Hi everyone, I’m hoping to get some advice or hear from anyone who has dealt with something similar.

My cat Hexa is a young female tabby (1 year and 4 months old 4.5kgs). She’s otherwise happy, playful and generally acts like herself, but we’ve been dealing with recurring soft stools and I’m struggling to work out what is causing them.

A few months ago she had an episode of very soft/liquid stool along with a reduced appetite. We took her to the emergency vet because she also had a fever of 39.7°C. Her bloodwork, vitals and scan were otherwise normal. An ultrasound showed a little fluid around the bowel, but nothing major. We subsequently had fecal PCR testing and bloodwork done, and everything came back normal with no parasites or obvious infectious/disease cause found.

She improved and was back to normal, but the soft stools have started happening again.

Food history

She currently eats a combination of wet and dry food. The foods we've been using include:

Royal Canin Home Life Indoor dry food

Tiki Cat After Dark chicken recipe in broth

Ziwi Peak, including venison, rabbit and lamb

She has also had boiled chicken and pumpkin in the past

There have been occasions where her stool has been completely normal, so I’m trying to figure out whether this is a food intolerance/sensitivity or something else.

Recently, she was eating her dry food and then had progressively softer stools. My vet doesn't want us to simply remove everything at once because then we won't know what is actually causing the problem.

Instead, the plan is to eliminate things systematically. The idea is essentially:

Dry food → if stools remain soft, try Tiki Cat → if still soft, try Ziwi Peak → if still soft, try Hill’s i/d digestive food.

So we're currently testing the foods one at a time rather than changing everything simultaneously.

Today, for example, I gave her about 21 g (¼ of an 85 g can) of Ziwi Peak Rabbit & Lamb at 12 pm.

She's also currently getting Pro-Kolin, 4 mL per day split into 2 mL twice daily, as recommended.

What I'm wondering

Has anyone had a cat with recurring soft stools where parasites, infection, bloodwork and imaging were essentially normal, but food seemed to be the eventual culprit?

I'm particularly interested in:

How you figured out which food was causing the problem

Whether your cat reacted to a particular protein rather than the brand itself

Whether dry food was the culprit even though they had previously tolerated it

Whether your cat had intermittent soft stools from something other than food

How long you gave each food during an elimination trial before deciding whether it worked

Whether Hill’s i/d helped when other foods didn't

Any other things I should discuss with my vet

I'm not looking to diagnose her through Reddit and I'm continuing to follow my vet's advice. I'm just hoping to hear from people who have gone through something similar because it's frustrating seeing her stool go back and forth between normal and soft when she otherwise seems completely fine.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or experiences.

Looking for advice/suggestions for my cat with recurring soft stools