This is a specific conversation about Wet vs dry cat food — the honest answer — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
A cat who's worked through every fish-based wet food and rejected the lot — that's a familiar frustration, and honestly it's useful information. It tells you your cat has a strong preference for poultry or meat proteins, which is actually very common. Wet food is still the right call for an 8-year-old: hydration matters more as cats age, and it keeps them fuller on fewer calories. The fish aversion just narrows the field, which makes choosing easier. What health conditions does your cat have, if any — kidneys, weight, digestion? And are you feeding wet only, or mixing with dry?
No major health issues thankfully. She's a healthy weight, good digestion. I've just been mixing with dry because I couldn't find a wet she'd reliably eat. She tried maybe five or six different fish ones and walked away from all of them.
inparticular.ai
Good — healthy weight and no conditions gives you real flexibility. The dry-plus-wet mix is a sensible approach, especially when you haven't found a reliable wet yet. The key now is switching your wet food entirely to poultry and meat proteins, no fish at all. Some cats are extremely sensitive to the smell of fish-based foods, and once you remove it from the equation, acceptance rates go up sharply. Can I ask — has she shown any preference between chicken, duck, or game when she's had them? Or has most of what you've tried been fish with no clear poultry winner yet?
She's eaten chicken dry food fine for years. I haven't actually tried many chicken-based wet foods — most of the wet ones I picked up happened to be fish or salmon flavoured. So chicken wet is probably the obvious gap I've missed.
inparticular.ai
That's exactly it — you've essentially never given her the protein she already likes in wet form. This is a very solvable problem. My recommendation is Animonda Carny Adult in the chicken and turkey varieties. It's a German brand, grain-free, high meat content — around 70% — and comes in single-protein pouches so you can test chicken alone first before introducing turkey or duck. The texture is chunky rather than pâté, which tends to suit cats who've been on dry food because it's less alien to them. It's available on Amazon UK in multipacks, which keeps the cost reasonable for a trial run. Start with the chicken-only pouch alongside her usual dry, and give it three or four days before judging. Most cats who've rejected fish food consistently accept this within a couple of meals.
That sounds really logical actually. Is Animonda a well-regarded brand? I've never heard of it.
inparticular.ai
It's well regarded among people who look closely at ingredients — it's just not heavily marketed in the UK so it flies under the radar. The meat content is genuinely high, the ingredient lists are short and transparent, and it doesn't pad with fillers or artificial flavourings. It's manufactured in Germany and has a long track record across Europe. For a cat with a strong flavour preference and a history of refusals, the clean ingredient profile and single-protein options are exactly what you want — you can identify what she likes and what she doesn't without a dozen variables confusing things.
Great, I'll order the chicken multipack and try it alongside her dry food. If she takes to it, should I gradually reduce the dry?
inparticular.ai
Yes, but there's no urgency — the mixed approach works well long-term too. If she takes to the wet food, you can slowly shift the ratio over a few weeks: a little more wet, a little less dry. For an 8-year-old, getting more moisture into her diet is genuinely beneficial over time, so trending toward more wet makes sense. But if she ends up happily eating half and half, that's a perfectly good outcome. The main win is finding a wet food she'll actually eat consistently.
