Pet Food News

My cat is pretty thin from hyperthyroidism and needs a cat food, both dry and moist to help put some weight on him. The vet gave him a liquid vitamin for twice per day, but I want to feed him a high quality food that hopefully does not contain added salt or fish (any seafood). I am hoping there is a food for very active cats available, so to give him extra calories.

KITTEN foods are generally higher in calories because kittens need those calories while they are growing. If you need to add weight, then try the kitten formulas of dry/wet cat foods.

Me… kittyslave23… I know my place.

We used to feed him dry food (Iams) until my 11 year old cat started vomiting almost every day. Now we feed him moist food (Whiskas ?) but I need to find a cat food that does not make him hungry every 4 hours. This stuff seems to not fill his stomach for long.

pls STOP feeding ur cat that crap ( Whiskas )

i recommend Orijen or Evo

trust me

I ran out of cat food so I gave my cat some cat treats mixed with some pieces of dog food. Each dog food piece was about one inch long, two centimeters thick, and the thickest part of the width was about 5 centimeters, it was shaped like a dog bone. Should I be worried about my cat choking?

A cat’s nutritional requirements are much different than those of a dog. For example, cats require higher levels of protein than dogs. Cats must have the amino acid called ‘taurine’ in their diet; dogs can actually make their own taurine. A cat eating food deficient in taurine can develop severe heart disease and other health problems. Almost all cat foods now contain added taurine.

Cats require a different form of Vitamin A than dogs do. Dogs can use beta-carotene as a source of Vitamin A; cats cannot. Cats can not manufacture the fatty acid called ‘arachidonic acid’ and must have it supplemented in their diet; it is not essential for dogs to have this fatty acid in their food.

So, you see, if a cat is allowed to eat a significant amount of dog food, the cat would be eating a diet deficient in many of the cat’s required nutrients. For your cat’s health, be sure she is eating quality cat food.

I don’t want something as expensive as The Science Diet, but I also don’t want a cheap dog food. What would be a good quality, healthy dog food for my pup?

I’m not necessarily looking for a certain type; I’d just like to know a good brand. Thanks in advance!
Also, I live in a small town. I have been buying her food from Tractor Supply, Co. So if you could name a brand from that store, that would be wonderful.

Pedigree, Purina, Beneful, Ol’roys, Iams, and Science Diet are all CRAP. They are filled with fillers, indescribable meat by-products, and chemicals. Corn, wheat, and soy are all very hard to digest. I recommend a grain-free brand such as Blue Buffalo, Canidea, Taste of the Wild.

I am a distributor for a Healthy Pet Food company based out of Palm City Florida.
My business is called Healthy Pet Friends, www.healthypetfriends.com

I have a few customers now, but I would like to double that.
I work out of my home doing mostly cold calls and networking, any suggestions as to what else I can do?

How about a "pet party"?

My cat is one of the most pickiest eaters ever and have tried many many brands but what he likes i know isn’t the best (Friskies canned food) I’ve tried a lot of brands but he doesn’t seem to take to them. I live in canada an some brands aren’t available like the states have.. Any suggestions on what wet cat food to buy. Want him to be healthy. He is an indoor cat and really active at night.

You are right, friskies isn’t great but i would still rather you feed that then dry food. Stay away from the gravy flavors. You have wellness canned where you are and that is the best if he will eat it

I just rescued a 3 year old tricolor sheltie. He is the cutest guy ever and i want to feed him the right dog food so he doesn’t get sick. What dog food should i feed him? I know there are alot of crap food out there. What dog food do you feed your dog and they do awesome on. I would like to find something that he would like but has no corn and soy in it. Frist few ingredients must be meet. Preferabble fish or turkey. Meat that shelties would eat in the wild. He is about 15 pounds.

