I've recently changed my cats food. We've started using Purina Cat Chow Indoor Formula. He loved it from the very first taste. This made me happy, cause of course I want him happy and it saved me the hassle of gradually introducing it into his diet.

It has been several months now and we've notice when he visits the liter box, he produces copious amounts and the odor is down right noxious. He doesn't seem to be bothered by this but he's an indoor cat & we still have to live here too.

Has anyone else tried this new food? Also, our little bundle of joy is not so little. "Pit" is a very large neutered male, about 10 years old, who isn't very active. Any suggestions to keep him from getting any larger? New or better food? The various weight management foods seem to have the opposite effect.

Thanks.

Hi Barbara...welcome to AP

I, too, have just started my overweight cat, Harley, on the new Purina formula for indoor cats. I haven't noticed any change in her litter box habits, though.

I would bet that your cat is having a hard time digesting the greens in this new food, so it may not be the best thing for him.
If it continues, I'd try something else.

I didn't have any success with the weight control (Iams) food for Harley either. She was on it exclusively for the past 6 months and she's still a "Chunky Butt" (according to her 'Daddy")

I love the name Pit...Is Pit an only child? If so, or if you have some way to isolate his feeding, you might have good luck with some of the Science Diet foods. I understand that you feed less because they are digested better.

Harley is one of 5, so someone is always coming into her room to steal a bite of food, so we have to keep kibble down all the time.

Keep us posted with Pit's progress. We're here to help!

Cyndi, thanks for your post. Pit's name was "Miss Pitty Pat". . . then we took "her" in to be spade . . . That's when we found out she was a he. Rather than give him an identity crisis, we shortened it to Pitty or Pit. He's an only child

I may give Science Diet a try. Hope their weight management food works better than Iams. Thanks again for the post.

Barbara

Don't change his food too suddenly. If he's used to some food then change it a little at a time. Same thing if you want to start feeding him less.
It might be good if you try many different foods though. My cat eats many different types of food. -she has favourites but she eats every kind that i give her. She eats both dry food (always in her cup) and wet food two times a day. She is not fat at all because she goes on a long walk every day on her harness.

We usually change Pit's food by gradually mixing the old with the new until he's getting just the new. But we've found a new food that seems to be easier to digest and he likes it. (Not that Pit's a picky eater by any means.) We have never given nor would he ever eat as much as the cat food's producers recommend for a cat his size. But he does like the new stuff. Nutro Natural Choice has rave reviews.

I use to take Pit on evening walks and though we both enjoyed this, being the spoiled cat he is, as soon as we came inside he would sit at the door and scream at the top of his lungs wanting to go back out. To save his life, (either my husband or I were going to kill him . . . we just couldn't decide who would get to do it.) I decided I'd better wean him off the daily walk.

Now we try to play with him and encourage him to excercise. This works for a few minutes but then he'll lay down and watch us make idiots of our self, trying to get him to play. Guess you can't teach an old cat new tricks.

Anyway the new food seems to agree with him. The visits to the litter box haven't been quite so odorous.

It's good that you changed Pit's food...the fact that he was going to the bathroom more with the other food is indicative of his body not absorbing the nutrients and such from the old food and it was simply "passing through". When a cat is eating a good food and taking everything from it that it needs, it should not be producing the outcome that you had mentioned before.