Hills r/d food for cats - help/experiences?

[DillyDally]

My cat George has got a bit tubby. He's a long, big-boned cat so he was never light as a feather, but when at the vet for his boosters and health check this morning, I spoke to the vet about it. I'd done this previously, and had tried cutting down his (normal Kitekat) food a bit as recommended but it didn't work. He's about 8 now (rescue cat so we don't know his exact age) and is more sedentary than he used to be, but he rarely even finishes his food anyway! He doesn't like 'people food' so he's not getting little titbits from us/stealing them either.

He really only goes out to roll about in the sun on the drive (not been doing that much lately because of the rain!) or to stalk squirrels in the garden/do his necessary business, so he doesn't get much exercise. The vet said she thought that his metabolism had got slower due to age and suggested we try the Hills r/d food.

She wasn't very clear about how to feed it to him - apparently I have to use the guidance for the weight George should be, and feed him according to that. But I don't know how much he should weigh And while searching online, I found all sorts of stuff about how crap Hills pet food is, how it's high carb (and suggestions for a sort of Atkins for cats ) and basically just not good (lots of stuff about how coat condition declined etc) Very unsure now about letting him have the food.

Anyone used it - did their cat like it/lose weight/stay healthy?

TIA

[Faith]

Mine is on the I/d. He's old, and dropped 20% of his body weight in three weeks. Which usually in an elderly cat means renal failure, cancer, or something equally terminal. The vet was pretty pessimistic, although all his bloods came back clear, which basically left us looking at lymphoma.

There was nothing to do but wait and see if he deteriorated, but the vet suggested the I/d in the meantime, to try and stop him losing more weight. 6 months on he's a different cat, he's gained 10% back, coat is good, and he's got a playful spring in his step again. So I'd recommend it.

Actually thinking about it we were recommended the r/d when ours was about 8, he's also a big cat, but wasn't fat (IMO). He's never been a big eater so I just didn't bother.

[DillyDally]

I'm so glad your cat has improved, Faith.

I think I will give this bag of r/d a go and see how he gets on. Apparently, if he doesn't like it/won't eat it, I can get my money back.

[bubbasweet]

My mum has always had tubby cats in spite of them all being on permanent diets

More recently (with newer cats - the really fat ones have moved on, old age/cancer rather than weight related) she's fed them science diet (think it's Hills?) for breakfast and then they'd have either cubed chicken or tuna for tea. The chicken is from Iceland - bags of frozen chicken breast in chunks, and the tuna is for cats, made by hi-life. Make sure you check the protein content of cat foods. Many of the highly commercial brands you get in supermarkets (and I'd probably guess that Kiticat is like this) contain very little protein, which isn't good considering a cat's natural diet is mostly protein.

You might find he gets bored of that food because it's just one flavour. Before our cat met her demise last summer we had two bags of food of different flavours and alternate them. She ate it fine like that but if we fed her the same flavour every day she'd often turn her nose up at it!

[DillyDally]

I always think he'd like variety, Bubba, but he seems to have favourite flavours, and turns his nose up at anything 'different'

[frannybaby]

We feed our cat a high protein diet. He gets two meals of wet food for every meal of dry food because he has a sensitive stomach and I got tired of cleaning up barf!

The dry food is something like 80% meat derived and has no grains or fillers so its low carb.

I agree that the more mainstream foods do make for chubbier cats because they are designed to be filling but are they really cat fast food?

[Skipping Girl]

Two years ago our new vet said our cat needed to go on a diet, she was not that overweight but she had been gaining weight at every check-up and rarely went outside so he wanted to make sure she didn't get too big. He said Whiskas and most other supermarket food was 'McDonald's' for cats (we were feeding Whiskas pouches and Iams dry food).

We were advised to switch to giving her more hard food (and a more natural one, like Meowing Heads, Burts, James Well Beloved, etc, not Iams) than wet food - only a quarter of a can a day (1/8 in the morning, 1/8 in the evening), leave dry food out at meal times but actually we leave it out all day. We started using Science plan as the wet food.

She lost the extra weight and has continued to maintain her good weight (not good when we needed her to be 500g more for her flight to Canada ).

I haven't tried the Hills rd but I wonder if you switch to a different wet food, reduce the amount or go for complete good protein hard food, then that would do the trick. Well I suppose that's been my experience!

Kat
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[DillyDally]

Hills do the rd as a wet food too.

I've had cats all my life, always fed on bog standard wet food with a sprinkling of dry for the sake of their teeth, and have never, ever had an overweight cat before. Weird. The vet I saw last time said he thought all the specialist foods were rubbish! How confusing.

aS I have thus bag of food I will try it - he can be picky so he may not even eat it. He does get some tuna instead of cat food once a week ...
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[Skipping Girl]

DD - I did wonder at the time if I was being fed a line re 'supermarket food being McDonald's for cats'. I spoke to my friend who works at London Zoo and has cats (not big ones, just the normal domestic ones) and he uses science plan - wet and dry - so thought that sounded a good one to switch to.

Hope your cat is feeling slimmer soon!

Kat
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