Cat food should not be more expensive than human food but it often is

This is a cross-post. The title almost says it all. The truth is that in the UK and perhaps in other countries cat food can often be more expensive than human food. This is entirely wrong. I'm not saying that cats are not as important as humans. I am not saying that cats aren't equal to humans. But I don't think, in all fairness, that mass produced cat food should be more expensive than specific items of human food on weight-cost basis.

Hill's Prescription dry cat food is as expensive as steak by Michael Broad

I'm referring, in this instance, to Hill's Prescription Diet dry cat food which as far as I am concerned is inordinately expensive and as expensive as a sirloin steak in the UK on a weight per cost basis.

This is cat food produced en masse in a factory using the carcasses of diseased cows and other dubious sources. Some of these foods are probably based on better quality sources but dry cat food of all types I allege and believe is sourced from dead animals considered too unhealthy for humans and is therefore cheap. 

If you shop at Sainsbury's you will find that sirloin steak costs the same.

And I would argue that the big dry cat food manufacturers such as Hill's are indirectly driving concerned cat owners to buying cheaper products. Cheap dry cat food served up all day long every day is not good for a domestic cat's health in my view particularly if the caregiver is away from home a lot. 

In this instance (a fairly common one) you have a double whammy of problems: separation anxiety potentially which causes stress which can lead to a bladder infection and idiopathic cystitis combined with dry cat food which does not contain enough water which also exacerbates the potential for developing cystitis, a bacterial bladder infection.

You can see how things work and a lot of people go for the convenience of dry cat food and also for its cheapness provided they avoid the big manufacturers such as Hill's.

Hill's should take their leading role more seriously. They have a very heavy responsibility regarding protecting the health and welfare of domestic cats. They promote the concept that their dry cat food is veterinarian approved and based upon "prescriptions". It's a false narrative. I would allege that their foods promote the opposite in many domestic cats owned by people on tight budgets with not a lot of disposable income.

Only the relatively well off can, arguably, afford Hill's dry cat food. This is unfair on the vast majority of cat owners many of whom are single people on limited budgets trying to cope as best he can in a highly competitive world.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

NHS in UK makes pet owners disgruntled about private vet prices

Yes, vet prices have surged higher in the UK recently because they want to make more money. It is as simple as that. And they want to make more dosh because the unprofitable, independent vets owned by a partnership of veterinarians have been bought up by big business and big business always has an eye on the profit margin and not so much on the quality of the treatment.

Fictional MRI scan for a dog at a vet clinic. 

Having said all that there is a big obstacle in the UK to citizens' perception of medical treatments: the National Health Service (NHS) which is free at the point of delivery.

It is not actually free but paid for out of taxpayer revenue - over £100 billion annually - but it feels like it is free to the citizens who rely on it for the health needs.

In the UK, health care for humans can be free unless the person can afford and selects private health care while health care for pets is never free but sometimes damnably expensive.

Pet health care is as expensive or more expensive than private human health care sometimes in the UK. But let's say that they are on a par, it is still a lot of money when paying for vet services and products.

And it all goes back to perception. Private pet health care as it always is in the UK seems beyond the means of many because they are used to walking into A&E at a local hospital or a walk-in unit for minor injuries and being seen to free of charge.

I am not condoning some of the rip-off vet prices but I think Brits need to put things in perspective. Health care for pets is an important and expensive business with ever more sophisticated diagnostic and treatment machinery. They are expensive.

The third factor is that more pet owners take out pet health insurance which pushes up the quality and price of treatments. It is a virtuous or unhelpful circle which ends up making veterinary care too expensive for many which in turn results in many pets not receiving the care they need and deserve.

P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Software engineer enjoys the Dolce Vita, working remotely in Italy for American employers

There's a little snippet of a story in the newspapers today about Americans being tired of political strife in America and fleeing to live in Italy for a bit of the Dolce Vita.

The general drift of the story is that people are indeed tired of the crazy politics in America and it would appear that some Americans are tired of the prices in America compared to those in Italy.

To return to the software engineer enjoying the Dolce Vita. He comes from San Francisco. To outsiders, San Francisco is meant to be a nice place but I believe that crime has taken over due to the legalisation of drugs. But I might have got that slightly wrong.

American woman and her cat living in a hilltop village in Italy. Image: DALLE-E 3

Anyway, the software engineer's name is Phil Puleo, 47. He left San Francisco and his $3000 a month flat during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He now pays €850 a month for a larger apartment in Rovigo, Italy, in south-west of Venice.

