Cats don't like chewy treats (Seaflex Joint Supplement for Cats)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	Seaflex Joint Supplement for Cats
Date:	20/01/09 (134 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: added natural ingredients for arthritis

Disadvantages: cats won't eat them

My boys (cats) are both 14 and a half years old which is quite senior for cats and one has been having trouble with one of his legs. For the last year he has been limping regularly and after a few visits to the vets they decided it was arthritis, no surprises there I thought it would be, and I've been trying to find a way to get some glucosamine into him.

Cats are difficult to fool and dosing his food with crushed glucosamine tablets didn't work, he wasn't having any of it and refused to eat it. I tried cod liver oil too which again he wouldn't eat so when I saw these Seaflex treats enriched with glucosamine I thought they would be ideal.

I bought these treats from vetuk.co.uk for £7.50 for 150g and apparently the idea is you give your cat five pieces for every 3kg of body weight. They contain glucosamine which we all know helps repair cartilage, sea cucumber, kelp, MSM and vitamin E which are all natural anti-inflammatories. The treats are chicken flavour and look like triangular cat biscuits. They come in a plastic bag with a flat bottom and a resealable top.

I was very excited about receiving these but the first delivery was the chews for dogs containing the same ingredients so I'm able to tell you the dog version are long flat chews much like normal dog chews. After they sorted out the mistake I received the cat version.

I opened them up and had a sniff. Now I wasn't expecting me to get giddy with longing for the smell of these treats but they smell pretty bland and not very strong. Undeterred I decided to try them with my boy who needs them and picked some out of the bag. I was very surprised to realise these were not crunchy treats but moist, chewy little things.

Already knowing the outcome of this before I tried I put on my best excited voice and called him for some food. He came, obviously hoping for tuna, sniffed my hand containing the treats and looked disgusted. I pretended to eat one myself, it sometimes works! He watched me like I was a fool then wandered away.

I decided to try them on my other lad, he had the same reaction. So, for the sake of research I tried one on a stray I feed and she usually eats anything. She ate the food around the Seaflex treat and left it in the bowl, that doesn't happen very often I can tell you!

So I can confirm my boys didn't like them, nor did a stray with a hearty appetite, so I can't report on how effective they are. Not very if cats won't eat them! I think the smell is mostly to blame but I'm also very surprised they made them chewy, I can't think of a single thing that my boys eat that's chewy, they usually prefer either soft for wet food or crunchy and hard for dry. The texture confuses me, cats just don't really do chewy so I'm not sure what the manufacturers were thinking when they made these.

So these were not a success, if you think your cat might eat moist, chewy treats they'd be worth trying but if not unfortunately they aren't. Sadly only one star for a product I had high hopes for.

Summary: Not recommended.