Reviews Archives - Page 7 of 12

Maintaining a Healthy Weight with Weruva

Did you know that cat obesity is epidemic, with 58.3% of cats either overweight or obese?

It’s easy to think “My cat isn’t one of them.” But 45.3% of cat owners incorrectly identify their overweight or obese cat as being a normal weight. I used to be one of them, before Ashton’s weight loss journey.

Ashton Needed to Lose Weight

Anyone who knows about Ashton knows she loves to eat. Maybe it’s a throwback to her origin as a feral kitten, or maybe it’s something else, but she’s the most food-motivated cat ever in my household.

It shouldn’t have been any surprise that Ashton ended up overweight a couple years ago. She actually tipped the scales at well over 13 lb, putting her firmly in the 40% of cats who are overweight and nearly putting her in the category of 19% of cats who are obese.

Overweight cats, like overweight humans, can suffer from health issues such as arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. I didn’t want the ailments caused by obesity to cause her that kind of discomfort, and we certainly didn’t want to risk them cutting her lifespan short, so something had to be done.

Our vet said that too much high-calorie food and snacks and not enough exercise had gotten Ashton to where she was today. So there was no escaping it: It was time for Ashton to go on a diet.

How Ashton Reached a Healthy Weight

Under our vet’s supervision, I started looking for cat food for weight loss that didn’t clue Ashton in on the fact that she was on a diet. That’s when I discovered food from Weruva.

I loved that I could fine the nutrition information for the food on the Weruva web site without having to jump through a lot of hoops to get to it. And what I found in the nutrition information was even better. Not only is Weruva low in calories, they’re low in carbs, phosphorous, and magnesium, too.

Look at what’s inside a can:

It’s food fit for human consumption. It looks like something you would pour over rice and serve at your dinner table. (Don’t worry, I haven’t actually done that!) You can see that it’s bone-free white meat chicken, not mystery ground-up stuff, and Ashton heartily approved of her new diet.

Over the course of about a year, she lost the extra weight she was carrying and weighs a little over ten pounds today. She could probably stand to lose another half pound, but she is close enough to ideal to have her on a maintenance diet today.

Ashton’s maintenance diet is from Weruva, too. With Ashton’s famous love of chicken, she loves all of the poultry flavors, and there are plenty to give lots of variety while keeping her a healthy weight.

Try Weruva for Your Cats

The team at Weruva wants you to be able to try their food and see why Ashton loves it so much, so we’re holding a giveaway of two cases of 24 count Weruva TruLuxe 3 oz. cans. That’s 48 meals! The TruLuxe line features formulas with lean, shredded grass fed, Australian beef, pink salmon, basa and turkey. The winner can choose either land or fish flavors, or a combination of both. The drawing is open to entrants from the US and Canada.

And that isn’t all! Weurva also wants to make a donation to your favorite 501(c)(3) or registered Canadian nonprofit rescue organization. The winner of the drawing also gets to choose a favorite rescue organization to receive $100 worth of Weruva BFF food.

Entries will be open until 12:00 am on June 25th, so enter below for your chance to win Weruva food for yourself and for your favorite rescue organization.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. We received food for free from Weruva, but the story above is our own and isn’t influenced by by this compensation. We only feature products we have used or would use or that we feel are of interest to our readers.

References and further reading:

Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, National Pet Obesity Survey Results
Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, Prevalence and risk factors for feline obesity in a fist opinion practice in Glasgow, Scotland
Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, Prevalence and risk factors for obesity in an urban population of healthy cats
The Journal of Applied Research in Veterinary Medicine, Prevalence and risk factors for obesity in adult cats from private US veterinary practices

When A Household Object Scares Your Cat

Have you ever had something come into your house that your cat was inexplicably afraid of? Maybe it was a new recliner or a really cool lamp with a shade that somehow alarmed your kitty.

This happened recently at our house with something that was supposed to be fun. The people at Automated Pet Care Products offered to let us review the Kitty Play Zone. The problem came up nearly immediately, because Newton was afraid of the box.

You can tell he’s frightened in this photo because his hindquarters are lowered and he’s ready to spring away and run from the thing he is afraid of.

