My senior cat only eats pate. Is it healthy if she won't drink water?

Drinking a lot more means that she is also urinating a lot more. This is called Polydipsia and polyuria or PU PD. There are various reasons for PU PD and they need to be investigated by a veterinarian, especially in an older cat. Blood work can rule out any of those. 1) diabetes---a urinalysis and blood test will be able to rule it in or out. Diabetes is usually treated with diet and insulin. Weight loss is a cardinal sign. 2) Kidney disease, treated with diet and supportive treatment 3)diabetes insipidus, usually tested with a water deprivation test and treated with a medication called Minirin. You will need to make an appointment with your vet for an exam and blood tests. I am sure your vet will find the cause of the PU PD. Apart from that feeding your kitty pate-style wet food is usually better than the food with gravy as cats tend to lick the gravy off, which they cannot do with pate style wet food.

Congratulations on your new addition! If you haven't previously fed 100% canned food before, you may not be used to how infrequently cats will drink water. My cats are also on a 100% canned food diet, and I rarely see them drink water (maybe once a week). That is because they get almost all the moisture they need from the canned food. It is important to have fresh water available to her at all times, but I would not be worried about not seeing a cat on 100% canned food not drink. If you're concerned, you might consider adding some water to her caned food or adding a running fountain since most cats prefer that to drink from. If Bronte seems stressed otherwise, you could try a couple of things. One option for decreasing stress is to add a Feliway Diffuser ( https://www.feliway.com ) to your house. This is a calming pheromone that will work for a month. I have also had luck with Rescue Remedy ( http://www.bachflower.com/rescue-remedy-pet/ ) which can be added to the food. You could also consider calming music specifically for cats ( http://throughadogsear.com/tace/through-a-cats-ear-1-music-for-calming/ ). Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.

Wet food does have a higher moisture content, so your cat may be getting enough water from the wet food that he doesn't need to drink anything additional. It's good that you see him drink a lot of water when he eats dry food, and you can add some more water to his wet food if you want just to make sure he is getting enough water :-)

He may not like that type of canned food. They aren't all the same! Some are pate, shreds, gravy, juice, fish vs fowl, etc. It may take quite a trial to find something that Patches likes. I would continue to see if you can get him on a canned diet, but some cats just prefer kibble. It's ok if that is the case. You can try putting water or broth on the dry food. Or use a pet fountain to increase water consumption.

It is quite alright if little Oliver does not eat dry food. Canned food has a higher protein and moisture content as well as less carbs than dry food. Cats do not "need" carbohydrates but do need a high protein diet, especially growing kittens. Feed a good quality canned food that comes from the can looking like a hockey puck. Read the ingredients and confirm there is named protein source of animal, not plant, origin. Avoid by-products and meat meals. Stay away from store or discount brands too, these typically contain low quality ingredients and more fillers.

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.

If she is generally fussy, I wouldn't be too concerned that she has stopped eating her wet food as long as she's eating her dry cat food. It's very important that she eats, and it may be that if you've given her a different flavor of Whiskas, she simply doesn't like it and doesn't want to eat it. If she does stop eating food altogether, then I would be worried and I would have her seen by a vet.