Wysong Optimal Vitality Adult Feline Formula Dry Cat Food, 5 lb

After losing my previous cat to stomach cancer, I did some very serious research into what is the best diet for cats, I.e. What do they need, what should be avoided, what is downright toxic, etc. I know that cancer is largely determined by genetics, yet, the dietary choices over the lifetime of a cat are very--if not quite equally--important. I never gave a thought to cat food before, with my previous cat eating Purina or other low-cost food. Before adopting two new kittens, I was determined to educate myself in feline nutrition. Almost every online review site I found was either partially funded by a cat food manufacturer (with tons of banner ads for that food), was auto-generated (I.e. no human involvement was entailed; instead, the site's bots would scan the top 10 hits from an internet search, and then present them in a formatted display), or was totally opinion-based. I looked far and wide for a site that approached cat foods from a scientific, numbers-based perspective. I found 2-3 that met that bill, with the most thorough & transparent (IMO) being www reviews dot com slash cat hyphen food. I have nothing to do with that site, and had never heard of them before my research. I encourage you to not take my word for it, I.e. you might find an even better site, and if you do to please let the rest of us know. Anyway, they reviewed 1700+ foods, they don't take any money from any cat food company, and lay out their scoring system very transparently. I encourage everyone to check them out as they recommend lots of brands, and not just Wysong, and as your needs might be very different from mine, you might well end up with a different choice. I adopted two 4-month old kittens and decided to go with grain-free wet food (I chose Wellness CORE) as their primary food, and Wellness Optimal Vitality as their always-available dry food. Well, here are my *non-scientific* experiences: my cat love this food! They never turn their noses up at it and wait for their wet food; instead, anytime I refill their dry food bowls with this, they immediately start chowing down. They have regular bowel movements, and aren't plagued either with diarrhea or constipation. Their energy level--never a real problem for kittens period!--is just great on this food. It's not a sudden jolt of energy (i.e. It's not kitty crack 😜); instead, it seems to give them a sustained, long duration energy source. They will play their hearts out, go take a nap together, and wake up without any grogginess. By contrast, after their wet food, they will take it easy after eating it, and be relatively inactive until it has passed out of their stomachs. But with this dry food, they're open for anything after eating it. Their appearance to this non-veterinarian layman is amazing. Their coats really do shine, and feel soft to the touch. Their eye colors are bright, the pads of their feet are bright pink, and so are their noses. They are very alert and seem very contented (totally subjective opinion, I mean, how can you know a cat's outlook on life? 🙂) My veterinarian is very impressed. Their hearts are strong, eyes, ears, and teeth are all good, and he commented on how great their overall health and appearance were. He ended up writing down the name of this food and their wet food and will do his own research. Here's something I did which I recommend you try: I took an empty Wysong bag in with me to their appointment so he could read the ingredients. For the wet food, I used my phone to take a picture of its nutritional label and showed that to him as well. This is another recommendation I have for you generally: make sure your vet is onboard with any brand of food you decide to go with. I trust my vet enough that if he said something like this food being overkill, or containing trendy ingredients, etc. that I would drop it on his recommendation. So since he embraced this food, I have stayed with it. The one thing that gave me serious pause is this: the stuff is expensive. There are lots of cheaper alternatives, and many of those are high quality too. After much consideration, I decided that paying the extra money for Wysong now is preventative medicine, i.e. pay now or pay later in vet bills. This might or might not be true (again, genetics are so important), but in my mind giving them high quality food can only help them. Sorry for the long review! I hope it might be helpful for some of you. P.S. Here are Roger & Grumpy present day. Even though they both have their own feeding "stations" they insist on eating their dry food together. Go figure. 🙂

This recent addition to the Wysong product line is a wonderful option if you have a diabetic or overweight dog or cat. It is high in protein and 4% carbohydrates on an as fed basis. Ingredients are excellent quality. I have been feeding Wysong for 6 years now and have never found a healthier dry food with this low carb content. My 15 year old diabetic cat has maintained a diet controlled remission (no insulin required) for the past 6 years thanks to Wysong. For added flavor and taurine content I mix with half Wysong Optimal Vitality 14% carbohydrates. I recommend a 60% wet pate diet and 40% dry as I am an animal nutritionist. Over a 3 month period you will notice a significant weight loss in overweight dogs and cats. This food helps your pet maintain a healthy weight. Do note these are small kibble suited for cats and small breed dogs.

We've had a cat for nine years. We've had two dogs simultaneously during our cats life. How do we know this is good food? SIMPLE - our dogs poops. Thats correct, our DOGS poop. Our dog eats farm fresh raw food. When she poops, its little sort of nuggets that barely have a smell. NOT the giant mound of squishy yucky-ness that stinks from bad food. She is a 60 pound Golden Retriever. Very regular. Very Healthy. A couple months ago, she snuck into the cats dry food bowl and determined that sneaking in a bit of royal canin cat food here and there is ok - it's not. How did we know that she was doing this? Because her poops turned into those giant mounds of stinky squishy yucky-ness. We were very very VERY mad at Royal Canin after seeing this. We were shocked and upset, that after all our research, we thought we were feeding the cat the best. We've already lost one dog due to cancer that is caused by most store bought foods (another reason we are pay so much attention this time, like a ridiculous amount of attention). We thought, we can not reverse the damage that may already be there, but we can surely try to stop adding to it. We researched the heck out of THIS food. The cat (pure bred ragdoll - indoors 100%) loves it. As an experiment, we sort of allowed the dog to sneak in to the cats food bowl again. But guess what? She didn't have the giant mounds of yucky-ness that takes a week to clear! She had about 10% more poops and it cleared in ONE DAY. Thank you for making a truly great product. Seriously, Thank you very much.

I wanted to love this food, but unfortunately it gave all but one of my three cats watery diarrhea. The poor kitties were in and out the litter box nearly every hour! I introduced the food slowly, and waited to see if the problems would resolve themselves and it was just an adjustment period, but their stool never firmed back up even after two weeks. It also made one of my cats who had never had any digestive issues throw up a TON. None of my cats have any food allergies, and all issues resolved after they got off this food. Not sure what’s up with it, but it seems I wasn’t the only one.

I bought this because I love the value and the quality of the product. I rotate the type of food my kitters get and although they like this brand they just did not particularly like this flavor. Great product just not a particularly favorite flavor. No stomach or fecal issues. Kinda wish I could buy a sample variety pack just to see what the top 3 favorites for my bunch are.