[Pet Care Articles] Pet Food Choices: Dry, Wet, Raw, and the "Rotation" Concept

I went to a "food seminar" put on by Nature's Variety about a month and a half ago, and while it was nothing more than a sales pitch for their various lines of dog and cat food, it did bring up a couple of points of thought and some interesting tidbits of information. Here are my thoughts on the following subjects:

Cats Need Water From Wet Foods
Everyone at the seminar seemed aware (except for yours truly) that the main affliction of the housecat has to do with the urinary tract. Housecats are apparently especially prone to kidney and bladder problems. So this is apparently due to cats not getting enough water.

Cats are desert animals. (This I knew.) They therefore don't drink as much water. (This I also knew.) What I didn't know was that cats that eat primarily dry kibble do not drink enough water. (Now I'm going to paraphrase catinfo.org) Cats eating dry kibble get half the amount of water from wet food. So, pet nutritionists reason, it is preferable for your cat's health, that if at all possible, you feed your cat only wet food.

Raw Foods
I'm still out to lunch on raw foods, although I do have a bag of Nature's Variety Raw Rabbit in the freezer now. The idea of raw food is that it most closely replicates what cats and dogs eat in nature and that feeding raw food as opposed to cooked food gives our pets more nutrients since the nutrients aren't cooked off.

The main issue that pet owners have against feeding raw (besides cost and ease) is bacterial infection and food poisoning. I think that raw feeding advocates don't have proper scientific studies to claim that cats and dogs are not as afflicted by salmonella and e coli and whatever else as humans are. I think that animals do in fact get food poisoning. As in humans, once you get food poisoning, there's really nothing to do except wait it out and let it pass. And in dogs and cats, since they have shorter digestive tracts, the wait itsn't as long. Also, dogs are known to be able to stand a lot of pain without vocalizing their suffering, so even if a dog is suffering, the owner may not know.

A secondary issue I have to feeding my pets only raw food is that I can't be sure on my own that my pets are getting the proper nutrition. Left on his own, Romeo would only eat the meat, leaving everything else there. This would make for an unbalanced diet if he got to do this all the time.

All that being said, I do give my dog (and the cats, even though they don't seem to enjoy raw at all) raw sometimes to vary his diet. I like carpaccio and sushi, so I don't see any harm in giving them raw sometimes. The caveat is that I give him the commercially prepared stuff or, if I'm preparing it from supermarket stuff, I flash-fry the exposed parts of the meat to kill of any germs that may be on the meat. Searing the exposed parts of the meat kills the bacteria that may be living on the surface while preserving the raw nutrition benefits.

Variety in Diet
Nature's Variety promotes "rotation" of their foods. This I wholly advocate. I primarily feed my dog and cats either Innova Evo or Nature's Variety Raw Instinct dry kibble because of its high protein content and superior quality ingredients. Let's face it, it's easy to feed dry kibble. I look for foods that are at least 30% protein for Romeo and 40% protein for the cats. For the cats, additionally, I look for kibble without grains. This is particularly hard because dry kibble needs binders. Innova Evo uses potato, Nature's Variety Raw Instinct uses tapioca.

I feel it's important to vary the cats' and the dog's diet. First, I think it's boring for them to have to eat the same food all the time. Romeo and Jezebel in particular don't like eating the same things all the time, and they noticeably get bored with the food.

Second, it's better for their digestive systems. The reason that you have to switch over to new foods slowly is because the pets' digestive system has only been eating one thing the entire time. If you only ate one thing, and suddenly you ate something totally different, trust me, your system would rebel as well. Romeo doesn't have this problem, and I think it's in part because he eats something different every day with his dry kibble. I can also switch Jezebel, Sambora, and Romeo on a whim to another food without there being problems.

Third, there's a lot of talk about development of food allergies. I think that by keeping digestive systems and their palates robust (you don't want them to want only one food) , if a food allergy develops, you can easily switch their foods out with little difficulty.

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Posted By Tina to Pet Care Articles at 11/10/2006 02:55:00 PM