Ricky and Sally get dry food and wet water. That’s it. No wet food, no people food, no mice or birds. They are full-time indoor cats. Ricky is fat, Sally has bad teeth (Calico issue, apparently). Do they like it…seems so. Do they die early because of it…not that I have noticed (with the two previous cats). Am I concerned? Nope…they’re cats. Love 'em, can replace 'em for free.
I feed my two cats two cans of wet food a day - one in the morning and another can at night. I also leave out large bowls of water and dry food all day.
We were only doing one can of wet food a day but poor Max kept getting urinary tract infections. I even started a thread about it to get advice.
The biggest piece of advice my vet said was to increase the amount of wet food I give to the cats. It helps increase the overall amount of water they consume thus cutting down on the number of UTIs. So far so good!
That’s what we do. Helps keep the squirrel population in check. Damn squirrels.
I am not so sure that it is a lack of research, just easy access to it. I have spent a lot of time at www.avma.org. There is a link to the JAVMA, but it has a box for your membership number.
I wonder who is paying for the website? You can always somebody with credentials to say what you want for a price.
Well I guess it is partly convenience, but I love the ease I can make small adjustments in adry kibble to maintain good body condition of my dogs. This is very important with a new puppy every year, mostly Labs known for their gluttony. A 7 week puppy requires twice as much or more food before long. Then at 7-8 months, as their growth slows, their needs are less and to avoid overweight, you have to cut back.
There is good research relating weight asnd life span for dogs, see How To Tell if Your Dog is at a Healthy Weight – Long Live Your Dog I would be surprised if overweight is any better for cats. Garfield is at risk.
Wet food is a cat treat. Also, tuna juice is a cat treat. My cats like free feeding. They don’t like being on a schedule. They are happy and healthy, and a previous cat managed the dry food even without teeth.
That’s just about the cutest kitty name I’ve ever heard, second only to Meowth.
As for wet cat food, hell no. Between the smell and how gross it looks, I can’t handle it. Not to mention it’s too expensive for four cats. 
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Wrong.
Dry cat food outsells wet food by about 150%. That’s based on price; given that dry food is much cheaper, probably US cats eat about 3 times as much dry food as wet.
My cats eat dry food, free choice between a couple of brands/flavors (in 5 locations around the house). The 3 of them share a half-can of wet food each night (on their own bowls, in different spots). They are healthy & happy.
They also have an expensive, carbon-filtered, constantly=running water fountain. But they still prefer to drink from soaking dishes in the sink, or from the sink faucet, or off the floor of the shower, or dirty rain puddles in their back yard. The fancy water fountain is only a last resort!
P.S. All these Vets that say to feed only wet food, and only a good brand – they just happen to be selling that, right?
Of course those selling other brands dis the Science Diet and Royal Canin vets commonly sell. Nobody lets the lack of evidence to back their position slow them down.
Cats are weird about water, aren’t they? Ours rarely touched her water bowl, preferring the fountain. But she preferred to drink out of the top of the fountain, so I had to leave the lid off.
I don’t think a competent vet will tell you to feed wet food only. Ours told us to feed her whatever she will eat consistently, but that they usually recommend wet food over dry. Ingredients trump brand, IMO.
I have one who will not touch wet food, so she eats dry only. She is the chubbier of the two.
The one who does eat wet food gets a bit each day, once a day.
My cat won’t touch wet food if he was on a desert island for a week. Dry food only, and ONLY one kind. Though he sniffs human food with great interest, and occasionally chokes down a pea-sized bit of chicken, that’s it. He wants his kibble, dry only. Though he drinks a lot of water, and I have bowls filled for him upstairs and down.
When I lived at home, my mom’s cats got canned food, but it spun out of control the more different types she bought for them. They got pickier an pickier and pickier, and so she bought more and more cans. Chicken, fish, beef, liver, then graduated to Fancy Feast - trout, shrimp, crab! Nope, nope, nope, nope. Maddening. They much preferred lapping up the ‘gravy’ and leaving the chicken chunkz and beef bits dry, on the dish.