How do I get my older cats to eat wet food instead of just licking it?

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Some cats are carbohydrate junkies and just prefer dry over canned food. It is fine for them to eat just dry. But if you want to convert them to canned food then you have to do so gradually. There are benefits to canned food, like more moisture content. If you leave dry food down all the time it is best to do scheduled feedings. So start feeding the dry food to 3-4 meals per day and only leave it down for 20 mins. Make sure you make it known to your cats it is mealtime so they know to eat. Once they have all accepted the new mealtime and eat well then start offering canned food instead of dry. Some may gobble it up right away, others may turn their nose up. Try warming it up. Don't leave it out for more than 20 mins because the flavor changes as it drys out and never serve it cold from the fridge. You can sprinkle a little dry on top of the wet or mix it in, if that works then gradually decrease the amount of dry you use over time. Just be aware cats can not go more than 24 hours with out eating or they can develop serious health issues with their liver. I hope this helps!

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! You can try to feed them a different type of canned food or dry food. It is not unusual for cats to at some point get bored of their diet just needing a change to continue to eat well. You may add canned tuna to the food which may increase her appetite. If no improvement is noted after trying this, I would recommend that you have them examined by a veterinarian to make sure that there is nothing else going on. Good luck and have a great day!

One of the things we have found is that wet food is actually healthier for cats than dry food. I feed my cats wet food only. It is better for their kidneys long term and seems to help prevent obesity since dry food has to have carbohydrates in it that cats can't utilize well. I have included a link below with a lot more information for you. http://catinfo.org I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.

You can try some other type of canned food. Sometimes their tastes change and they decided they don't like what they had before. Cats can be picky. The other way to increase water consumption is to get a drinking fountain. Many cats like to drink from running water and will actually drink more if running water is constantly available. I would suggest you try this. Petco (or any large pet store) has a wide variety or drinking fountains: https://www.petco.com/shop/SearchDisplay?categoryId=&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&sType=SimpleSearch&resultCatEntryType=2&showResultsPage=true&searchSource=Q&pageView=&beginIndex=0&pageSize=24&fromPageValue=search&searchTerm=drinking+fountain Hope this helps. Best wishes!

Wet food is actually biologically a better food for cats. Dry food is easier for humans, but cats are desert animals and tend to run a little dehydrated if fed only a dry food diet. Since Spunkers already likes wet food, you should be able to easily transition her over to a wet food diet. However, since you have noticed that Spunkers is drinking more water than normal, I would recommend having her evaluated by your veterinarian and run some routine bloodwork and a urinalysis to make sure there aren't any metabolic changes that are causing the change in her water intake. A canned food diet is always a good idea for cats, but we also need to make sure there isn't anything else going on that needs to be treated. I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Your cats are adorable! It's actually fine to feed cats only dry food, that's all I feed my own cats. The important thing is to make sure they get enough water, so I recommend a pet water fountain. It provides a constant source of fresh, aerated water which encourages them to drink. I have one for my cats and they love it. You can get a pet water fountain online or at a pet store. Keep feeding them the dry food if that's what they want to eat. I hope this helps Constance!

This is a tricky situation. Some cats just have very strong preferences. You can try mixing the wet and dry and slowly fading out the wet over the course of 1-2 weeks. You can also try adding some hot water to the dry food and letting it sit for 10 minutes before offering it to Oliver (I will warn you that not many cats are fooled by this, but worth a try). Another idea is to experiment with different dry foods - he may just not like the one you have. Finally, you may have to wait for him to grow out of this. He's still very young. If none of the ideas above work, use coupons and big box stores to get wet food and keep trying with the dry every 2 weeks. Good luck!