8 Best Cat Treats, According to Veterinarians

"Churu is popular at our vet offices. It's a lickable cat treat that is like a paste that you squeeze out of a tube," Dr. Lippman says. "It takes cats a while to eat and lick up and so it keeps them distracted. And it's highly palatable," which is a fancy medical term for the fact that the puree tastes really good to cats. It's got a lot of water content, obviously a lot more than dry treats, so Churu can also be hydrating.

We see Churu pop up in a lot of Reddit recommendations for the best cat treats and it gets more than 27,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. This is a jar of 50 tubes in four flavor varieties, so it should last you a while and can also help you narrow in on which flavor your cat likes best. One cat who tested treats for us will eat dehydrated chicken anytime, but only likes Churu in its fish flavors. Cats are weird!

This fairly new brand makes my own chonky cat the happiest little creature. If you're already ordering other things for your kitty, toss one of these $2 3-ounce bags into your order and see if your cat goes just as nuts. (There's also a 5-ounce size for a dollar more.) They're crunchy on the outside but softer on the inside, like a kitty candy bar, except they're in flavors like this chicken-and-cheese variety. Each treat is actually a little less than two calories, so when I give my fat cat five (or, okay, 10) at the end of the day I'm still not exceeding about 20 calories in treats.

As of this reporting, 96 percent of the reviews on Chewy are five-star ones, so I know I'm not alone in having a cat who is bonkers for Bonkers. My only minor complaint is that I can't get the bag sealed up very well and so have to store it in a sealed food-storage container or bag. Side note: Bonkers also makes cat lollipops (!) called Purr Pops that are freeze-dried treats; you hold the stick while your cat chews, and they kind of make a mess, but they're a way to bond with a skittish cat.

"If you are looking for something for dental health, the cat treat should have something called the VOHC seal on it, which stands for the Veterinary Oral Health Council. That just means that it has proof that the treats may have some dental benefits," Dr. Lippman says. Feline Greenies have the VOHC seal and fit the bill for helping to clean cat teeth. (They've had the seal since 2005.)

Feline Greenies earn more than 38,000 five-star reviews on Amazon and are easy to find in many pet stores and mass retailers. However, there's a kitten version online that I haven't seen in stores. Regular Greenies are formulated for cats who are age 1 or older, and the kitten version is for the younger ones. Both are available in big tubs.

Sometimes you have to give your kitty medicine for a stretch or, if they're diagnosed with a chronic condition, you have to dole out medicine every day. Cats have an amazing ability to eat all the food out of their dish but somehow avoid a pill! These soft Pill Pockets, also by Greenies, are a way to hide a pill so that your cat (hopefully) swallows it down. You push a pill or capsule into the hole and then pinch it shut so it's sealed around the medicine and ideally tricks your cat. These are another cat treat that Dr. Lippman mentions by name as being useful for her vet clients.

Pill Pockets are about three times as costly as regular Greenies, so while they're excellent if you need to hide a med, they might not be what you choose for casual daily treats.

I have served these, but I'll be the first to admit it's rough on those of us who don't like to think about the dead animal when we're serving meat to our pets or ourselves. These are whole, raw, natural freeze-dried minnows in a bag. Each is very high in protein, a guaranteed 60 percent crude protein compared to about 28 percent in a serving of supermarket brand Temptations dry cat treats. Because they're raw, the manufacturer urges you to wash your hands after serving them.

Predictably, cats love these whole fish, and using them as a training reward can work particularly well, for instance doling one out to a cat or kitten who is training to use the litter box. "You can actually train your cats to do a lot," Dr. Lippman says. "Just Google 'cat tricks.' I think people have taught their cats everything from walking on a leash to giving their paw to playing fetch, just like a dog would."

These are well known in the world of dry, crunchy cat treats. Temptations come in a huge range of flavors which can be fun to try, especially since the brand is sold nearly everywhere (grocery stores, pet stores, mass retail, online). Though it has fewer ratings than the chicken flavor, shown, my cats are fans of the backyard cookout flavor with chicken, liver and beef and there are often seasonal Temptations as well, especially during the holidays.

Temptations are a good size to put into treat-dispensing cat toys though those toys, in general, don't get great reviews. Temptations seems to have suspended its own line of treat dispensers. My tried-and-true tip is to use them with a cat treat puzzle to keep your kitty entertained. My cats, hilariously, ignore the puzzle during the daytime but when I come down after a night's sleep, the treats have magically disappeared. I don't know which of my two cats is the one that solves the puzzle.

RELATED: The Best Cat Toys, According to Testing

One of our elderly treat-testing cats has loved these for years. When his human parent serves them, she breaks them up into a powder to turn it into more of a lickable cat treat for him, but cats can also eat them in nugget form and they'll sort of melt in their mouth. These are also good for breaking up and serving as a powdered meal topper over your cat's kibble, for a hit of protein and extra flavor.

The price of freeze-dried treats is expensive across the board, but a little goes a long way. These keep well, too; our testers have had a bag stay good for as long as two months. These treats are for both cats and dogs, so if you have a canine at home, too, your pets can share.

If your cat is a fish fiend they might love the fresh, flaked fish in this line of Purina cat treats, which only feature one steam-cooked ingredient. The pouches are tiny but mighty, so the brand asks you to not serve more than four a day. In other words, keep these as a treat and don't try to make it their main meal, which would get to be expensive, at any rate. I find the pouches handy for calorie control because it's a little too easy to serve a handful of dry cat treats.

The salmon flavor, shown, gets the most Amazon reviews, but one of our pickiest tester cat is so wild for the tuna version that she'll only nibble at her dry food and wait for daily tuna time. There's a bit of a smell factor with this, especially that tuna one, so if you're a person who can't take a fishy smell, try the chicken.