Canned (or in-a-pouch) food is indeed generally not as good a diet for your cat as dry food. (Though if your dry food is full of colouring or flavouring agents, or has too much indigestible binder -- a little tomato pomace or dried beet pulp is good for digestion, too much and it's just there to bulk out the product -- or glycol compounds, or if it doesn't have properly balanced minerals, it might do your cat even more harm.) Perhaps even more importantly, a regular diet of wet food means more food residue sticks to kitty's teeth and can lead to tooth decay, gum disease and even potentially fatal infections. Dry food actually helps clean cats' (and dogs') teeth as they bite into the crunchy kibble.
Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to wean cats off a primarily wet-food diet if that's what they're used to. Royal Canin brand makes a dry food formulation specifically for finicky eaters -- they spray the outside of the kibble with ground-up liver and other delicious-to-cats organ meats -- that could help encourage your cat to consider dry food her mainstay rather than just something to eat between cans. You can just mix some of the Royal Canin* in with whatever dry food you normally feed her, the scent should do the trick.
Incidentally, if you're not sure about the nutritional quality of the dry food you use now, I recently discovered a new-ish brand called Good Life** which has an excellent ingredient list and a nearly ideal nutritional profile for an indoor cat -- and unlike the Royal Canin products, which are superiour quality but priced accordingly, Good Life is cheaper than many pet foods which aren't as good for your cat or dog.
So leaving dry food for her, unless you have a pest problem, should be fine for about a week of kitty home alone. (It's true that cats can go several days without food without adverse health effects, but a housecat used to regular feeding might have adverse emotional effects and take them out on your stuff.) The bigger concerns are the litterbox issue, as mentioned above, and making sure she has enough *fresh* water. Putting additional bowls of water around the home is a good idea, especially since cats are more likely to drop crumbs of food into their water if it's right next to the food, and one crumb of food in the water dish on day one can turn into pretty foul slime by day seven. Or you could leave a tap dripping, if you have one of those cats who will drink from a spigot or lap up the droplets underneath.
*Before I discovered that Good Life had as good or better nutritional value at 1/3 the price, I usually fed my cat the Royal Canin Indoor or Beauty & Fit formulas. She only gets dry food, and her dish gets filled once a day and only after she's finished all the kibble from the day before. She's developed a habit of parceling out her day's ration so that she always has at least a few bites left the following day when feeding time comes around again. Our local pet supermarket was giving away samples of the Royal Canin Selective formula for awhile, and we gave it to her when we ran low on food on a Sunday awhile back... she finished the entire thing in one sitting!
**Good Life has several different kinds of kibble, each with a different shape and colour, which is usually a bad sign in pet food... but if you check the ingredient list, all of the colour comes from food ingredients, not additives.
Also, I don't work for either company; I used to be a certified (now lapsed) pet nutrition counselor.
Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to wean cats off a primarily wet-food diet if that's what they're used to. Royal Canin brand makes a dry food formulation specifically for finicky eaters -- they spray the outside of the kibble with ground-up liver and other delicious-to-cats organ meats -- that could help encourage your cat to consider dry food her mainstay rather than just something to eat between cans. You can just mix some of the Royal Canin* in with whatever dry food you normally feed her, the scent should do the trick.
Incidentally, if you're not sure about the nutritional quality of the dry food you use now, I recently discovered a new-ish brand called Good Life** which has an excellent ingredient list and a nearly ideal nutritional profile for an indoor cat -- and unlike the Royal Canin products, which are superiour quality but priced accordingly, Good Life is cheaper than many pet foods which aren't as good for your cat or dog.
So leaving dry food for her, unless you have a pest problem, should be fine for about a week of kitty home alone. (It's true that cats can go several days without food without adverse health effects, but a housecat used to regular feeding might have adverse emotional effects and take them out on your stuff.) The bigger concerns are the litterbox issue, as mentioned above, and making sure she has enough *fresh* water. Putting additional bowls of water around the home is a good idea, especially since cats are more likely to drop crumbs of food into their water if it's right next to the food, and one crumb of food in the water dish on day one can turn into pretty foul slime by day seven. Or you could leave a tap dripping, if you have one of those cats who will drink from a spigot or lap up the droplets underneath.
*Before I discovered that Good Life had as good or better nutritional value at 1/3 the price, I usually fed my cat the Royal Canin Indoor or Beauty & Fit formulas. She only gets dry food, and her dish gets filled once a day and only after she's finished all the kibble from the day before. She's developed a habit of parceling out her day's ration so that she always has at least a few bites left the following day when feeding time comes around again. Our local pet supermarket was giving away samples of the Royal Canin Selective formula for awhile, and we gave it to her when we ran low on food on a Sunday awhile back... she finished the entire thing in one sitting!
**Good Life has several different kinds of kibble, each with a different shape and colour, which is usually a bad sign in pet food... but if you check the ingredient list, all of the colour comes from food ingredients, not additives.
Also, I don't work for either company; I used to be a certified (now lapsed) pet nutrition counselor.
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