Raw Kitty Cat Food

I've got to say, it's much, much easier to make somebody else be healthy than to do it yourself.   Still, I've got to say that it's pretty darn inspiring.

The boyfriend and I brought Simon home on the 17th of February, 2010.  He was a 1-2-year-old shelter kitty, and so cuddly and sleepy we thought he was either really old, really sick, or just really stupid.  His litterbox smelled so bad that the boyfriend actually vomited when I was gone and he had to clean it.  He wasn't on terrible food--it was organic dry food, and the first ingredient was actual chicken, not chicken meal or corn.  Still, nobody needs that kind of a wakeup alarm clock smell emanating speedily from the bathroom.  Seriously, if we didn't have a two-bathroom apartment, we'd have showered at school.  It was condemned.

Through Natalia Rose's blog, I found Wild Kitty Cat Food kits.  The trial was cheap with free shipping, so I finally gave in and decided to give it a go.

It arrived in two to three days--amazing.  The teensy bag goes with 1 pound of ground meat, preferably more high-fat than lean chicken or turkey.  You let the bag of dehydrated mixture rehydrate with six ounces of water, and then you mix in the raw meat, ignoring the kitty at your feet who feels instinctively that food will happen if he meows loudly enough.  You get some cheap aluminum 4-oz muffin pans, cover them with plastic, and fill each cup with a heaping scoop of kitty food mixture.  Shove it into the freezer for longer safekeeping, and when frozen, put each kitty muffin into a separate bag so you can thaw each one overnight.  Give kitty half in the morning and half in the evening.  I am telling you, Simon's personality exploded.

Suddenly, from being a lazy little slugabed cat rug, Simon began waking us up in the mornings (okay, that part isn't so cute) and started rocketing around the apartment.  He began to play with his kitty toys.  He actually finished all the food in his dish with gusto.   He still cuddles, and he still snuggles like a furry little bundle of love,  but suddenly he's acting like a young cat instead of a veteran four times his age.  And the litterbox smell was totally gone.  That sold us right away.

He's got much less goop in his eyes.  He's awake and active.  We had to come up with creative ideas for calming him down in the mornings--tying a knee sock around his haunches, by the way, unfocused him so much that he walked into a doorframe and then acted like his bum was glued to the ground.  Good to try if your kitty is insane.  Simon is a bright bundle of joyous cat who loves us so much that he camps out by the front door for hours until we return.  I love that cat so much that I don't even feel murderous when he paws me awake at 6 a.m.

Wild Kitty Cat Food isn't cheap, especially if you factor in the meat you have to buy to round it out.  The premade dinners are even more expensive.  But Simon's worth it.  The shelter we got him from had an employee who had her raw-food kitty for twenty-seven years.  And vet bills apparently are really few and far between, and since they're not eating so much filler, cats are sleeker.  I know this may sound odd, but obesity among cats is an enormous American pet problem.  And all you have to do to figure out why is to look at the food labels:  corn, wheat, bone meal, chicken meal, etc.  Cats aren't meant to eat corn or the rendered, dried, ground guts, skin, and bones of slaughtered animals (that's what the word 'meal' means).  That won't sustain them, and their bodies just can't use that junk.  Their sharp little carnivore teeth need real, raw meat and bones to chomp on.

By the way, did you know that in order to be able to use the label "full and balanced diet", an array of tested cats only have to survive for six months eating that food?  They don't have to be healthier, or healthy at all.  They just have to be alive.  It's like making humans live on nothing but chips, which you can do temporarily, but never for the long haul.  This paper may be a student's paper, but it's exceedingly well-researched and Harvard Law School doesn't let you publish your paper on its website unless it's met with approval.  If you feed your pet anything like Purina, Iams, or Science Diet, check it out.  It never hurts to know what you're buying.

So check out the kits.  Seriously, if you love your cat, he or she deserves nothing less.