New Cat Won't Eat Dry Food

[ramama]

We just adopted a cat from the shelter a couple weeks ago. She came home with a bag of dry food that the shelter was feeding her, so we've been offering her the same food she's been getting before. The shelter lady said that the cats also got a bit of canned food in the morning and at night. Lo and behold, this cat absolutely will not touch the dry food and yowls for the canned food every morning and night. Is there anything wrong with just feeding canned food? If that's what she prefers, I have no problems giving to her, as long as it is nutritionally okay. She's about 2 years old.

[stardogs]

Canned food is actually recommended to ensure adequate water intake to prevent urinary/kidney issues as cats age. The only thing you might need to keep an eye on are her teeth as some cats get more tarter buildup while eating only canned food and you'll want to switch up the flavor fairly often to keep her from getting even more picky.

[SubliminalDarkness]

I think the ideal is a combination of both. Basically, mixing wet into dry. This is what we do for our dog as well.

[greenmagick]

Canned food is better actually. I wish cats would eat canned only. Just make sure its a good high quality canned, grain free being better.

And i have been reading lately that the kibble really doesnt help much for plaque on teeth as it is not really that hard....

[Oubliette8]

Canned food is perfectly fine, just make sure you choose a high quality variety that is a complete diet (I think it normal says this somewhere on the can). A few types are not complete and balanced, for example, many of the 100% meat varieties are for supplemental feeding, and would be like feeding your cat canned tuna- not adequate for sustained nutrition. But MOST foods are designed as complete diets and should work fine. Many vets are starting to recommend mostly canned diets to prevent kidney issues later in life. Cats naturally do not drink much water, getting most of it from their food, and they fail to compensate by drinking more when fed a dry diet.

As far as dry food cleaning teeth, I read somewhere its like if someone claimed if you ate hard crackers you wouldn't need to brush your teeth. Kibble isn't really that hard and doesn't do much in that department.

[Ola_]

I agree that a good canned food is better for cats than dry. The issue is that it's often more expensive which is why many folks mix the two to lower the cost.