Cat Ladies (Obsessive Cat Owners Documentary) - Real Stories

The Benefits of Raw Food for Cats

The Benefits of Raw Food for Cats

Cats are predators. They evolved eating a prey-based diet, and more importantly, eating that food raw. Cooking degrades nutrients in meat, causing the loss of vitamins, minerals and amino acids.¹Meat used in highly-processed pet food is cooked at high temperatures. The nutrients lost must be added back. This supplementation is not exact. There are nutrient losses that aren't always replaced. Cats in the wild often eat the entire prey animal if it is small, and will eat nearly everything except the intestines of a larger prey animal. This includes the bones of prey, as raw bone is highly digestible and is their primary source of calcium. Cooking bone reduces the nutrients available, making it brittle and dangerous to ingest.²

 

Providing your cats with a diet that is modeled on what they would eat in the wild has many benefits, both for you and your cat:

 

• Improved digestion
• Greatly reduced stool odor and volume
• Healthy coat, less shedding, fewer hairballs
• Increased energy
• Weight loss, if overweight
• Better dental health
• Better urinary health

 

Improved Digestion

 

Cats are obligate carnivores, they must eat meat. There are no vegan cats. Their digestive systems are adapted specifically for a meat-based diet. A cat's digestive tract is short and acidic, and processes species-appropriate raw food highly efficiently in about 12 hours. This gives very little time for bacteria to proliferate, so cats are naturally resistant to food poisoning.³

 

Cats have no requirement for carbohydrates and limited ability to digest them. A raw cat food diet is more digestible than a diet of plant-based foods.⁴ Because they evolved eating a diet with almost no carbohydrates, they have only one enzyme system capable of handling them. This is quite different from humans and dogs, both having multiple enzyme systems that digest carbohydrates.⁵

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Can Cats Have a Raw Food Diet?

CAT PET CARE

By Aly Semigran

A cat’s natural instinct—even a friendly, loveable housecat—is to hunt for food. And if left to their own devices out in the wild, cats would find their food in a raw, natural state.

That’s why, with the proper preparation, knowledge, and veterinary guidance, a pet parent can provide their cat with a raw food diet that not only taps into their feline instincts but keeps them healthy and strong too.

SHOULD CATS HAVE A RAW FOOD DIET?

Cats, like dogs, can be fed a raw food diet, and some holistic veterinarians even recommend that pet parent should have this as part of their cat’s lifestyle. In fact, as Jodie Gruenstern, DVM, points out, a raw food diet may be even more important for cats than it is for dogs “because they are stricter carnivores than dogs.”

WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN A RAW FOOD DIET FOR CATS?

Gruenstern says there are four main components that need to be included in a raw food diet for cats. A balanced raw diet should include flesh, organs, a bone or ground bone and a small amount of vegetation.

In addition, Jill Elliot, DVM, explains that pet parents can also add calcium to a raw-food diet for cats. This can be administered through supplements and small amounts of cat-safe dairy products."

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Strange Cat Behaviors Finally Explained

The Paw Project

ABOUT THE PAW PROJECT

The Paw Project’s mission is to educate the public about the painful and crippling effects of feline declawing, to promote animal welfare through the abolition of the practice of declaw surgery, and to rehabilitate cats that have been declawed.

The Paw Project educates the public about why declawing is inhumane. Many people, including animal lovers, do not realize that declawing is a surgical procedure in which the animal’s toes are amputated at the last joint. A portion of the bone, not just the nail, is removed. Declawing may result in permanent lameness, arthritis, and other long-term complications. The practice, although common in the United States, is actually illegal in many countries. Great Britain’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons goes so far as to declare declawing “unnecessary mutilation.”

In a misguided attempt to keep big cats such as lions and tigers, as pets, their owners have the animals declawed as cubs, believing that they will be protected against injury. Later, when the cats prove to be poor pets, weighing hundreds of pounds and eating 20 pounds of meat a day, they are often neglected, confiscated by animal regulatory officials, or abandoned. They often end up in animal compounds or sanctuaries.

