They Like This, Too

The online research poll company to which I belong had another "try it" offering for me. This time, it's cat food. The bag arrived on Friday.

This is how it came. It's a 10 pound bag of food. Technically, I'm only to give this to Pilchard, as that was the cat randomly selected to try it. Um...no. That's not going to work. I feed both of them the same thing. If ever one of them has to have a special diet, it's going to be way too stressful on me.

Saturday, we started our two week experiment with this unidentified stuff. They smelled it through the box and tried to open the box to get at it. The label says to feed 2/3 rd to 1 cup a day. I looked at that and said, "Um...no." That's way, way too much cat food for my girls, particularly as I want them to lose weight. I read the ingredient list and there's a lot of grain in this stuff. Grain, for cats, is like potato chips for us, empty calories with little nutritional benefit. I got our scoop and put a scoop in each dish.

I have the remains of a bag of Purina Naturals in the kitchen and a bag of the Merrick Poultry flavor. Now a bag of this. I don't have to buy cat food until 2014, I'm thinking. There was a heady smell when I opened the bag. The smell reminded me of dog food. That's not what I want my cat's food to remind me of. The dishes were empty when I gave them a scoop so I knew they would be hungry enough to eat it. Pilchard chowed down immediately. Mija circled and then settled in to eat.

They seem to like it, even going cold turkey like that. Usually, you have to give 1/4th, then 1/2, then 3/4th and then a whole dish of the new stuff, a gradual wean. Yesterday, they kept the dish empty and this morning, I was 'yelled at' right after the radio came on, a sign that the dishes are again empty. While it seems that they do like this, I'm not sold on the amount of calories in the food being what they should have.

So far, so good in terms of being palatable. I forget how much money I'll earn for this. As we're heading towards feeding only the Merrick food in the future, this is just a slight diversion. I don't notice anything different in eating or other habits. Here's to free cat food. I hope they tell me whose it is. I'm interested to know that.

Beverage:  Lady Gray tea

Deb