Watch me eat!

My parents have a cat (Oliver) that does not like to eat unless he has an audience. He will find someone and meow until that person follows him to his food dish. It makes him very happy to have company, he will often stop to head-butt whomever is watching. Does anyone else have a simillar experience?

How sweet! My shy little Pearl likes me to stay in the room while she eats, but that is to prevent the others from taking her food. It sounds like Oliver is a sweet, social kitty that likes a dinner companion. Welcome to TCS. We would love to see pics of Oliver.

Sibohan is the same way, you can leave her in a room with her wet food and she won't touch it, but once you come in she waits for you to sit down and will eat right in front of you. Duke dosn't realy care.

That's interesting! My Cupid is similar. He will follow me everywhere, so if I don't stay in the room with him while he's eating, he'll leave and let it go bad!

seth likes to eat when we are eating. if we prepare a meal and sit down, she almost always goes to her bowl and chows down

My three have a measured amount of kibble in their dish to last the day, and then morning and evening they split a can of wet food. Marnie and Thisbe loved their canned food and will fall to without coaxing, but Cushie has to be sat with. LOL She mostly wants the gravy (which is okay with me, because the reason I give them canned food is to get some water into them) and unless she really likes the flavor of the food, she leaves it after she's licked all the gravy off. Then Marnie usually finishes anything left in any of their bowls. I should have named her "piglet". LOL

Originally Posted by Catfriend

My parents have a cat (Oliver) that does not like to eat unless he has an audience. He will find someone and meow until that person follows him to his food dish. It makes him very happy to have company, he will often stop to head-butt whomever is watching. Does anyone else have a simillar experience?

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That's so cute! My own little pigs couldn't care less who is in the room with them, so long as they have food in their bowls! They don't mind having company, and fortunately have no food-aggression issues (heck, Spike gobbles down his own food and then pokes his head into Oz's bowl, and Oz is just fine with that), but they don't require an audience, that's for certain.

Originally Posted by krazy kat2

How sweet! My shy little Pearl likes me to stay in the room while she eats, but that is to prevent the others from taking her food. It sounds like Oliver is a sweet, social kitty that likes a dinner companion. Welcome to TCS. We would love to see pics of Oliver.

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My Maggie used to require me to be in the room to prevent the big boys from steeling her food, she always ate slower & often had 3 boys staring her down while she finished her meal. Now that she's a little bigger (7 months 5-6 lbs) she eats fast enough to keep up with them.

Yeah, Ollie's pretty great. He kneads and makes a great deal of noise (slurping and such) about his dinner (and he eats dry food, so how he manages to slurp is beyond me ) Both he and his brother (Felix) were bottle-fed orphans, so maybe it has to do with associating humans with nurturing. However, Felix doesn't require company.

I don't have a digital camera or a scanner, but my folks have a dig. camera, so maybe they can email me some pics of "The Lads".

My Clyde does this, too! For the longest time, I didn't understand why he would wake me up in the middle of the night and drag me out to the kitchen when there was PLENTY of food and water left for him... I thought maybe he had a short-term memory problem! But from reading this board, I've learned that cats are social eaters, and they do like to have company at dinner. :-)

This explains why my babies hang around while I'm eating, even after I've given them a taste and they've gone ~ptui~. They're keeping me company! Such sweethearts...

My Oliver could care less who's around while he's eating... he's free fed dry kibble (and won't touch wet food) so he eats whenever he wants (he wont finish a bowl if I put it out for him anyway... he eats a little bit at a time, several times a day)... but he's ALWAYS where his mommy is when she's eating (which is usually in his domain anyway: ie the floor or desk)... he'll usually sniff when I first sit down and if he would like a taste, he'll politely put his paw on the edge of my plate/bowl, if what I'm eating is ok for him to sample, I'll give him a bit if he's uninterested or after he's sampled, he'll just lay down and watch me.... I'm definitely glad he doesnt pull me outa bed to watch him eat, that's for sure! He knows his mommy likes her sleep!

Originally Posted by Sibohan2005

Sibohan is the same way, you can leave her in a room with her wet food and she won't touch it, but once you come in she waits for you to sit down and will eat right in front of you. Duke dosn't realy care.

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Somehow, looking at the picture of Duke and Sibohan side by side, I'm not in the least surprised that "Duke doesn't really care" if anyone watches him while he eats! LOL None of my four needs to be watched, and they all eat dry food whenever they want. But Reno and Sam (the "little" girl), have to be personally served before they will eat wet food, whereas Harry and Rocky vocally complain if I take too long to put their wet food on the plate, and race each other to get to the first plate I put down.