'My cat just loves water; they love a bath, they love to swim and I often just find them lying out in the rain’….. said basically no cat owner ever! For anyone with childhood memories of their fluffy friend turning into a rabid panther when they tried to put them in the bath with them, they could attest, rare is the water-loving cat! While avoidance seems the obvious and simple solution, the problem is that often this aquatic aversion can also extend to our feline friends’ water intake with cats considered notoriously poor drinkers. This means that many of our cute kitties are chronically dehydrated and as I’ve discussed in earlier blogs, this can have significant health implications, wreaking havoc on their urinary tract as well as their life supporting kidneys.
So, how can you ensure your precious puss is reaching their daily water requirement? The answer is simple – through their food!
Trying to make a cat drink when it doesn’t want to is near impossible. Too commonly owners tell me they have purchased a myriad of water drinking devices, including multi-tiered trickling fountains more suited to a Japanese bonsai garden, only for them to be consistently ignored by their intended feline subject. To overcome this common conundrum I recommend owners consider increasing the water content in their kitty’s food. Importantly this does not mean adding water to your cat’s already dehydrating dry biscuit diet… wet soggy biscuits will result in a resounding ‘no thanks’ from your finicky friend. Instead I encourage owners to add some ‘wet’ food to the menu. ‘But aren’t they just full of gelling agents, fillers and are generally bad news?’ you ask. Well, it depends which ones you choose.
Traditionally, wet food or canned food has received a bad wrap. Colloquially labeled the McDonald’s of the cat world, many cats LOVE it but it isn’t necessarily that good for them. This is due to generally poor quality ingredients or fillers, as well as the common addition of gelling agents, which bind the water content in the food to produce that gelatinous texture we have come to question. Not only does this reduce the available water content in the food but it has also been shown to reduce the digestibility of the nutrients. So why am I recommending this stuff you ask? Because there is a new wave of wet food on the market that not only helps to keep our feline friends hydrated BUT is also good for them thanks to Feline Natural.
Their canned and new look pouches offer complete and balanced meals for your kitties with only high quality, human grade meat used and not a filler in sight.
They are grain and preservative free meaning your precious pusses aren’t ingesting any nasties, and with 3 delicious flavours they are sure to satiate even the fussiest of eaters. Most importantly they are free of gelling agents which means the added fresh New Zealand water is ready and available for absorption and you can kiss goodbye to the fear and concern of having a chronically dehydrated cat…. thank you Feline Natural!
Now if all this sounds too good to be true… just wait, there’s more! If you are anything like me and have a bit of an aversion to half opened tins of cat food in your refrigerator, then these new look Feline Natural pouches are for you! They are single serve and no mess… simply tear, empty into the food bowl and throw the pouch in the bin… AND with their delectable flavours your cat will lick the bowl clean leaving no washing up! What’s not to love!
Written by Dr. Josie Gollan