My cat can't get the hang of eating wet food...

Hi,
I have a pretty weird problem. My two cats are (as usual) like day and night: one is a pig when it comes to food, the other one a slow eater and occasionally picky. Both have lived exclusively off Science Diet dry food since I got them. Now I've read a bunch of articles on all the not-so-great ingredients that go into that food, and thought I'd try out some high quality canned food. Problem is, my picky eater doesn't know how to eat wet food! She just keeps licking at it (like water), and barely gets anything into her mouth. After 20 minutes, most of the food is still sitting there, and she seems to be frustrated about the whole thing. So am I! For some reason, she can't figure out how to get a chunk into her mouth. Eventually, she stopped eating and started scratching the floor around the food bowl, trying to "cover it up", similar to the way she scratches in the litter box. Can't make any sense of that.
So, any suggestions on how I can teach her to just dig in? I've tried offering her a small chunk on my finger, but she just licks at it until it falls off, then keeps licking at it on the floor. Should I just wait until she gets hungry enough to try biting at the food? I really feel bad about this, and I'm tempted to just give her her old dry food again.
Thanks!

Maybe if you pushed a few pieces of the dry into the top of the wet food, the cat would bite at that and accidentally figure out how to eat it?

Originally Posted by wishiwas

Maybe if you pushed a few pieces of the dry into the top of the wet food, the cat would bite at that and accidentally figure out how to eat it?

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I agree. That's what I would try. If she gets a taste of the canned food and finds out how good it is she may not want the dry food again.

The scratching around the dish is based on her instinct to hide her food (the prey she has killed) from other cats or her enemies. She wants to bury it so that she can come back for it later. My Tiggy does that with his canned food.

A third vote here for the kibble on top trick. Push them in halfway, like wishiwas said.

I'm not sure which brands/varieties you've tried but you may have to experiment with a lot of different ones before you find the one that is more agreeable with your picky eater.

Precious eats a lot like your girl does. She did pretty well with the chunks/gravy type foods, but I had to look for other options when most of those were recalled. I finally found a "pate" type wet food that she would eat reliably - Natural Balance Venison/Pea. She'll usually eat quite a bit in one sitting without any special encouragement or bribery. If she slows down or acts frustrated, I make little "meatballs" out of it and she picks those up and eats them. She's been on it for months and it's still her favorite.

Sounds to me like she just likes the GRAVY part!
Oh, and BIG cats in the wild will cover the food that they can`t eat...so that they can return and eat it later.....so she`s not telling you that it tastes like S---....she`s telling you that it was good enough to save and come back later for.
Linda

I have a different suggestion. Maybe you could try putting a very small amount of wet food on your finger and then push your finger gently into the side of kitty's mouth. Hopefully, she'll start chewing the food.