He says that "It's walkable, safe and coffee costs €1.20 not the $7 I paid in the US."

The best thing for him is that he is still doing his old job but remotely. He is able to keep his American wages which must be very good for him now that he works in Italy with the Italian prices being much lower than American prices where he worked and lived in the past.

The only downside is that he is now a shift worker. He has to adjust for the time difference between America and Italy and he now works from 3 PM to 10 PM but perhaps that is not a downside! It seems pretty cushy to me.

Phil is not alone. Other popular destinations include Lake Garda, Florence and Rome. A high profile emigrant to Italy from America is Kristen Helmstetter. 

She emigrated to Italy with her family and swapped her Michigan lifestyle for a hilltop town in Italy five years ago. She cites the crazy American politics. 

And she wanted to show her daughter a different way of life. It's said that she is part of "a growing exodus of Americans taking citizenship in Italy to escape the political polarisation and toxic culture wars in their homeland." Those are the words of The Times journalist, Tom Kington. Kristen was able to get an Italian passport as she has ancestors from Italy.

Apparently there are between 16-24 million Americans living in America who can take advantage of an Italian law which offers citizenship to those who can show that they had an Italian ancestor alive in 1861 or later.

Now, what about cats! I've got to add them into the article somehow. My initial very strong feeling is that if you have a cat companion their lives are going to be much better in a hilltop town in Italy which will be sleepy, quiet, warmer, beautiful, less noisy et cetera et cetera.

You have to comply with the pet importation laws into Europe from America. I have a story of an American who takes his three cats from America to Europe on holiday! Brave man. Interesting attitude. Read about him by clicking on this link.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Veterinary fees in the UK are often unjustifiably variable and inflated

NEWS AND COMMENT/OPINION: The Times reports today that veterinary fees in the UK have become a minefield because they unjustifiably vary tremendously from region to region, from place to place and in general they have increased many would argue unreasonably. 

The changes have come about because of the purchase of a very large number of independently owned and operated veterinary clinics by big corporations including equity funds which are managed by accountants; businessmen who's objective is to extract as much money as possible from these businesses whereas in the past the primary objective by an independent veterinarian was to provide a good service.

The Times reports that dog and cat owners are facing inexplicable variations in prices with some chains charging seven times more than others for the same procedure.

A new business/website has commenced which recently looked into this to try and help pet owners navigate the minefield. It was started by Susie Samuel and it is called VetHelpDirect.com. They have asked a large number of veterinary clinics and businesses owning and controlling these clinics to provide information about their pricing.

Three of the big six chains said that they would eventually provide all the information requested. However, the private-equity owned IVC Evidensia declined to provide the information. 

This business operates more than 1000 practices in the UK. They said that the "price is a single metric that does not reflect the quality of care or customer experience provided by our team." Comment: most people would see their response as trying to find a reason to not provide the information because it embarrasses them.

Here are some examples:

• The cost of a consultations varies between £20 and £120 in the UK.
• The cost of castrating a medium-sized dog varies between £100 and £760.
• Prescription charges vary between £12 and £31.
• The cheapest area for consultations is Dumfries and Galloway.
• The highest prices are found in West London.
• The most expensive prescription charge is in Canterbury.
• The least expensive prescription charges in Plymouth.
• Within the Birmingham post code, the cost of castrating a 35 kg dog varies between £155 and £500.
• The variations on the above in Torquay are between £40 and £120.
• As a whole, on average, the cost of a consultation in the UK is £47 but in Southampton it is nearer £60.

Veterinarians have been accused of failing to be transparent about their prices. It makes it difficult for customers to compare which is the major reason why, I suspect, that Susie Samuel has started her comparison price website mentioned above.

Her website provides visitors with the means to compare veterinary surgeries under a five-star review system. They found that the higher prices were not linked to better services. The 20 most expensive practices had an average rating of 4.4 out of five while the cheapest 20 has an average rating of 4.5.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Does anybody use dehydrated wet cat food?

I have never considered it but there is an "intermediate" type of cat food which is dehydrated wet cat food. It is shipped in packets as a powder. You pour out the amount that you think your cat can eat at one sitting. You add some warm water and it becomes a pâté or a soup depending upon how much water you add.

