Switching your Cat to a Healthier Diet

Cats can be addicts!! The dry food that we feed to our cats is high in fat and salt, and even the shapes can trigger the response of turning down other, healthier foods.

Because of the tendency toward addiction on these dry foods, they can be very resistant to change.
It is VERY important that you change your cat very, very slowly to a healthy new diet.  Cats WILL starve themselves rather than switch and this can lead to Fatty Liver Disease, a life-threatening condition.  If your cat fasts, he runs the risk of this disease.
Please take this warning seriously!!

First either ask us how much you should feed ( if your cat is overweight) or measure the total amount you are currently feeding( if your cats’ weight is normal).
Divide your cats’ complete measured daily allowance into 3 meals.  Give one portion in the morning, one in the afternoon, and the final feeding in the evening.
Be tough, that is all he gets for the daily feeding.  It may take several weeks for him to adjust to the feedings, but your cat will learn that this is all he will get to eat.

When kitty learns that that is all they are going to get, replace one of those feedings with canned food.  They will get enough from 2 feedings of dry to keep up the necessary nutrition that they need.

Don’t give in to your cat.  If he gets hungry enough, he will try the canned.  It may take weeks, even months for your cat to eat the canned food, but you are doing this for the health of your kitty.

When your cat is eating the one meal of canned food for several weeks, take one of the meals of dry food and replace with canned.  Be sure to adjust the amount for calorie intake.

After several weeks of  2 canned meals, replace the final dry feeding with the canned.

Another way to introduce your cat to canned food is to measure the total amount of daily dry food, then give 1/3 the amount at each of  2 dry meals, one for breakfast and one at dinner, and leave a bowl of canned food out all day.  This is good for an all day nibbler, and when the dry is gone, they will try the canned.  Then gradually replace the remainder of the dry with canned food.
Take as much time as your cat needs to make the transition from dry to canned.

article written by:
Dr. Joe Whalen
Hyde Park Animal Hospital and Clinic