Royal Canin Feline Care Nutrition Urinary Care Adult Thin Slices in Gravy

To give context to this review: I have two cats who are almost 15, and one young cat. The two older cats both have health issues. The female is insulin diabetic and escaped for 6 days last year. We had given up on her return, but she was found by a neighbor. Long story short, she spent a few days in the hospital with almost no chance to survive because she was in kidney failure due to diabetes and dehydration. However, that little warrior did survive, with a remnant of chronic kidney disease. That said, she has three risk factors for UTIs: diabetes, CKD, and age. And she does get UTIs. She had a few before her grand escape, but in the last few months has had two, back to back. To complicate matters, the other older cat who is male is obese with chronic pancreatitis and heart disease, suddenly developed two UTIs in the same few months as she did. We do everything right - plenty of fresh water, litter boxes always clean - but age and kidneys are not in their favor. - Then I have another problem: I always have to coax the female diabetic to eat, but the fat male eats everything. So I spend an enormous amount of money on wet foods to try to get her to eat (wet food and eating is more important than anything for a cat with CKD) - but if she doesn't eat, the male cat eats it all and gets fatter than ever. We have tried rx foods but nobody will ever eat them, no matter how we try to slowly mix them in. In addition, pate is sometimes difficult for them to eat, but shreds are worse. I had the opportunity to try Royal Canin UTI wet cat food through the Vine program, so was interested in giving it a try, since it offers both urinary health and weight control. As soon as I opened the first can and they smelled the aroma, all three cats suddenly came alive and alert and got excited. They are eating it! - Another very important feature to this food is the texture. It's important to have a little broth for hydration, and this food does have that. I was a little worried about "thin slices" because thin slices are usually more like shreds which my cats have difficulty eating. These are thin slices, but small thin slices better described as flaked; not quite minced but much easier for an older cat to eat. Knowing my cats, they may tire of it in a week, but if so, will be excited over it once more in a few weeks. It's a pricey food, but these are the large cans, and 24 5 oz cans of cat food go a long way. If this works out I am certainly willing to pay the price, since I end up wasting that much money on other wet foods they won't eat at all. I am thrilled to find a cat food that they will eat and that addresses the very health concerns my cats are dealing with. TIP: Reveal Tuna with sea bream (in the packages, not cans) has an excellent broth that will add moisture and flavor. I just use the broth to dribble over foods to entice them to eat the food, and if I need to, will add that to the Royal Canin.

July 17 2024: Came back to order another case of these cans and found that the price has doubled. Now $92.63 which is insane. Looks like we will stick with Tiki Cat unless the price returns to the ~$50 range.We have one cat who is on the expensive Hills prescription c/d food, and while he is supposed to only eat the dry and wet versions of that food, he does not like the canned versions - at all. So I give him other high quality wet foods to supplement the prescription dry food, bc being on dry food alone is no good - urinary issues or not. I was so happy to see this Urinary formula from Royal Canin - a vet recommended and highly praised brand. My two cats split a can last night, and while they can sometimes be finicky about textures and taste, they both went crazy for this formula and licked their bowls clean. I will include photos of the caloric info and ingredients, as I did not see that info anywhere on the product page. Pork and chicken by-products are the two main ingredients, and I do wonder why a first-in-class pet food brand would use by-products as opposed to whole meats.We do read labels in our household and I might reach out to Royalty Canin to ask. You actually have to peel open the label to access this info, so hopefully this will help someone make a decision about whether this is the right food for you. My picky cats really love it though, and I've noticed them drinking from their fountain often after eating this for breakfast, so it does help them get their H2Os.

My cat loves this food! Easy to open and I’m sure he digests it well, he hasn’t told me otherwise.

About 20 years ago my male cat jumped into the kitchen sink to pee. The paper towel I used to clean up was tinged with blood. Such was my introduction to the effects of crystals forming in a male cat’s very narrow urethra. Prednisone prescribed by the general vet was not working. Then the cat specialist prescribed a Royal Canin wet food. The formulation wasn’t called “urinary care” then (something like U/O or S/O), but that’s what it was for. It was only available by prescription. He ate it until the end of his life eight years later and he never had another uncomfortable episode with his urinary health.In the photos is my current little guy inspecting the new case of food and tucking in as soon as I could open a can. The morsels are a cat-preferred nibble size, not overly saturated in liquid, with a very mild meaty smell (not unpleasant). I’m a little annoyed with myself that I hadn’t been thinking specifically about urinary problems when choosing his food. His output is very healthy but, literally, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.But even with previous experience and my current cat’s acceptance of this food, I have to confess that I still object that Royal Canin builds its formulations on by-products. It drove me crazy 20 years ago and now I see it hasn’t changed. The ingredient statement for this food says: “Water sufficient for processing, pork by-products, chicken by-products . . . ” etc. All the cat advice in the world says to feed a quality diet. I believe that and want to but then, faced with a potential feline health issue, I’m feeding by-products. It's the only reason I rated it a "4". Under other circumstances I would look for a different food. But I can’t deny the experience I had with my cat so long ago. This food absolutely treated his problem. I can’t explain it but it worked.

All 8 of my cats devoured this the second I put it down, and only 1 decided a few bites was enough and left her plate. This doesn’t have a lot of gravy in it so I worried they wouldn’t like it, and normally my cats lick the gravy and leave the chunks behind. This time they actually ate nearly all the chunks. You’re aware of the price if you’ve made it this far, and I normally wouldn’t give 5 stars to a cat food this pricey. However, this is also serving as a health benefit for urinary tract health, and as someone who had a cat that struggled with this, I would have absolutely been willing to spring for this to relieve her of that struggle seeing as it’s tasty enough that even a sick cat would eat it. We all know how hard it is to get a cat who’s not feeling well to eat. But as an owner of 8 cats who (knock on wood) are not having that issue, this is well out of my price range for an every day cat food.Despite the very high price, this is a quality cat food that most of my cats loved, and can help with a common, painful, and potentially very expensive health issue, so I give it 5 stars.