The Paw Project actively advocates campaigns to legally ban declawing at the community and state level. Some of our legislative milestones:

• In 2002, Dr. Conrad approached West Hollywood (California) City Council members and convinced them that declawing of all animals should be banned. The council adopted an anti-declawing ordinance soon after (April, 2003) and became the first city in all of North America to ban declawing.
• In 2003, Dr. Conrad and the Paw Project team provided data about the debilitating effects of declawing to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which then changed its position on declawing of wild and exotic cats to no longer condone it. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association quickly followed suit.
• In 2005, The Paw Project team led the successful campaign to legally ban declawing of wild or exotic cats throughout the entire state of California.
• In 2006, The Paw Project team was able to convince the USDA, the governing body over animals that are exhibited, bred or sold, to stipulate a regulation in the Federal Animal Welfare Act, prohibiting licensees from declawing or defanging their animals.
• In 2009, The Paw Project team led the successful campaigns to legally ban declawing of domestic cats in seven more California cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Burbank, Santa Monica, Berkeley, Beverly Hills and Culver City.
• In 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1229 into law, the first ever state law in the US prohibiting landlords from requiring tenants to declaw or devocalize their animals. Senator Fran Pavley authored the bill, which the Paw Project co-sponsored with HSVMA.
• In 2014, Rhode Island enacted a new law, similar to the 2012 California law, that prohibits landlords from requiring tenants to declaw or devocalize their animals.

TRAP-NEUTER-RETURN (TNR) RESOURCES

Interested in learning more about Trap-Neuter-Return?

Click here to download our Guide to TNR Tips, Tricks and Advice!
​This page is designed to help you learn about and prepare to do TNR and to help you tackle common issues that you might see while implementing a TNR program for your community cats.  Whether you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to TNR or you could use some of our field-tested tips and tricks, you should be able to find it all he

CAT BEHAVIOR RESOURCES

Jackson is not able to answer specific behavior questions about your pet because he hasn’t met him/her. But you can find all sorts of great information about common behavior issues here.

CAT MOJO
What the heck is cat mojo and what makes a cat tick?

YOUR CAT’S DIET AND THE IMPACT OF FOOD ON HEALTH
(Always consult with your veterinarian before making any changes to your cat's diet.)
Jackson talks about your cat’s diet
Here’s what Jackson thinks about free-feeding
One-Page Guides from Feline Nutrition Foundation

I need help with managing my cat’s diabetes:
Check out Diabetic Cats In Need (DCIN) 

TRAINING YOUR CAT
Best and worst ways to train your cat (Hint: NO squirt gun)  
My cat won’t let me sleep at night! What should I do? 
Get the details on JGP’s Cat Pawsitive initiative

SPAY/NEUTER
Importance of spay/neuter

ADOPTION:
First time adoption
Before you get a kitten
Cat-to-dog introductions
Cat-to-cat introductions
 
DECLAWING and DESTRUCTIVE SCRATCHING
Jackson does not support declawing. Jackson supports all of the humane ways you can allow a cat to be a cat without sacrificing his claws.
Learn more about declawing at The Paw Project
Help! My cat is ruining my furniture with his scratching!
Why do I need to trim my cat’s claws?
How do I trim my cat’s claws?

CAT AGGRESSION/BULLYING:
Aggression in cats
Why is my cat randomly attacking me? (Petting-induced aggression)

PLAYING WITH YOUR CAT 
The importance of playtime for cats
How to properly play with your cat

LITTER BOX ISSUES:
Are my cats sending messages when they pee outside of the box?
Benefits of natural litter
Picking the right litter
Cat Attract Litter (useful for kittens just learning to use a litter box and for helping adult cats re-learn to use it)

COMPASSION FATIGUE
Information about compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue in animal shelters
Help for compassion fatigue

CATIOS:
What is a catio?
Building a catio
 
ALL SORTS OF JACKSON GALAXY VIDEOS ABOUT CAT BEHAVIOR
I want to watch tons of Jackson videos about cat behavior!
Check out the Cat Mojo Channel