Do cats eat out of spite????

My fatcat Pippi always goes to eat my other cat's food before she gets a chance. Prissi, knows that Pippi is top cat in the house, and I heard that Calicos are usually sassy. Pippi will swat at Prissi sometimes when she is eating and Pippi will take over her dish. Is she doing this just so Prissi has to stay hungry? Some nights if it gets bad, I have to feed Prissi in the sink, where Pippi can't get to.

Hi! Yes, I think what you are seeing is a behavior
along the lines of dominance.... the one eating the
other's food is saying "I'm in charge - or I want to be"

My submissive fat kitty Shebs would do that to
Diablo (who was top cat) out side.

Now I have a new young cat... I feed the 3
cats in two separate places - so that young
cat doesn't eat with old kitties (too stressful).

But I notice Diablo the old top cat eats
out of Lexi's food bowl FIRST
then goes to his bowl... luckily she just eats dry
and he gets the (to him) more tasty wet. LOL!

Ok, well Pippi is older, fatter, and she's the top cat, when ever she chases Prissi, Prissi always submits and usually lays down on her back thn Pippi will walk away. I guess I'll just keep feeding my younger one in the sink so Pippi can't get to the food.

Not spite, just one cat showing the other who's boss cat.

Not spite, just that she is the alph cat. And feeding the other cat in the sink is interfering. To cats, the higher up, the more dominant. So the dominant cat should get to eat up higher than the other cat. If you are going to feed someone in the sink, best to feed the top cat there.

Just try to look at Pippi's viewpoint, and even Prissi's. They both understand that it is ok for Pippi to eat first. You can separate the bowls further, to make it harder for Pippi to leave her bowl and pester Prissi.

Very interesting

My sister's cat did that to my cat all the time (I had to get my cat put to sleep yesterday though) I had my cat 7 years before my sister's cat came along. She is only a year old, and her name is Peaches. Peaches had a litter of kittens a few months ago and its been about a month since we got rid of her last kitten. She eats more now than she did when she was pregnant. If Tigger was eating, (we have the dish on a shelf they can jump up on because my dog likes cat food ) Peaches would jump up on the shelf and Tigger would jump off, and Peaches would eat. Usually, I had to give Tigger a handful of food beside the dog's dish and sometimes she would eat and sometimes she didnt, whereas the dog would pick up the leftovers afterwards. I always thought Peaches was just a glutton, and a tormentor, she always tries to grab my dog Daytona's tail, (which is actually a stub! lol) or Tigger's tail.

When I introduced Izzie to Charlotte, I had more issues with food than with Charlotte accepting Izzie into the territory as a whole. Charlotte was very possessive over the food and would eat everything in sight. She gained about 2 pounds in a short period of time.

One thing that worked for me was my acting like a guardian or mediator during meal time. I would sit next to Izzie and keep telling Charlotte "No." everytime she got too close to the bowl. I also had to use my hand at times in order to keep Charlotte from over-taking the food bowl. Charlotte learned quickly that when I was present, Izzie would eat. It took another couple months for Charlotte to totally accept Izzie eating from the food bowls without me being there, but it happened. Now Charlotte actually allows Izzie to pick which bowl she wants first!!

I'm sort of supervising meal times in my garage. I have 2 outside cats who hate each other. Will wants to bully Josie, and chase her away from her bowl, but he responds to loving attention. So he has his bowl, and she has two bowls (so he can hog one). But I still have to sit and pet them both to get them to eat together.

And she is tiny, so I am afraid if I don't monitor, he won't let her eat. They were fine all summer, because she would eat in the barn, but since it has gotten cold she moved into the garage, which is Will's domain. Hopefully, they will calm down in time. It is quite silly, really, because if they cuddled I'm sure they would both be warmer!

If you watch cat behavior in the wild, the dominant cats always eat first, and you could say that they give permission to others in their pride to eat. When I feed my gang, the top cats get served first in their own special places. It not only keeps them away from the others, we help to acknowledge their place in the house and confirms their sense of importance.

Your best bet is to separate them when eating if you want to control Pippi's weight and allow Prissi to eat in peace.

Spite is not an emotion that animals register, or display. It's too complex (although, if any animal was going to it would be a cat!!!).

Like everyone else said, it's purely dominance. All animals have a pecking order when they are in a situation where there is more than one of the same kind of animal (or not - if you include humans in the equation). Your Pippi is top cat - she will ALWAYS display this kind of behaviour. So you need to make sure Prissi can eat by feeding her separately

Ok, this may not be as hard to do as I thought. As Pippi has gotten older, she moves around less, and so she usually comes downstairs for breakfast at anywhere between 8am to about 11am, depending if she sleeps on someone's bed. If she sleeps on someone's bed with them, she wakes up when they wake up usually.

Prissi on the other hand is a different story, she is the traditional cat and snacks throughout the whole day. We used to feed her in the laundry room and then once she finished eating, we would move the food dish. When she got hungry again, she would go look for the food dish and it would be gone, so she would come and bug me until I got it down.