Here’s what the box looked like to humans:

This is what Newton apparently saw:

The package includes two stainless steel bowls, and apparently Newton thought they were scary eyes. For once, I didn’t have his help when I was assembling something.

Assembly of the Kitty Play Zone is easy. With the exception of the bowls, the whole thing is made of cardboard, and it goes together easily. The hardest part of assembly was attaching the adorable shutters to the windows. I didn’t figure out at first that you needed to bend the tab before trying to insert it into the bottom slot, so two of my shutters ended up a little bent before I realized that a ten-year-old would have figured that part out.

Pierre didn’t share Newton’s opinion of the Kitty Play Zone as scary at all. He thought it was great immediately.

Here, he’s showing you one of the things that makes it so sturdy: the whole base is a solid piece of cardboard, and it wraps around the outer walls. If you need to pick the Kitty Play Zone up and move it to another room (I move it around weekly), it’s easy to do, and it feels sturdy. I’m sure it is also important structurally when a cat is playing in the loft area.

And Pierre loves to play in the loft area!

He naps up there, plays up there…he would even eat up there, but I decided not to feed him in the Kitty Play Zone despite it having a dedicated spot for eating and included bowls — as well as a large flap that opens so you can access the food. We only eat canned food around here, and with messy eaters who like to drag the canned food out of the bowl, we didn’t want messes we couldn’t clean up on the cardboard. Pierre doesn’t mind. He thinks that the eating area is actually a special place to drop his favorite mouse toy.

Pierre: Did someone say mouse toy?

Pierre also likes to lurk upstairs and wait for a wand toy to swing past.

Did you notice who was lurking behind the Kitty Play Zone in the photo? It’s Newton!

After a month of ignoring Newton’s fear of the Kitty Play Zone and pretending it was just another piece of the furniture, he finally got curious about it. Not quite curious enough to climb upstairs when I tossed in a treat. He outsmarted that.

Finally, after everyone else treated the kitty play zone like it was fun for weeks on end, Newton decided that maybe it would be fun to explore, too.

Pierre: I told you, Newt!

When a cat becomes afraid of something in the environment, you can’t force him to change his mind. Forcing a cat into something that scares him is only going to frighten him further. Give him time — as much time as he needs — to approach whatever it is on his own terms. Newton now thinks that the kitty play zone is fun because it was his idea to approach it again.

Disclaimer: We received the Kitty Play Zone at no charge from Automated Pet Care Products. Receiving free product did not influence our opinion about it; all opinions expressed on this site are our own.

Collapsible Cat Carriers

Have you ever noticed that when you carry an umbrella, it doesn’t rain? It only rains on the days you forget the umbrella at home.

Cat carriers seem to work the same way. A long time ago, I kept a carrier in my car’s trunk, and never ran across a cat in need of rescue. In the past few years, I was out of the habit, and sure enough, I repeatedly ran across rescues that required carriers and didn’t have them.

One of those rescues was Ashton. I was fortunate that she was small enough at the time to fit into a bin of odds and ends I kept in my trunk and hastily emptied for the rescue. If she had been uninjured, that wouldn’t have contained an active kitten.

Another was a friendly cat outside a restaurant. One of the waitresses told me that the had been begging there for weeks, and that the waitress had been trying to catch her. I didn’t have anything to put her in, and we had to wait for the waitress’s boyfriend to arrive with a cat carrier before catching her and sending her off to her new home with their family.

That was when I decided I needed a carrier in my car. The problem was that my trunk area isn’t that big. I have to be able to carry groceries home in it, too. That led me to look into collapsible carriers. Surely there were plenty of them out there, right?

I was surprised how few there actually were. Sure, there were plenty of fabric bags you could use as a carrier, but that wouldn’t work when you were rescuing a strange cat. You need something with hard sides to prevent escape. It also should be something you can decontaminate later, or it might not be safe to use again.

I finally settled on the Care-Eze folding carrier.

