our cat acts like he's always STARVING

My cat Wilson has the table manners of a poorly behaved dog.  He constantly begs for scraps, and will happily eat anything we eat.  Bread, popcorn, potato chips, rice and beans, hummus... I've had him steal a carrot off my plate before.  He just scarfs it down the second you turn your back.

This evening we turned our backs for a second and he got onto the counter for a plain tortilla, even though he already had dinner this evening.  I don't know how he even smells plain bread products (in a wrapper!), but he does.  The other night he was on the counter for a slice of pumpkin pie.  He's torn into grocery bags before that had literally a loaf of bread and some produce.  

Cat food is the only meat in the house, and he doesn't even seem to notice.

We feed high-quality grain-free cans, and occasionally prepared frozen raw.  He does  seem to do better on the raw, but not ever enough to stop the begging or to keep him from INHALING whatever food winds up in front of him.

He is  an older dude, and has hyperthyroidism.  He's on 5mg methimazole 2x daily, and at last check his T4 levels were low-normal on medication. After these past few days of counter-surfing we're definitely going to go get his T4 tested again.

Is there anything else we could be missing?

We've had him for two years now, but we found him wandering the streets with no front claws.  I can only imagine what his past was like, so I chalk most of his odd behaviors up to that.  Has anyone ever a similar experience or anything?

Not that it's any help, but I have one who loves people food and steals it if it's not locked behind a cabinet door, in the microwave, or put in the oven and she's perfectly healthy!  She also gets a high quality grain free diet.  I think it's because that's what she had to do to survive on the streets.  Some habits are just hard to break. 

That is totally helpful, we were starting to just think he's a nut since most people seem to have pretty much the opposite problem and can't get their cats to eat anything   

My old boy Wesley also loved to eat and would eat anything. He would even try to take the food off my fork as I raised it to my mouth! Although he was a stray when picked up by animal control at 1 to 1 1/2 years old, we adopted him at that point and he never went hungry again (except in his own mind.[emoji]128512[/emoji]). He remained ferociously hungry all 19 years of his life. When he was 19, he had a stroke, could no longer walk and was in pain. Despite that, he polished off a big meal right before the vet came to end his suffering.

All of which is to say, some cats just LOVE to eat!

I made a wanted poster for the kitties I used to have in my family.

They were Wanted: For Lying About Not Being Fed

My little calico  would even occasionally pretend to limp to get extra food. I know this because she wasn't super good at it. She kept forgetting which paw to hold up and one of her paws was all white and the other mostly brown so it was pretty obvious. 

It is a proud tradition among felines. When I feed them I like to say "Enjoy your very first taste of food ever! This is food!" 

In fact, when I am putting down cat food, I yell "Suuuuuuuuuiiieeee pig pig piggggie!" and they come running. Third generation of cats I have had to do so.

I have several cats like this. I have one who runs figure eights around my feet while I'm trying to walk to the kitchen to get his food, then swats at me or bites my pant leg if he doesn't think I'm moving fast enough (yeah well, it's hard to walk quickly when you're encircling my feet, dumdum!). He also thinks it's time to eat whenever I:

1) Get out of bed to use the bathroom (middle of the night, morning, doesn't matter)

2) Walk from my bedroom to any other part of the apartment

3) Go in the kitchen for any reason, even if I fed him literally 5 minutes ago

4) Walk in the front door

5) Pass within a 5 foot radius of his food dish

6) Open a cabinet door

7) Rustle any kind of bag that sounds like the cat food bag

8) Have food of my own (especially chicken)

He could literally have gravy dripping off his chin from food he just scarfed down and he would still yell at me for more food if any of the above scenarios occur. I feed him and my other two (all strays/ferals) here in Kuwait a high quality dry food. I buy something cheaper to feed the dozen-odd ferals I'm taking care of outside my building. Every night I "refill" my provisions to carry down to my car so I can feed the cats on my way in from work. Whenever I pull out the bag of "cheap" dry food, he DEMANDS some, too. *facepalm*

I do control his mealtimes though dry food is always available. He is a feral rescue and I think it's a byproduct of those days. When I was feeding him outside, I could put down 4 helpings of wet food and he would eat ALL of it. Even today I have to chase him off of his sister's food dish.

I have several cats like this, one who had learned to literally open the fridge door (I have to lock it now) he also had a verocious fast paw who swipes food off your plate. And a cat who will chew through anything. She chews the dog food open,the grocery bags, plastic containers, you name it! My kitten, a bottle baby eat a lot, whenever he is hungry he comes and suckles on my lip, if I don't get up, he bites! They are all perfectly healthy. Just cats I guess!

My cat started being a jerk and trying to steal food when she went through a IBD flareup. Before she would almost never show any interest in human food, and then she started rejecting her cat food and trying to steal human food. Pastries and breads especially. Any bread left out overnight would be found out of its bag and on the floor in the morning. At one point, she hid behind my partner's monitor and tried to pull a whole danish into her "lair." (So my partner gave her some crumbs to get her to stop. Bullied out of food by a 6 lb cat.) I think it was because she was trying to tell me the food I was feeding her was giving her a stomach ache and she was starving. Because I was swapping feeding duties with my partner, I didn't even realize how much less cat food she was eating until she gave up eating altogether (leading to a nice month of vet visits and syringe feeding). She's pretty much recovered from that (with the help of prednisolone), but she's still has the food bully habit she picked up. Last night she wouldn't stop trying to eat my fries and I ate my dinner with her paw on my hand.

My cat doesn't act like he's starving, but he's getting fat and I am feeding him a high quality, no grain diet.  I just got him from a shelter back in June and almost had him put down as he's a biter.  (got quarentined for a few weeks in the fall, thanx to this behaviour.....).  It is my opinion that he hasn't shown any aggression in several weeks now due to the diet and other house restrictions I have put him on.  Anyway, I am now going to start him on some probiotics and that's what I'm suggesting for these cats that are eating bread and corn and such.  It sounds like these cats are craving the sugars due to an imbalance in their digestive tracts.  It's why dogs eat poo.  Therefore, I suggest some good probiotics for the cat.  Yogurt is good, but more may be better to start with, then maintain with a yogurt type product.  Dr. Mercola has a product on her web-sight.  I'm going to check my local store first, though....  I don't want to do the Purina product and I think Purina sux!

How is your kitty's weight? Losing or gaining weight? When was the last time bloodwork was done? Has he been screened for diabetes. for example? My Tiger had both diabetes and hyperthyroid, both caused increased appetite, but tremendous loss of weight.