If you have the time and the interest, you could consider home cooked meals. Here’s one site with dog food recipe: http://www.monkeysee.com/play/6572-serving-dog-food
This way, you pick out the content yourself and have complete awareness of quality of product.
If you want a dog food, consider something that has no recent history of recalled product or repeat recalls in the past years. Some to consider:
http://www.sojos.com/europa.html
Some dog foods are labeled "organic" or "holistic" but some of these have been recalled due to inferior gluten products that were in other foods recalled during the massive series of recalls that started some years ago.
Here’s a site to keep updated on recalled dog foods:
http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/default.htm

I mean, we support ourselves and we’re supporting the animal. Would you like to let an animal starve and die? We would love to stop animal abuse, but then I could guess animal hunger would be on the rise later on in the future.

So why do we pay tax for pet food?

food is considered a necessity
having pets is not a necessity and therefore their food, upkeep, vet bills etc is a personal thing
animal control is a very prominent program in many cities that have an overabundance of animals,
even some legislation has been suggested to limit even pure bred animals

It seems that my cat has been getting soft stools off and on for awhile now, but also gets normal ones too. So I guess i’m going to stick to one brand of premium wet food and stay away from store bought and human food treats. So since there are a ton of brands out there, what ones could you guys recommend that would be best for my kittie’s sensitive digestive system? By premium, I mean Innova, California Natural,etc.
I did take my cat to her vet, and she gave her medicine. But she told me to feed her soft food only.

There could be a reason for your cat’s soft stools besides food. Some of the problems that can result in soft stools are infection with Coccidia or Giardia, both protozoal parasites, inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.

You should really bring the cat to the vet to rule out the many non-food reasons for your cat’s soft stools.

There are really a lot of premium options for you out there. You are probably going to need to experiment to see which foods agree with your cat though your experiment will prove inconclusive if the issue is not the food at all…

Some of the foods I feed my cats are Innova EVO both the regular one, the duck, and the venison; Wellness - all the varieties except the one with lobster but most frequently either the chicken, turkey, or chicken and herring; Natural Balance Ultra and the chicken and liver pate, a few of the Merrick’s varieities and others.

Since your cat may simply have an intolerance to grain any other these grain-free (some of the Natural Balance have a little rice) may be the answer. I suggest that you not only choose a grain-free food but you try only one protein source at a time for at least a week since it could be that too.

You could start with only Wellness chicken for a week or so and if all goes well you’ll know it isn’t chicken, and so on.

Or you could begin with one of the Natural Balance limited ingredient foods. These are foods that contain only one unusual protein source such as duck. The idea is that some cats may have developed a sensitivity to some proteins like chicken or beef from over-exposure to them.

Aside from that, you could try your cat on a raw diet. These can be very beneficial to cats with bowel problems. Google "raw diet cat IBD" to start.

But really you should start with a vet visit. You don’t want to spend months experimenting with different foods and find out the poor kitty has had Coccidia all along.

About how expensive is it to make homemade dog food? My four dogs (3 large, 1 small) are currently on Science Diet (Large and Small bites) and it costs about $25-30 a week to feed them all. Does making homemade dog food with quality ingredients generally save money over feeding commercially marketed brands like Science Diet?

You’ll have to do your own math here, based upon the ingedients you wish to us.

For me, it was slightly more expensive to make my own– boiled chicken with baked sweet potato and parsley. The parsley was home grown.. I factored that at .0$ because I was using as much in my own cooking as it was for the dog. The split chicken breast I could purchase at about 99cents a pound when I was lucky. Same price for the sweet potato.. so I added the cost of the energy to fire up my stove & stovetop, as well as the price for my time.. And the multiple vitamins I added… Probably +$1.50 a pound, but it was worth it.

You can stretch that and reduce the price per pound by ’stretching’ the chicken and potato with boiled rice, but of course you have to keep a closer eye on nutrition, since dogs aren’t primarily vegetarians, I’d be reluctant to go too heavy on the rice for fear of ill effect.

So, start with your own recipe, factor in price per pound of the components, divide by the ratio/s in the recipe, then you’ll have your price. If you’re lucky enough to have a hunter in the family, or can get your hands on free meat, then your cost is reduced accordingly.