Can canned food cause diarrhea?

[karate0kat]

I had been feeding Vala (who's around 5 months) a mixed wet/dry food diet. I've been having some mobility issues lately and have been having trouble getting to the store across town to get her dry food, but the canned food I can get just down the street. She'd already been eating quite a bit of it, so I just stocked up on the wet stuff. The last couple days, since running out of dry and switching to all wet, her stool has gotten much softer and slightly runny (not totally watery, but doesn't hold a shape) and I can, well, hear it when she goes. If you know what I mean (although she's not gassy otherwise, which she was when I first brought her home).

She's not showing any other symptoms. Activity level is normal, no signs of pain or distress. I'm thinking it's probably just the switch in diet and I should just figure out a way to get to the other store and get some dry food. Can that happen with an all wet food diet? Or should I take her to the vet?

I'm a new mommy, so I'm never sure if I'm doing the right thing. *wrings hands*

[swatkat]

I think it is from the fast change of food if you say she has no signs of anything else I would not be worried.

[Ducman69]

My vet says yes. I don't know if its because there's less water so they are somewhat less hydrated, or if its because the fiber content of dry is so high compared to wet, but definitely you wouldn't know unless the issue persisted for a while if anything was wrong as I was also advised to switch foods gradually so the gut bacteria can adapt to digesting the new food.

[WhiteKitties]

I had this same problem when I increased the amount of wet food I gave my girls. They were getting about 25% wet when I adopted them, and one day I increased that to about 60% and Fergie had some noisy and nasty poop just as you described. I scaled back to about 40% wet food for about a week and then increased it and never had another problem.

It may be a pain for you to get the dry food, but if you gradually switch the balance of the food from dry to wet I'd bet you'll be successful!