otherwise pleasant cat turns into a screaming nutcase at meal time

Tilly Lu is 3 years old(indoors only;spayed about a year ago, never was pregnant), I've had her since she was about 6 months old.

She started off "free feeding" with a quality dry food, but recently(6-8 months ago) switched to homemade food- boiled chicken, fish, occasional beets and butternut squash. (She also gets GNC Pets multivitamin from Petsmart.)

Around the same time we made the switch, Tilly started becoming very aggressive near meal time. Starting at about an hour before breakfast/dinner, she begins meowing very loudly and progresses into trying to start fights with my dogs(thankfully, they do a pretty good job of resisting) and scratching at my partner and I. If she gets especially worked up, she pees/poops on the spot. After she eats, she's back to her normal self.

After watching a few episodes of My Cat From Hell, we established several high places for her to get on both in the kitchen and in the loft, as well as providing her with a variety of toys. Nothing seems to have helped.

We're pretty much exhausted with all of this, and have no idea how we can stabilize her. It's stressful for the entire household, and honestly isn't sustainable.

Any ideas on what's going on and how we can remedy? I'm open to any and all suggestions at this point.

Thank you.

Hi achenn.. Welcome to TCS

I'm just a little concerned that this could have something to do with nutrition... If you're making homemade food, it needs to be very carefully balanced.  By cooking the chicken, for example, she'll be low on taurine.  Since it happened around the same time, it really does seem to be linked.  I'm going to ask someone who knows nutrition well to look at this, and maybe even move your post to that area.

I also am concerned that your cat isn't getting a balanced diet.  A natural diet is small rodents and birds, and cats eat most of their prey including bone, skin, fur, small feathers and innards.  None of that is in your diet, and cooking as said above degrades some of the essential nutrients as well.

Please go over to the Nutrition forum and find out how to improve her diet.  In the meantime it would be worth going back to the dry food.

Hello and welcome to TCS. I'm glad you've come here because it sounds to me like your cat is starving. I agree with the others, she is not getting adequate nutrition and her body knows it, so she is reacting this way about food.

"pet vitamins" will not balance cooked chicken and fish. There is much much more to a cat's nutritional needs than that.

Please put your cat immediately on a high quality commercial food, (I recommend canned rather than dry) then, as has been suggested, visit our nutrition forum for help in designing a balanced home made diet for her.

Change her food back to a balanced commercial food right now, before it's too late.

Thank you all for your quick and thorough responses.

What you've suggested makes perfect sense. I'm wondering, though, what the best option for pre-made food is? While the animals were being fed Blue Buffalo, a presumably high quality food, I was still concerned with the quality of products being used, so I switched them over to hand made organic meals(I know.. :rolleyes2)

Is there any real difference between wet and dry foods, other than texture? I've read that both can be harmful for Tilly's teeth(wet too mushy thus leading to rot, dry too hard leading to surface damage). I guess what I'm saying is I've seen a lot of conflicting answers and information and don't really know how to interpret it all. (I'm not super trusting of the vet with regard to issues like this because I know food brands "buy" some vets loyalty which is why you really only see one brand(Science Diet, Royal Cannin, etc) in their offices.)

Also, how long after the switch to pre-made food can I expect to see some sort of result(hopefully, her calming down during meal times)? If switching the food doesn't do the trick, what else can I look toward?

Thanks, again!

Dry food is not good for cats. The texture does not help their teeth as many cats swallow their kibble whole and even if they do crunch it, it just shatters, doing nothing for teeth health

What I do is feed grain-free wet food with some commericially prepared raw food for some meals (I am not personally comfortable just yet with feeding all homemade meals as feeding an unbalanced homemade meal is worse for them than eating a not so great commercial food, so there are balanced commercial raw options available for people like me, or you if you choose to go that route).

For teeth, I give him a raw chicken wing (chopped in half or even thirds) once a week or so, and also sometimes chicken necks. They have to chew and gnaw on these and that is good for their teeth.  I know with a chicken wing it can take my guy about ten minutes or so to work his way through one. If your cat is not used to eating bone in meals, then you  may have to take this gradually to help him work up to developing the jaw strength to eat through one. Start off with chopping up the chicken wings into thirds or so. Or a cut a chicken neck in half.

When looking at commercial foods to feed, just make sure the top ingredients are protein and there are not many if any fillers such as grains or corn. 

Hope this helps!

I think your cat is not getting the proper nutrients and a balanced diet either. This is very important and could be causing your cat to have this behavior outwardly. I would immediately get your cat on a better diet, preferably wet food, canned or even raw if you are interested. Your cat needs a diet change inclusive with the proper balanced nutrients immediately. I honestly believe that your cats behavior is due to lack of proper nutrition, and we are very glad that you came to us so we can help you help your cat. Your a good momma and this will can easily be addressed.

This following article is not only about raw feeding. It is packed with important information on the proper diet for our cats. This would be a good start to help you along. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread

Good article on dry food and why it does not clean teeth http://www.thecatsite.com/a/does-dry-food-actually-clean-your-cats-teeth

I recommend a trip to the vet in addition to getting your cat on a good commercial canned food right away,

She's been on an unbalanced diet for 8 or 9 months now, and she may have medical concerns caused by malnutrition. A good check up with blood work and a urinalysis will help determine if there is anything else that needs to be done, aside from the immediate diet improvement.

Canned food doesn't rot a cat's teeth. A wet diet will keep your girl properly hydrated which is one of the most important things about cat nutrition.

I know you've been given a lot of reading to do already, but if you read nothing else, this site is the one I recommend to help you understand the nutritional needs of cats, It is written and maintained by a vet who has devoted herself to educating people about the proper nutritional needs of cats and why:

www.catinfo.org

.

Just thought I'd give everyone an update since you were all so helpful-

After trying a variety of wet foods with little change in meal time behavior(and I noticed even the higher quality foods contain very little taurine?), I consulted Tilly's vet and went back to making her food. I am now incorporating baked chicken(apparently much of the nutrients are water soluble so they were being lost in the boiling process), fresh (well-rinsed) clams, and a variety of organ meat. She seems to be doing much better already- her erratic behavior has decreased dramatically and I've noticed she's not eating as aggressively("killing" her food) as before.

Tilly has a follow up vet appointment coming up soon to ensure we're still on the right track.

Thank you again for all of your help.

Did the vet tell you how to supplement the homemade meals? It's very important because lots of necessary nutrients are lost during cooking and need to be replaced in the correct amounts for your cat to be healthy. That's why some people here suggested canned food, because it already has all the essential nutrients every cat needs. When you cook it yourself you need to add in all those nutrients or your cat's health will suffer.

I'm glad that Tilly's behavior seems to have improved.

A little taurine is all that is needed, and all commercial canned food has sufficient quantities in it.

While vitamins are water soluble, that only helps if the cat drinks all of the liquid that the food was cooked in.

Clams/fish have a fair amount of minerals in them, and as such should not be large part of a cat's diet, especially male cats (cause they tend to have more serious UTIs than female cats).

Glad you're taking Tilly back to the vets.