It folds down to only 4 1/2″ tall. When it is assembled, it is about the size of my medium, hard-sided carriers. Just what I was looking for. And even better, it has been like a cat umbrella. In the year I have had it, I haven’t needed to unexpectedly transport a cat! I even had it with me during my recent trip to Atlanta for BarkWorld/MeowWorld, and I managed not to bring back any additional cats. It’s like magic.

I gave a ride to other cat bloggers to and from the airport last month at BarkWorld/MeowWorld, and none of them never knew I had a cat carrier with me, riding along with their luggage. The size difference between it and a standard carrier makes it almost unnoticeable in the trunk.

Just recently, I ran across a photo of a different kind of folding carrier that got my attention. The Sport Pet Collapsible Travel Carrier looked interesting because it has a huge door that takes an entire side of the carrier. This is something I usually want when Ashton, Newton, or Pierre need to go into a carrier, so it makes sense that when I do finally need to use a carrier for a strange cat who doesn’t even know me, it would be a lot easier to put a frightened cat inside.

Of the two carriers, the one by Care-Eze is easier to assemble. I found the pieces on the Sport Pet carrier a that need to slide to secure the curved sides a little fiddly, and you have to be sure to latch it securely on top during assembly. But the Care-Eze carrier is a lot louder and rattles more, and Newton, Pierre, and Ashton were all afraid of it, even when it was inside their own house.

The Care-Eze carrier feels more durable, but both feel like they would hold an angry or freaked out cat. I found the Sport Pet carrier for less than half of cost of the Care-Eze carrier, so that may be a consideration. Someone in full-time rescue who is constantly moving cats would want something more durable than either one of these carriers, but both of them will let you fit a carrier in your car’s trunk and still have room for groceries. If my experience is any guide, they’ll serve as your “cat umbrella” against unexpected cat transports, too.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means we get a small commission for our cat treat fund if you purchase after clicking the link on this page.

Checking out Tiki Cat

We’re going to let you in on a blogging secret: there are times that all of the photos for a blog post are taken in a single sitting, or even on the same day. That’s the case for today’s blog post, but we didn’t want to break it up into two posts.

Part 1

Pierre: Hey, look, it’s a box from our friends at Chewy! It’s a big box. What do you think is in here?

Pierre: It looks like some cans of Tiki Cat. Why do you think they put them in such a big box?

Newton: I hope it’s because they have so much flavor that they need a really big box!

Pierre: That might be true, Newt. We’ll find out when we taste it. But I think it’s because our friends at Chewy wanted to send us a special toy.

Part 2

We haven’t talked about it here on the blog, but Pierre hasn’t been feeling very well. He hasn’t had much of an appetite, and when he does eat, he doesn’t always keep his meals down. Those of you who follow the head peep on Twitter saw that he was at the vet last week, and that’s why.

After yet another round of not keeping his breakfast down, the head peep was trying to find something in the house that Pierre could eat when she remembered we had the Tiki Cat gourmet carnivore package waiting to be reviewed.

She opened up the package and went through the twelve different flavors to see what might work best. She found a can of grain free chicken and turkey can and opened it, and Pierre ate it with great enthusiasm.

We like that the Tiki Cat foods are made with 100 percent human USDA grade products and are grain-free, carb-free, whole shredded meats. But we especially like that Pierre happily ate the Tiki Cat when he hasn’t shown enthusiasm for food in weeks.

We all got a good laugh out of the marketing jargon on the back of this can:

It’s pretty certain that a housecat’s natural prey diet doesn’t include cows! We understand, though, that they mean that the percentage of protein and fat is what a cat would get from wild caught prey, even if that prey probably isn’t a cow.

Mostly, we’re excited that it’s healthy food without a lot of extra junk added and that Pierre will eat it! Getting finicky cats to eat is hard, and it’s a cause for big celebration when you find food that isn’t loaded with carbs that a fussy cat finds acceptable. So thanks for giving us a chance for the review, Chewy. We didn’t expect it to happen quite the way it did, but Pierre gives Tiki Cat his paws up of approval.

FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. We received this food for free from Chewy.com. This didn’t influence what we say; all opinions expressed on this site are our own. We only feature products we have used or would use or that we feel are of interest to our readers.