The advantages are that you can control the portion size and of course the storage of the food is easier. It is very compact and very long lasting. It gives the cat owner better control over cat food storage and delivery.

How many people use dehydrated wet cat food to feed their cat? Image: The Honest Kitchen

I think this is important because often cats don't finish the portion provided because the sachet is too big or perhaps the owner gives them too much. I don't know how many millions of tonnes of wasted, smelly wet cat food is thrown away into garbage cans annually in any one country but I expect that it is a vast tonnage.

Anything to reduce cat food waste would be welcome. I think dehydrated wet cat food is a great way to control portion size as mentioned. There appear to be some downside. It is not that readily available it seems to me in the UK (for instance). It appears to be less common than conventional wet cat food and certainly much less common than dry cat food.

And of course, you've got to add warm water which means using the kettle. A small irritation but one nonetheless. And finally, it appears to be expensive. Some cat food nowadays is inordinately expensive. It looks more expensive than human food and cat owners don't have a bottomless pit of money.

There has to be a reasonable balance between the advantages of living with a cat and the expense of keeping a cat. Cat owners have a duty to provide high quality cat food and a lot of cat food is not of high quality particularly cheap dry cat food.

However, there is a limit and I suspect that the apparent lack of popularity of dehydrated wet cat food is due to its expense. Have you tried it?

If it is more expensive and it appears to be this may be due to the manufacturing process. It is dehydrated after all so all the moisture is taken out of wet cat food. That might be an expensive manufacturing process.

The point has to be made that it is impossible to try and make comparisons on price between the various types of cat food. It's far too complicated which is why I have questioned whether it is more expensive than conventional wet cat food.

If you have personal experiences of using dehydrated wet cat food then please share them in a comment. They would be most welcome.

British Shorthair Price

All purebred cats are a similar price. And the price varies. Beware of non-purebred cats. You must see a pedigree - a chart showing the purebred parents and grand parents and so on going back several years.

There must be evidence that the cat is purebred up front before purchase. Non-purebred British Shorthair cats will be similar in price to random bred cats (cost of shipping and admin but no cost for the cat).

The cat should not show signs of being inbred. I have seen cats that look as if they are drugged - not interactive. Inbreeding can leave cats with low intelligence as well as other defects. Breeders tend to inbreed when selective breeding for appearance. Over bred cats will have an extreme appearance. Go for a normal appearance but the true Brit SH look. The cat should be confident, come to you and be well socialized meaning not afraid of the you and reasonable levels of noise etc.

The photo on this page is protected by copyright © . Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA). Sorry.

Classic British SH appearance - bicolor - photo copyright Helmi Flick

The price will vary between about $300 to well over $1000 (perhaps several thousand) depending on the cat's quality and whether the cat is a breeding cat or a pet. Average prices at 2011 would I expect be in the order of $500+. These prices are for the USA. For Canada I would use the same figures but in Canadian dollars.

For the UK the same figures apply but use pounds (GPD). Everything is more expensive in the UK. It is a rip-off country.

Prices For Purebred British Shorthairs

All non-breeding purebred cats of the same quality will have similar prices.  Research indicates that in the USA the prices for purebred British Shorthairs vary between about $400 and $1000. The variation is reflected in the quality of the cat. By "quality" the breeder means how closely the cat meets the breed standard and overall impression plus character of the cat. You can tell quality when you see it.

In Britain the same figures apply but you will need to change dollars for pounds (approximately). I would expect that mainland Europe was the same. For Canada the pricing will be a conversion from USD to Canadian dollars.

Breeding cats (unneutered) are more expensive and are sold to breeders. Sometimes people who intend to breed cats sometimes buy "pet quality" cats (cats not intended to be a breeding cat) and breed from the cat in breach of contract between breeder (seller and customer (buyer)). Under these circumstances the breeder will have a right to sue for compensation provided the contract allows for it.

Price of Siamese Cat

The Siamese cat will be the same or similar price as any other purebred cat. The price will range (as at the date of this post) around the $500 (USA) or £500 (UK) mark depending on quality and may rise to over $1000 for a breeding cat and more.

I have a page on Bengal cat prices that would apply in principle to Siamese cats too.

I rarely see prices listed on breeder sites. This must be because prices are flexible depending on the individual cat. The variation depends on "quality" meaning in thee eye of the breeder and in reference to the breed standard how good is this individual cat? This will or can change pricing substantially.