Have you tried the ground up canned food like Friskies Supreme Supper? No flakes or slices to pick around just ground up food with a sauce all mixed together? Ours will only lick the gravy with the sliced varieties too but chow down on the other forms.

I don't think a gravy on the dry will give you the same results as a canned food as far as increased moisture content.

Hi CD3,
Actually, I did try a can of the stuff that's just ground up and he wouldn't touch that at all!
I'm just feeling some bad vibes from kitty's health. Maybe I'm over-reacting or over-perceiving, but I just feel like something's going on inside him and it isn't good.
I did a glucose test strip on his urine and it was between normal and 1+. I'm not too worried about that.
The lining of his eyelids is always red. Maybe he just has some allergies. His pooping has slowed down, and I'm keeping my eye on that. He does look like he's lost some weight.(which he needed to do).
Maybe he's just eating less overall and not needing to poop so much.

He just cries all the time for food, but then doesn't like what I give him. He does drink water.
Maybe I just need to try different brands.

Take the food with the gravy and 'flakes' and mash it up first so it is mixed well (flakes and gravy). I find many cats don't like those flat flake shapes as they are hard to pick up for one thing if they stick flat to the bowel and the gravy is easy to lick up first and tastier apparently. Mash it all really well so there are no more flakes and stir it to fluff it up. Add a very tiny bit of water to it all as well to increase moisture. Your cat likes the taste of the food, it is a consistency problem IMO. Also, put a smaller amount in the bowl the first time. You don't want to pour gravy piles around which get licked up right away. You want that nice gravy to enhance the other part of the food, but smash the crap out of it all to get rid of the 'flakes' and make them mush that is lickable.

I suggest you try Natural Balance Duck and Pea or the Shrimp and Tuna, or other flavors. You can buy the (3 ounce size) of a couple of flavors to try it. I did that when I was switching over food and my cats go for the Duck and Pea and the Shrimp/Tuna like crazy, even one of my former confirmed 'dry only' eaters. In the past, before I upgraded my cat food, my cats loved Friskies Ocean Whitefish and I didn't switch it. Some cats don't like change and get finicky about it and turn their noses, but you can win them over most times with changes to consistency or tricking them with what they like the best dribbled on top a bit.

Cats like to lick up their food as opposed to inhaling it like a dog would, or having to excessively 'chew' it, so flat flake food gets licked clean of it's gravy, but they have trouble picking up and chewing the flakes, so they leave it and cry for more gravy as they are hungry. Mush those flakes into oblivian so your cat can lick it up with the gravy mixed in. The taste they like will still be there, and the consistency will be lickable.

Also, if all else fails buy a small jar of baby food chicken or turkey (no onion) but single ingredient first food and try putting a tiny blob of that near a blob of the mashed up regular food and see what they eat first. If they go for the baby food first and eat it, then next time, put some of that baby food in with the regular food, which has been mashed up, with a tiny pure drop of the baby food on top. They will smell the baby food and begin to eat and often times will continue to eat into the regular food. Before you know it, they have settled down with the nose upturning. Those big rubbery flakes really suck for many cats. Can't say I blame them. Ther is a difference in some 'flaked food' and those gravy covered 'slabs'.

Oh, no Catherine I thought no news was good news. I told you about the problem I was having with Bear same as your kitty. What I do is like what CT said I smash the living daylights out of any food I give her. Then I mix the lactolose and pumpkin in with the food. The only problem I have with that is as she licks it up it moves to the edges of the bowl where she has a problem getting to it. I stand by her when she eats and keep scraping it into a pile till she is full. Time consuming but it works for us. Be careful with the DVP duck and pea forumula. Bear was allegic to it and I almost lost her. She loved it but it didn't love her back. I also buy those little pouches of food in the gravy and mash them up too. I find as cats get older they eat less food more often. My vet told me to feed her whenever she begs, but the problem with that is I work full-time. She is on the kitchen table watching out the window waiting for me to come home. She scolds me first thing when I walk in the door. I hardly have time to put my bags down to feed her. She has me trained. She has lost weight too since her impaction. She used to be my little butterball, now when I left her to give her a "Bearhug" it's like lifting a feather. She has had x-rays and the laproscope (sp) from her mouth to her rear-end and everything comes back negative. At one point I feared she had swallowed one of those rings that come on the bottles of pop that she loves to play with. Unfortunately those wouldn't show up on a x-ray because they are made of plastic. We did extensive blood work and all her organs are functioning well. Vet told me as cats get older they get more irregular just like humans. I used to have a dog that would eat the cat's leftovers, but I lost him a year ago last May. Now I just feed the leftovers to the garbage disposal. I am going to have the fattest garbage disposal in the world. Just hope it doesn't start purring.

I keep saying I am going to have her put down, but I can't imagine life without her. I know 16 is a long life for a cat, but I told the vet I didn't want her to suffer. They reassured me she is in no pain, but I tend not to believe them at times. She caterwauls like mad whenever she has to use the litterbox. But they told me it's from bad memories from when she was impacted.

Jenny

Thanks Comettose and Jenny,
You've both given me some really good advice. I guess since she didn't like the ground-up canned kitty food, I assumed she "preferred" something in bigger chunks. But you're absolutely right about how those flakes/chunks sort of get suctioned to the bowl. I can always tell when my dog Suzi has gotten to the cat's bowl, because its absolutely clean!
Okay, I'll "mash the crap" out of her next meal. He does seem to like the dry Purina cat chow, which I give him once a day. Should I mix some of that into the mashed canned food? (Someone in the store told me to give occasional dry food, since its good for their teeth and gums.....is that true?)
He quit liking the pumpkin about 3 days after I started giving it to him.
I've noticed that too......that now that he's old, he likes smaller, more frequent meals.
Okay......thanks again.......I'm on my way to mash the crap out of his next meal. LOL!
P.S. (I hope I don't confuse you if I switch from "he" to "she". I keep thinking my cat is a "she" and my dog is a "he", but its just opposite. So far, though, I know my son is a boy and my daughter is a girl......but with my brain lately.......I'm not sure I'll keep being able to remember that. :)

Catherine:

Guess what I invented over the weekend???? A catshake. What is it. I bought a small food chopper, added canned catfood some low sodium/low salt chicken broth, pumpkin, lactolose or vegetable oil. Pulsed for a few seconds, until everything was pureed. Poured it in the dish and "viola" Bear loves it. She had to fight her sister, Boa, for it. So now they both get catshakes instead of food right from the can/pouch. Of course I have to make two separate shakes because Boa doesn't have the bowel problem Bear has. After a weekend of catshakes she is now sampling ground catfood again.

Jenny

Hi Jenny,
Glad to hear the catshake is a hit! That's a good idea!
I've been smashing up the canned stuff like you all told me to do and its working. Plus, I have to go back after he's spread it out over his bowl, and mound it up in a pile again, and then he'll eat more!
Twice recently, I've found thrown up furballs. No food, just furballs. I guess that's better than throwing up alot of food with it. I think the furballs are supposed to be digested and come out in the poop, but I guess I'll settle for thrown-up hair balls.

Our kitty eats out of a big dog dish. Maybe I should go to a smaller dish or even a flat dish? I think I remember reading that they don't like their whiskers to touch the sides of a bowl.......is that true?