Thanks for the great service you provide for the cat-loving community. I can't help but become depressed when I read your information on nutrition, because I wish I had know all of this earlier. It makes me angry that my ASPCA handbook for cat care from 1999 writes that it's perfectly acceptable to feed dry food, and even explicitly states that dry food is not linked to health problems. As a responsible pet owner, I looked at a great deal of information before getting my beloved cat, Sammi, in 2000. Vets even emphasized that wet food was bad for cats and damaged their teeth over time. So Sammi lived on a primarily premium dry food diet for the first few years of her life. When she was just 4 years old, she was diagnosed with kidney disease. The vet suggested that she might have been born with a kidney defect, since she was so young. The vet recommended a low protein dry/wet diet. I also gave her fluids--first at the vet's office, and then at home. Only in the last year of her life did I intuitively switch her to all wet, regular food (Wellness) because she seemed to be not doing well on the low protein diet. I couldn't see how the the reduced protein was helping her. She seemed less sickly and ate the food voraciously. Her coat and skin seemed better. She was also on Benazapril and phosphorous binder. But last May, at the age of 7, she had a stroke that the vet said she could not recover from. Her levels were out of sight. We made the decision to put her to sleep and end further suffering.

What I agonize over, Tracie, is that I might have prolonged her life further or prevented her disease if I was not ignorant of the information. I have two cats now, one has transitioned to wet from a combo diet and a new kitten who only eats wet. I know that I can help them, but I wish I could go back and fix things for Sammi. I hate to think that I was doing the wrong things for her, when all I wanted for her was the best.

Thanks again for spreading the word.

Best wishes,
Maryelle

Please don't feel bad — everybody was under the misperception for a long time that dry food was the best choice. It was only after years of rising incidences of diabetes and other physical ailments that many practitioners and owners that dry food was the culprit.

Seventeen years was a good, long life and now you can make different choices for your cats today. However, that does mean understanding that no dry food means NO DRY FOOD! There is no such thing as a cat eating a "combo" diet — it's like saying you only give your child a few cigarettes a day instead of a whole pack. If you have any doubt about why feeding wet food exclusively is so essential to health, please go to the Cat Bible Q&A's of www.tracieHotchner.com and it will explain everything.

Thanks for your kind words about my show — it means a great deal.

Good luck to you and your feline family,
Tracie