Begging for people food

[lil maggie]

I don't like giving Maggie any people food and normally she never comes in the kitchen during dinner. But Maggie is a porker. No, she's not overweight, she's 5 pounds but any pork like bacon or ham and she's begging. She's good though, she sits and waits but if she has to wait too long for 1 or 2 small pieces, she'll stand up and tap on you. Now the dog is another story

No, I don't give her much in people food. She knows to stay out of the kitchen during dinner but ends up crawling slowly to the table...it's so pitiful and yep, I end up giving her a bite

I'm such a softie!

 

[captaincattings]

Originally Posted by jaycee

Oscar is 9 weeks old now. No matter what it is we are eating, he will beg for it and do anything to try and get some. Its like he goes into a frenzied state. Ice cream, bread, meat, cereal, etc. He has bitten me and my 8 year old once each (confusing our fingers with food). Is there any way to stop this behavior or do we just need to lock him up when we eat?

Keep a spray bottle nearby when eating. You must do something about this behavior if he becomes so frenzied that he is no longer careful about not harming you/your child. Start off by telling him sharply no and pushing his nose lightly away. If the kitty continues or gets more aggressive, sneakily spray him in the face as he is trying to reach the food and say no affirmatively.

I don't like to spray my kittens with water, but when a behavior becomes a big problem, it won't harm them.

Just try to be a little sneaky, because you don't want the kitten to be mad at you .

This technique has worked great in keeping my cats out of the giant pots of soil in my house that the indoor trees are in. They used to climb into it and dig. This is no longer a problem and they still love me just the same.

Best of luck,

Captain Cattings
Visit my blog!

 

[carolina]

Originally Posted by CaptainCattings

Keep a spray bottle nearby when eating. You must do something about this behavior if he becomes so frenzied that he is no longer careful about not harming you/your child. Start off by telling him sharply no and pushing his nose lightly away. If the kitty continues or gets more aggressive, sneakily spray him in the face as he is trying to reach the food and say no affirmatively.

Please do not spray the kitty on the face...
IMO, the best way to train him the right way is to feed him before you eat, at his own place, and completely ignore his pleas for food.
I do agree it is a good thing that he likes a lot of different foods though - I wish Lucky was more like that... She won't eat anything besides her dry food, and I know I will have problems when she becomes ill and need medicine...
Bugsy eats wet cat food, but not human food; actually, I Lie - he loves buffalo wings

.
Hope is my little beggar - it makes you wonder how come she is so tiny! The way I get around that is feeding her wet food before Bugsy and myself, otherwise she will not let us eat. I never give her anything from my plate - she only eats from her plate. Even if Bugsy is full, and I want to give her his left overs, I still transfer the food to her own plate.
If Hope was not a foster, I could care less, but.... I need to get her ready for her next family...

 

[jellybella]

We are teaching our new boy, Barney, to be more polite at meal time. He actually got burned in his old home because he was trying to get at the people food

It seems that he will eat anything --even DH's bran muffin

That being said we are seeing some improvement. A couple of things we've done: feed him right before the human meal and feed him more than the other two cats (he's less than a year--growing boy), close him out of the room immediately if he goes for the food (he is very clingy right now and spends a lot of time rubbing himself on our feet--he wants to be near us all the time, so this does seem to have made an impression) and any paws on the dining table are immediately pushed back to the floor. After our meal, I give him a little bit of dry food as a treat. We have been doing this since we got him a few weeks ago and are just seeing the difference now. No spraying necessary.

Luckily, he is a smart boy and he's picking up on this, last night he sat next to me while I ate a burger and aside from a few sniffs he was very polite and stayed on his chair. He was rewarded with a wildside salmon treat

I still close him out of the kitchen when I'm cooking, I just don't want to take the chance he'll get burned again.

 

[yosemite]

Originally Posted by CaptainCattings

Keep a spray bottle nearby when eating. You must do something about this behavior if he becomes so frenzied that he is no longer careful about not harming you/your child. Start off by telling him sharply no and pushing his nose lightly away. If the kitty continues or gets more aggressive, sneakily spray him in the face as he is trying to reach the food and say no affirmatively.

I don't like to spray my kittens with water, but when a behavior becomes a big problem, it won't harm them.

Just try to be a little sneaky, because you don't want the kitten to be mad at you .

This technique has worked great in keeping my cats out of the giant pots of soil in my house that the indoor trees are in. They used to climb into it and dig. This is no longer a problem and they still love me just the same.

Best of luck,

Captain Cattings
Visit my blog!

Never, never, never spray your cat with water. If any water gets in their ears it can develop into a very serious infection to the point where they will lose their hearing.

There are many better ways to discipline than with water. If the cat sees you are the one spraying water they can become afraid of you and not want to sit on your lap or cuddle with you. They'll associate you with the bad thing. I wouldn't spray a child with water for incorrect behaviour and cats are no different. Do the same as you would for your child - time out, redirection of their attention, etc. Animals aren't so stupid they can't be taught better manners but I've seen people who are.