My cat is giving his food away

Hello all,

My 15 year old male cat, Boo, has always given away his food. He's overweight, has thyroid issues (is on medication), but otherwise he's doing well. I had 2 cats until recently and they'd both eat together but the other one would finish first and then Boo would just walk away and let the other one eat the rest of his food. They got along well and since Boo was the overweight one, I wasn't too concerned about it. Both were indoor/outdoor cats and both got along with other cats, no fighting, both neutered.

Now I only have the one cat left. It's been about a year since he's been the lone cat and recently a neighbor's cat has been coming by and watching Boo eat. Boo will let him watch for a minute or so and then he'll walk away and let the neighbor's cat finish his food! And he insists on eating outside. If I put the food down in the kitchen, he won't eat it. And when we go outside, he immediately starts looking around for the other cat. This morning, after giving him his bowl, I looked out there and my cat is lying in the yard watching the neighbor's cat finish his food.

It's not a problem and Boo seems to be eating enough. He's still overweight anyway so it's certainly not going to hurt him to walk away from a meal. I just think it's weird and I'd love to know why he does this. He doesn't seem intimidated by the neighbor's cat at all. If anything, it's the neighbor's cat who is intimidated by Boo. He slinks around and waits in the bushes until Boo walks far enough away to where he feels comfortable enough to get near the bowl. He definitely is not pushing my cat away. I just don't get it. Any ideas???

It sounds kind of cute.  Why not put 2 bowls out separated by enough distance that maybe they can both feed at the same time?  You might also alert the other cat's owner in case they want to adjust their cat's outdoor routine to prevent this from happening as often.

Hah! That might be fun to watch and see what happens. Not sure I want to get into the habit of feeding the neighbor's cat twice a day but since he's already eating it anyway, maybe I'll just split up what I usually give my cat and see how it goes. Funny though, I did mention it to the neighbor. She walked by the other day and there was her cat, under the bushes so I told her he sits there a lot and waits to eat my cat's food. She seemed to think it was funny. I think he spends most of his time outside.