Kitten stealing adult cat's food

I know it's usually the other way around, but I have a 6-7 month old kitten stealing my 1.5 year old cat's food. I feed them the same stuff - 4health All Life Stages. It's exactly the same food and the moment I got the kitten I was feeding her in her own room and haven't moved their bowls. A couple weeks ago she started sneaking to his food bowl and eating his entire bowl within minutes even though her own bowl was completely full. If he's at his bowl, she'll scare him away to eat it. Today she got on my last nerve. I heard hissing and growling coming from my older cat's bowl and saw her clawing him away from his food while he was eating. I shooed her away and she went off to finish her food in the other room. Not even 5 minutes later I hear more hissing and see my older cat cowering in a corner of the kitchen while she's gobbling his food again. I've had her for 2 months now and this behavior didn't start until about 2 weeks ago.

I don't think it's a case of her being hungry. I feed her nearly twice as much food as I feed my older cat because she's a kitten and needs it. But she picks at her food most days. She rarely finishes it all in one go. She WILL eat all of his food, and twice she's puked it up because she was eating so fast she wasn't chewing it. This is food aggression, right? She's trying to take his share of food to show dominance? How do I stop this behavior? I read that you shouldn't scare them away from the food bowl or use a squirt bottle because they'll develop food aversion, which honestly it looks like my older cat is getting because any time he goes to eat, he slinks into the kitchen and is constantly looking around to see if she's there. A little background, my 1.5 year old cat is a neutered male and has always been very shy and timid. He's 13 pounds, so twice as big as the 6 month old kitten but he's never shown her any aggression. 

If nothing else I'll just save up money for those microchip feeders, they're both microchipped. But I'd rather not spend $300 if I have other options.

Hi, and welcome to TCS

I don't know about aggression, but it's definitely food dominance, and not fun to deal with. Females will very often become dominant over males, especially if they're very confident alpha types. At 6-7 months, she's old enough to be challenging the older cat's authority (think of a child becoming an adolescent ), and it sounds like that's exactly what's going on here.

The easiest solution would be to create a sanctuary room for your boy, and fit the door with a microchip-programmable cat flap that is set to only allow him access. That way, he'll be able to eat in a relaxed, peaceful way, safe in the knowledge that he won't be disturbed.

Microchip feeders rarely work in these situations, because the other cat can muscle in once the 'correct' cat has opened it

In addition, giving them both (but especially your girl) plenty of interactive playtime will help her burn off excess energy in a positive way, and him reinforce and regain self and territorial confidence - something that he'll really benefit from in these circumstances Playing with your girl just before feeding with help spark her appetite and (hopefully) encourage her to eat her food before trying to hunt for his.

Good luck with them both. I really hope you're able to resolve this soon :cross: [article="29678"][/article][article="32493"][/article][article="32827"][/article][article="30316"][/article][article="32758"][/article][article="29675"][/article][article="32656"][/article]