I began feeding a natural diet to my cats about two years ago now. My big neuter Maximus had been doing fairly well at the shows and needed just one more best cat to get the top title, Supreme Grand Champion. He began putting on weight. I started controlling how much he ate each day. He still kept putting on weight. I changed to a light diet food and controlled how much he ate. He still put on more weight. By now he is positively pear shaped and very clumsy when trying to play with wand type toys. I switched to the only food at the time labeled "light" rather than "lite" which meant it was truly calorie restricted to be able to use that label. Well he just kept putting on the weight and was now becoming very reclusive. I became absolutely desperate. I knew in my heart he was headed for diabetes. I didn't need a vet to tell me that. Fat cat equals diabetes.

A very close friend, Karen, told me about a "new" way to feed cats. I educated myself over the next three weeks to a month reading whatever books I could find that Karen had recommended: The New Natural Cat by Anitra Frazier; Dr Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats; Food Pets Die For by Ann Martin. I searched the Internet too for whatever I could find. Then I began preparing a raw diet from Dr. Pitcairn's book. It took about a week to switch my two cats, Tasha and Max, over to the new diet. I was more determined to switch them than they were to stay with the commercial diet.

Max began to lose weight, he began to interact with us again, he became the affectionate dog cat that we had come to love once again. Tasha also lost weight. The fat was replaced by muscle on both of them. Their coats felt silkier to the touch. Their eyes were brighter but they still had bad teeth and gums. As time went on I no longer added grains to their homemade raw diet. I continue to this day to research a natural diet.

Tasha has convinced me that they put something on commercial dry food that is irresistible to cats. She still tries, after two years, to get at a small amount of junk food, as I now call it, that I have in a storage area.

Then along came Bearwalker, my beautiful black solid Maine Coon. He would become my first breeding cat, the stud for my cattery. I got him at five months old and switched him to a natural diet in a matter of a few days. He just became more magnificent and elegant with each day. In four adult shows he became 25th best cat, 11th best longhaired cat in TICA's Northwest Region, third best Maine Coon in the Northwest Region. He was also third best black Maine Coon Internationally. The judges all comment on the beautiful condition that he is in. You don't get that from commercial food.

One day, I decided to try again to feed my cats chicken necks. Bearwalker wondered where I had been hiding them all this time. He absolutely shocked me. He chowed down on them like he'd been doing it all his life. I had to smash them up a bit for Max and Tasha, who suffered from what was getting to be pretty bad red gums, definitely in need of dental work soon. They tried them and continued to try them every day, day after day. Bearwalker preferred chicken necks to the regular natural diet. He cleaned up whatever they didn't eat.

Last summer, I got my first two breeding females. Monsoon is a beautiful solid brown classic girl with a long flowing tail and lots of coat for her young age. She had a full ruff at eight months old. You don't usually see that in a young whole female. Then their is my Red Baroness or Snoopy as we call her. She is a very affectionate cat. She was so skinny when I got her, barely weighed six pounds at two and a half years old. She was very small for a Maine Coon. No way I was breeding her until she was in better condition. Both Monsoon and Snoopy had diarrhea very bad when I got them. And the smell, boy I had forgotten what commercial cat food poop was like. I couldn't switch them fast enough. Once switched they both ate as if they were absolutely ravenous. The diarrhea was gone in two days. I feed them four times a day as much as they would eat. A few weeks later, they were down to three times a day. Monsoon’s soft mushy body became toned up. Snoopy muscled up very quickly and filled out nicely in only a couple of months time.

Oh, and about the bad teeth and gums. Tasha's teeth and gums are now in wonderful condition. Maximus no longer has red gums with pus pockets. His teeth and gums are almost in as good a condition as Tasha's, just a little bit of tartar on the back carnassial teeth. Snoopy and Monsoon's breath has improved immensely and their gums are slowly improving.

My first litter of kittens was an absolute joy. Their mother flourished while pregnant and then nursing her babies. She had a very easy, quick delivery. Her babies have been very healthy with none of the problems that I have heard other breeders have. The kittens took to the raw food at five to seven weeks, each at their own pace: No diarrhea, no upper respiratory infections, just healthy, strong, playful kittens.

Ruth Sogz
Calgary, Alberta
PurRydeRoc Maine Coons
http://purryderoc.artisticfire.com