Original Pate Wet Cat Food, Grain Free Recipe - Real Duck, 5.5 Ounce (Pack of 12)

This is a great food and my cat loves it! The only thing that seems a bit strange to me is the difference in consistency between batches, and even the difference in consistency between the 3 ounce cans and the 5 ounce cans. Seriously, it looks like a different food, with the 3 ounce cans looking much smoother in texture, and the 5 ounce cans looking much more "grainy". I hope that the following review will help someone with a cat that has stomach issues similar to mine... I have tried many, many products aimed at helping with digestive upset for my cat. Her pain and suffering was so great that I thought I was going to have to put her to sleep. I went to multiple vets and had thousands of dollars worth of diagnostics done to try and find out why she was having acid reflux, crying and subsequently vomitting (endoscopy, xray, ultrasound, bloodwork, etc). One vet told me to just give her pepcid. This worked for a while, but then became completely ineffective after a while. The same vet then told me that she probably just has food allergies and would have to be on steroids for the rest of her life, and thats all that could be done, and prescribed different kinds of Science Diet (which we all know is actually a terrible food for cats with digestive problems). Well, what do you know, the steroids didn't help AT ALL. I tried probiotics of various brands for pets, I tried digestive enzymes, I tried many different natural products designed to help ease digestive / intestinal inflammation.... I tried a homiopathic vet (the only one in my area) and spent a few thousand more dollars rerunning tests and running other tests for pancreatitis, etc. I tried MAKING her food from raw meat to try and eliminate food allergies to commericial foods as a potential problem, etc. I TRIED EVERYTHING, but still my cat was constantly licking her lips, then crying in terrible pain and vomitting very consistently, and now was losing interest in her food and was losing weight and starting to look boney. I was determined to not give up on her though. I had just lost my wife to infection during a failed bone marrow transplant / cancer during all this, and was not about to give up on my girl. I stopped making her food and started getting her Natures Variety canned Rabbit formula and the duck formula. She loved the food but it did not seem to be helping her feel all that much better, even though a lot of other people were having great success. I then found a site called wellvet dot com that said that this Ulcinex was very effective at repairing ulcers and the stomach lining in pets. It also said that it was very effective at controlling vomitting that occurs a few hours after eating, which is EXACTLY what was consistently happening, and no other product that I had found so far claimed to do same thing. I was skeptical as soon as it started talking about chinese herbs and such, but I figured it was worth a shot. I started giving this as prescribed from wellvet ALONG WITH Georges Aloe Vera juice (the one without preservatives and no taste), which is said to help a lot for acid reflux sufferers (I found a few people that said it worked great for their cats), and continuing the rabbit / duck formula. All the while praying, within a few days I started noticing a drastic improvement. She was licking her lips less, and was able to relax for longer periods of time without jumping up in pain and crying. She vommitted once within a several day period. Several days later, NO MORE CRYING, and instead of hiding behind the bedroom door licking her lips the whole night, she started sleeping with me at night like she used to. Now, several weeks later, she is literally 90% better. NO MORE VOMITTING AT ALL, is in very little pain, VERY little lip licking and only very occasionally at that. She also gets much more rest, and has put on several pounds and is back above her normal weight and has a nice chubby belly. My cat suffered daily for 2 long years during this whole process before I found this and the other two mentioned products. The aloe vera juice on its own didn't seem to completely do the trick, so I think its the combination of the three things that is really effective. I only hope that no permanent damage has already been done, but now I have my cat back and don't have to suffer through losing a great wife and a great cat. If you have a cat with severe stomach issues, you owe it to yourself and your cat to try this along with the Georges Aloe Vera and Ulcinex. Metagenics - Ulcinex - 90 Tablets Warren Laboratories - George's Aloe Vera, 64 fl oz liquid

I've had my cats on this food for 2 years and they used to gobble it up and lick their plates clean. One of my cats suddenly stopped eating which made me think there might be something wrong with him. I opened up a can of food and i immediately noticed that it looked different in both color and texture. I checked the ingredient list and was shocked to find not only a formula change, but they now use guar gum which i have been avoiding giving my cats. I looked online to see what was go on, and the reviews on instincts website told me everything i needed to know. This changed happened months before I even noticed, so I must have been getting older batches of food until they ran out and got the new stuff in. I'm so upset that I can no longer trust this brand and that there was no notice of the ingredient change. After being a loyal customer and recommending this brand to everyone i knew who had a cat or dog, this is not what I expected from them. Some transparency would have been appreciated! I am switching over to Feline Natural and Orijen which just released a line of wet food. Both of these brands are actually worth the premium pricing and have top quality ingredients. I won't be purchasing this wet food again and I will tell everyone to steer clear.

BACKGROUND: When we got our cat from the Humane Society (which was a great place with great people), we were told to keep her on a prescription diet for the rest of her life because she had a surgical procedure that removed a portion of her intestine caused by Intussusception. She is perfectly healthy now other than having a slightly faster digestive cycle for obvious reasons. When we took her to the vet for a regular check-up, our vet recommended a web site [...] concerning litter box tips as well as cat food information. We learned on this web site how most pet food brands and even some that claim to be natural and healthy are actually very unhealthy and are the root cause of obesity, diabetes and other issues cats suffer that become quite costly to treat. We decided to seek out a healthier alternative and this web site had Instinct as one of the recommended raw food options for cats. We plan to transition our cat over to their raw meat option eventually (or at least incorporate it into her diet), but in the meantime, we found that their canned food options were healthier than the mainstream. PROS: Our cat's prescription diet was the d/d Duck and Pea and we were happy to find that Nature's Variety offered a Duck Formula as well. She had no bad side-effects transitioning over to this food and took to it immediately. She actually loves this food.The fact that it's 95% meat with only %5 vegetable and grain free is rare to find compared to other canned foods which pile on grains and fillers. We also only feed her canned food, since we read that most dry foods contain way too many carbs which leads to obesity and can dehydrate cats causing urinary tract infections, whereas canned foods with substantial moisture provide way more water to them naturally. Not to mention the addictive chemical most companies add to dry food to make cats crave it (Note: I have not purchased or looked into the dry food option from Nature's Variety, so I have no idea if it is as bad as other brands). We are happy to have found a healthier alternative and hopefully by paying a little bit more for this food now, we can save a little money later in her cat life from expensive bills related to health problems. CONS: I do wish they had a traditional 24 pack (less packaging than ordering 2 packs of 12). It is also slightly more expensive, but worth it in the long run, hopefully.