V is for Variety (and a dissertation on cat food)

There's a pet store in town that I love. It has dogs running all around since apparently the couple that owns the pet store has three dogs and they are fostering two more (anyone want two adorable! little! tiny! I've never heard them bark! chihuahuas in the Madison/Milwaukee area?  They need to be adopted together and they are a bit on the older side and I would take them if a) my husband wouldn't flip out and b) my cat wasn't bigger and more aggressive than both of them put together).  Anyway, there are dogs running around all over the place which will endear me to anyplace.  Yes, even your home.

They are definitely a dog-centric and bird-centric store and it's like the cats are afterthoughts, but they do have a nice selection of cat food, which is why we go there.  My cat cannot be trusted with these lovely ceramic bowls because she knocks over her water bowl 78948902384902 times a day, but I desperately want one of those green ones with the paw print in the middle.  

So, about that selection of cat food they have.  I did SO MUCH research when we took Zelda off her kitten food , Science Diet Kitten.  Science Diet was fine and she tolerated it fairly well, but we had some issues regarding unpleasantness in her hind region that I blamed on the food. So when we switched, I chose Wellness Core because it got such glowing reviews from people I trusted.  Yes, I ignored the advice of our vet.  I made sure we could get Wellness at this pet store in this town, but when we got here the pet store owner told us that he had stopped stocking it because the price kept going up.  Damn it.

The very nice pet store owner (fostering TWO chihuahuas - are you sure you don't want them?) gave us about a dozen samples of different high quality cat food to choose from and I ended up picking Natural Balance Dry Cat Food Pea and Salmon Recipe. I had not chosen Natural Balance from the beginning because of some controversy surrounding a recall of some of their products as well as a mislabeling of ingredients, but when I took the foods out of the sample bags and let her sniff, Zelda went wild for this stuff!!  And she eats so much better than she did on either the Science Diet or the Wellness that I wonder if we don't have a picky eater on our hands.

Natural Balance comes in approximately eighty gazillion flavors and we just picked salmon because Zelda liked the smell, but I'd be curious to know if anyone else has tried other flavors of Natural Balance with their cats.  Or, if you don't use Natural Balance, what do you use?  I am not steadfastly committed to Natural Balance if anyone else has a decent suggestion for something we can get locally, is relatively healthy for my Zelda, and has magical properties such as making my cat STOP KNOCKING OVER HER WATER DISH?!?!