Much put out, I went to look for an alternative*. Of course, there's nothing even remotely similar (especially that nice big kibble size), and the packaging is all skewed to appeal to touchy-feely types ("would you feed your pet something you wouldn't eat") or sciency types ("scientifically proven!") or the mainstream (as seen on TV). It really put me off, but I ended up looking more at the touchy-feely stuff, since I'm more inclined to think esatz "pure ingredients" was slightly more believable than "science" that I didn't know the background for. The mainstream stuff I dismissed as the kitty version of junk food. Sure, I would like to live on Cheetoes myself, but for how long would that be? Granted, Dental Diet was a Friskies brand and though not advertised much, would have been found with the mainstream stuff. I purchased small bags of three different possible substitutes and put out a small bowl of each. Interestingly, the one I was slightly favoring is the one they've barely touched. The picture above (taken this morning) is the 12 hour results so far. Top to bottom are the catfoods shown below left to right. Interestingly, the boys seem to like the one with avocado in it. Hmmm!
UPDATE: The results are in. I originally gave them 50 g of each food. At the end of 24 hours, the following amounts remained:
Wellness Indoor Health - 48 g (boys ate 4%)
Blue Buffalo Indoor Health - 17 g (boys ate 66%)
Avoderm Indoor Hairball Care Formula - 9 g (boys ate 82%)
Looks like Avoderm is the clear winner, with Blue Buffalo an acceptable alternative. Wellness got a big "no thank you!" so I'll be dropping that off as a donation for the Cat Care Society.
4 comments:
Interesting experiment, and I'd like to know how it goes!
Since MK has reached the grand old age of 11, and have been having more issues with puking, I've been on the lookout for a good food that has no coloring in it, because my carpets are beginning to hate cat food (dry and wet). Interestingly enough, Mom used up the rest of my dry food at her house and bought a bag of the "fat cat" food she feeds Ben for MK to replace my stores. Since then, MK hasn't puked up any dry food that I've seen. Problem not solved, but at least I'm cleaning up half as much puke!
My vet recommended avoderm (I'm assuming that's the avocado version) but I haven't tried it yet. You'll have to let me know how it goes, if that's their choice! My kittykids are on Nutro Natural choice - and other than super stinky litter box management, they're healthy and happy and glossy-coated.
Post has been updated and the winnah is Avoderm.
Jen, my mum's cat can't eat anything with fish oil because it gives him diarrhea. Maybe The Divine Miss K has a similar issue, only puking is the result. Weight Management food would have a different amount of oils and protein in it.
Jeri, Nutro is one of the other foods I feed my cats. They seem to like it OK. I also feed my cats raw food that has a bit of salmon oil in it, so their fur is particularly soft and glossy already, but I certainly would like to continue that. I'm a bit concerned about their teeth (Dental Diet was designed to clean their teeth) but we'll see how it goes. One of the draws for the Blue Buffalo option is that it claims to reduce litterbox odor.
Amendment: Avoderm claims to cut down on litterbox odor too.
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