Cat won't eat soft food

[chrick]

Hi,

I have a bothersome problem. We have two cats, one of which won't eat soft food, the other which shouldn't eat dry food. The problem with the one who shouldn't eat the dry is that she doesn't drink enough water, and gets urinary tract infections when she eats dry food. She also seems to throw most of it up, and gets very skinny if there is dry food available to her. But she loves it, and prefers it to the soft - only eating the soft if she can't get at the dry.

To cope with this we've been covering the dry food that our non-wet cat eats except when he goes to it to eat. This makes his eating schedule a bit tricky, but he seems to cope. The other one, though, if we forget to cover the dry, will pig out on it, throw it up, and regularly get urinary tract infections.

Does anyone have any bright ideas for how we can get the wet food eater to enjoy her wet food more, and stay away from the dry?

Thanks!

Chris

[Bente]

Tricky situation... The only thing I can think of is to not leave the food out, but to have feeding times, and then feed them separatly. Btw: have you tried to let your non-dry cat drink from the faucet or a water fountain? My cat doesn't have a "drinking problem", but he'll drink alot more if he has those two options available.

Good luck

[chrick]

Thanks for your response. You're right about the cat drinking from a faucet - that's the only way she'll drink, from the tub faucet. Trouble with that, of course, is that it relies on us being there, which we're not, sometimes at least. Perhaps one of those cat fountains would be the answer, though, that way she would be able to drink whenever she pleased, and perhaps the problem wouldn't happen. I'll give that a go.

Thanks again,

Chris

[Chessmind]

Hi and welcome to Auspet. Why shouldn't one of your cats eat dry food? Perhaps you could try some other soft foods that your cats may enjoy more. What are you feeding them now? Then, once you find a soft food they both enjoy you can then feed dry food in a separate room to the cat that can eat it. Also those cat water fountains are a great idea. Lot's of people here have been glad they bought one.

[faeriedust1127]

Have you tried other varieties of wet food? My cat also loves any kind of crunchy food or treats, but she is very picky about what wet foods she takes an interest in. Lately I've been able to experiment with more different kinds of canned foods since I have a foster cat who will eat ANYTHING I put down, lol. I'm really bummed tho cuz just a few days ago, the one brand of wet food she really liked got added to the food recall list and they've temporarily discontinued production. So far I've found one other ($2 per can of course ) that she likes. Some cats are picky like that, so maybe the dry food is just tastier to her that the wet food she's tried so far. Also maybe you could try adding a little water to the dry food she likes?