6. Experiment with different proteins, brands, and textures.  
7. Be patient!  Your cat hates change even more than most people do.  It takes them up to six months to adapt to a change.  But don’t try to force the issue by totally withholding food for more than 24 hours, as that can make them start to feel sick.  Just remember that cats are only the second most stubborn species...after humans.

If you try all of these things and your purr-bucket is still refusing to even consider canned food, please give us a call.  We want to keep our feline friends healthy and wreaking havoc for as long as possible, and will be happy to brainstorm a solution.