Cats Need Water
If any the reader of this blog can take away just one word from this discussion, it would be “WATER“. If your cat is on a properly hydrated diet of 100% canned (or homemade) food – and not dry food – you stand a very good chance of never needing to read this blog page.
Water is an extremely important nutrient that contributes to overall health in every living creature. Couple this with the fact that cats do not have a very strong thirst drive when compared to other species, and you will understand why it is critical for them to ingest a water-rich diet. The cat’s lack of a strong thirst drive can lead to low-level, chronic dehydration when dry food makes up the bulk of their diet.
A cat’s normal prey contains approximately 70 – 75 percent water. Dry foods only contain 7-10 percent water whereas canned foods contain approximately 78 percent water. Canned foods therefore more closely approximate the natural diet of the cat and are better suited to meet the cat’s water needs.
I hear the reader saying: “But my cat drinks a lot of water so dry food is just fine for him!”
A cat consuming a predominantly dry food diet does drink more water than a cat consuming a canned food diet, but in the end, when water from all sources is added together (what’s in their diet plus what they drink), the cat on dry food consumes approximately half the amount of water compared with a cat eating canned food.
There are a number of consequences to not making sure your cat is properly hydrated. Opie’s pictorial at Feline Urinary Tract Health is a ‘must see’ for any cat caregiver who insists on feeding dry food.
