Hi

I have 3 cats...one of them is on restricted diet of fish, chicken, potatoes and rice...plus pescription food from vets. My other 2 are mainly on dry food but do get wet pouches every now and then. One of my cats, Shelly who is 8yrs old is now eating Senior food, but also she is a little over weight. So we gotta try and bring it down. However Shelly up until a month ago was on Adult food and mainly wet canned with dry food about twice/3 times a week.

Since we've been adviced from the vets to get Shelly's weight down, we now mainly give her dry Senior food. It's either Pets at home own range Advance Nutrition or James WellBeloved. We only give her 30/35g in the morning and evening, however we've seen no weight loss or at least we can tell. And we're without scales atm, well we do have one but it's just not registering her weight...i think it's just for us humans as it registers nothing else but human feet lol. So until we buy one...we can't really weigh her. So i weighed myself and then weighed myself again with Shelly in my hands and it turns out she was about 5.3kg...when only a month ago she was 4.3kg. I can't imagine in the space of 4/5weeks she's put on that amount of weight. And also...we tried another technique to weigh her and it said 10kg....thats stupid. So obviously no we've no way atm to weigh her accurately.

Brings in my question...is dry food fattening? As we've seen no change that we can tell. I always thought wet was more fattening

Do you think Senior dry food will add to her weight??

My cat got a little tubby so she was put on the Science Diet lite. I kept trying to weigh her using her carrier and digital luggage scales. Each time came up with a different weight. My own scales aren't good enough for me to weigh myself and then me with her. When I took her back to the vets, they weighed her on their scales and I was relieved to find she had lost weight even though she didn't look as if she had. I relaxed the diet a bit and recently she was at the cattery, they weighed her and I discovered that she had put all the weight back on, so am back to weighing her food again. I suspect the vets scales are far more accurate than any most people have at home. It might be worth getting yours weighed at the vets to see how you are doing and get more advice if things aren't going as well as you hope.

We weighed her the same way...with the luggage scales and it said she was 10kg.

I'm just wondering if Dry food is actually more fattening...

Mine are all proper skinny. 2 of them look like they're riddled with worms, even though they're not.

My cat has been on Hills R/D for a couple of years.

He looks like he has swallowed a rugby ball. Last time I took him to the vets he said he had lost a little weight - it is not visible.

Thing is I don't think it is about the amount he eats, it.s the fact that he sleeps probably 20 out of 24 hours if not more and short of tormenting him (the vet said chase him around the house) I'm not sure what else I can do.

He will play for a little while but then gets tired!

The vets all seem to push Hills diet. I am not sure it is in our cats best interests but the companies who create them must make a fortune.

When he used to have wet pouches he was always mithering me for food, it seemed like he could never have enough of it, so I am at a loss as to what is best really.

If you research it you get opposite views. Some say only wet, some say only dry etc etc. it is v. confusing.

My cat is 11 now and he seems perfectly happy and healthy and the only time it seems to be a problem is that yearly check up and injections!

Dry food is a lot richer in nutrients than wet food - as it has a much lower water content
which is why you only give around 30g of dry food instead of a 100g pouch of wet food

both are balanced in the same way, so neither is really more "fattening" than the other when fed in the correct amounts

a senior food has a different balance of nutrients in it than an adult food (less fat, but rich in good quality protein for maintenance of body tissues and a reduced level of calories per gram when compared side by side)

then a light food, again, has a different formulation - containing slightly less fat, calories and protein than even a senior food, i imagine these "indoor" diets are equivalent to a light or maintenance diet - containing less calories than the standard fodder for a roaming moggy, to prevent weight gain as a house cat won't roam as far so doesn't need all the calories.

obviously every brand is different as well, so it'd be best to stick to just one, speak to your vet again about it and get her weighed as soon as you can
it could just be that you need to reduce the amount of food slightly more until the weight comes off her, then increase slightly to maintain her weight.
they might suggest you entice her to play more to get her moving more and burning off some of her extra insulation


It's an absolute pain the the arse to weigh your pets at home, i keep trying to weigh our border collie as he's on a diet, bit it's just impossible to get a proper reading with a 30kg squirming ball of wagging fur, we just take him to the vets. last visit he had lost a kilo - he looks no different at all to me though, so don't get discouraged just because you can't notice a difference

(if you have a wii balance board, they're actually quite accurate, so it could be worth trying to weigh yourself, then yourself and the cat on that if you're not sure of your bathroom scales.)

I have four cats. One eats dried food and is skinny. Then again, i eat well and i am slim too. My wife eats less than me and is So maybe some cats differ also.