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Oct
06

Feeding the damned cat - a weeklong test

family, personal No comments

Preparing for the Cat-Food tests from chadedge on Vimeo.

Our cat, Bitty* has not been feeling well of-late.

Well, she’s been feeling a LOT better since we stopped mopping the floor with ammonia and switched to Bac-Out by Biokleen. See, she licked the floor a couple times after we mopped and got seriously sick (pooping, vomiting, general malaise). Also, she turned against her hard kibble and lost a lot of her appetite.

All that said, we switched out floor cleaners, took good care of her, and tried some soft food for a few days - she loved the attention and the food.

That has lead me to the test for the week: All soft food, four brands, ten varieties. I’m going to blog about my cats likes and dislikes over each can of food.

This should be entertaining.

The contenders:

Day One:

Iams Premium Pate With Gourmet Chicken

Feeding the damned cat - day 1: Iams Premium Pate With Gourmet Chicken from chadedge on Vimeo.
Initial response: Noms!
Final opinion:Not her favorite. She left 1/3 in the bowl, all dried up and looking like the ~~Origami~~ Bonsai tree in The Karate Kid movies.

Fancy Feast Grilled Ocean Whitefish & Tuna Feast (in gravy)

Feeding the damned cat - day 1, evening: Fancy Feast Grilled Ocean Whitefish from chadedge on Vimeo.
Initial response: While a little skeptical, she took to it like a fat kid (kitteh) on cake. Apparently, Noms!
Final opinion: Not too bad, a little leftover but I think she ate more because I fed her dinner late.

Day Two:

$Disney\'s The Aristocats - Beef Dinner$
Disney’s The Aristocats - Beef Dinner
Obviously, this one is going to be my favorite - I find it so humorous that Disney has a cat-food brand. Like cats care about the cartoon character on their packaging!
Initial response: Noms like never before! I knew she’d like this one.
Final opinion: Very little left, but enough for a snack. Onto the night-time food.

Meow Mix Market Select With Real Salmon and Crab Meat in Sauce
Initial response: A little disdain. When I opened the plastic container, and plopped the food into a glass bowl, she looked at it like some really rough Mexican food. Now, the cat does like spicy food, so I thought she’d totally go for it. Either she’s not that hungry (since she totally dug her Aristocats), or this just isn’t her bag. We’ll see the final opinion in the morning.
Final opinion: Total rejection. She hated this food. I can’t stress enough how much she hated this. If she thought it appropriate, she would have taken a dump in the food she hated it so much. That totally explains why at 7:00 in the morning she was up my ass for new food.

Feeding the damned cat - day 2: morning and night from chadedge on Vimeo.

Day three:

Fancy Feast Salmon and Shrimp Feast (in gravy)

Feeding the damned cat - day 3: Morning (Fancy Feast again) from chadedge on Vimeo.
Initial response: First off, the cat was super-hungry from having completely rejected the Meow Mix garbage. Therefore, although she said Noms! it may have been in part to her hunger. She totally attacked that food, however.
Final opinion: Just a few hours later (I’m not even going to wait for evening) and she has decimated her food bowl. She might have eaten some glass she loved the food so much (just kidding, no broken glass here).

Iams Premium Pate With Select Oceanfish

Feeding the damned cat - day 3: evening - Iams (again) from chadedge on Vimeo.
Initial response: Meh, in a word. She circled my feet, threatening to take toes away if I didn’t feed her immediately, but once she got the spongy pate, she was grossly uninterested. Hopefully the final tally in the morning will prove different, otherwise it’s two-for-two in the negative for Iams.
Final opinion: This isn’t going well for Iams - Bitty just is not a fan. There’s one can left, and after our short multi-day break, we’ll get back to that brand for the final attempt.

Day five and beyond! (wait, what happened to day four?)
Ok, a bit of a break was had. This video should sum it up:

Feeding the damn cat - day five (you didn’t miss any) from chadedge on Vimeo.

Fancy Feast Elegent Medleys - Tender Turkey Tuscany
Initial response: I had high-hopes for this one. Too bad my cat didn’t share in my opinion. 90% leftover. This was an expensive brand, with what appeared to be real greens. However, appearance didn’t help when it came time for the taste-test.
Final opinion: Read the initial response - it didn’t go well.

Iams Premium Pate With Wholesome Lamb and Rice
Initial (and final) response: This was the last chance for Iams, and I’m sad to say it went even worse than the other two. 100% leftovers with only a slight, momentary interest. I usually break her “jello” food into more of a chunky mess that she can better nibble. However, this time she didn’t even bother to try. Two sniffs, one lick, and six hours later I took the food away.
I’ll try and put some comments about the whole Iams issue into the video above.

Fancy Feast Turkey and Giblets Feast
Initial response: Not too bad. I think it’s been hammered home that Fancy Feast is the preferred brand by our cat, bitty. Even with that said, this specific can wasn’t her favorite. Unlike the previous two Fancy Feast cans, this one matched nearly identical to the Iams pate. No feast here, just a “jello” mold of goo. However, either the cat holds a grudge against Iams, or there’s a little extra kitty-crack in the Fancy Feast, because even though this can was pate she totally went for it.
Final opinion: I’d say nearly gone. There was enough left over for a snack, but not much. Besides, it sat all night so I threw the last bits out. I’m glad we don’t live in a climate that has bugs because I wouldn’t leave the food sitting out like this that long.