- Joined
- Oct 9, 2017
- Messages
- 112
- Purraise
- 96
I've heard fellow forumites say they managed to get their cats to stop begging/meowing for food at feeding time. How did you do it?! My problem extends much farther than scheduled mealtimes - my cat is always meowing for food. No need to read the details unless you want to (below).
Here she is giving me the stink eye for not giving her what she wants (does she even know what she wants?!)
The deets: Cookie doesn't generally eat much and is incredibly picky about food - even treats. Sometimes I will have to smear a bit of something incredibly enticing, like tuna, on her mouth so that she has to taste it - and then once she does she realizes she wants it. She doesn't even finish her treats most of the time because she only wants the tiniest bit. Same with her wet food - I feed her like a 1/4 tablespoon because she will leave the rest in her bowl for the kittens to gobble up.
But, she has this infuriating habit of meowing and dashing for her food bowl every time we walk in the direction of her food. Which is any time we are moving in the general direction of our bedroom (where her food is). And then if we are in the bedroom she stands over her food bowl (with food already in it 98% of the time) and looks up at us and meows.
I know that our bad habits have probably contributed to this. For awhile we figured out that she was more willing to eat her food when we flicked water on it (turns out, she often just licks the water off and doesn't actually put food in her mouth). So we've all but stopped that. And for a time we tried putting her food up because the kittens would get into it. She would obviously meow for her food and usually when we put it down she would look at her bowl then look up at us and continue meowing. I've pretty much given up on that as her food is a high enough quality it's okay for them to snack on it. So now we leave the dry food down all the time, always filled.
All our cats are fed wet food 3x a day - as much as they will eat in that sitting and we are pretty good at adhering to a strict schedule. The food itself is not a problem, because she readily eats it when she actually wants to eat. I've bought food she doesn't like in the past and man...it isn't pretty.
And no, there isn't a sequestered place in the apartment that we can *only* walk to when we are feeding her. It's laid out sort of in a line, so any place is on the way to another place. Literally getting up from the couch two rooms over has her dashing beneath our feet towards her food bowl.
And don't worry - she isn't underfed. Somehow, through all this, she manages to eat enough to maintain a healthy 12 pounds. It's actually a little hard to feel her ribs.
Here she is giving me the stink eye for not giving her what she wants (does she even know what she wants?!)
The deets: Cookie doesn't generally eat much and is incredibly picky about food - even treats. Sometimes I will have to smear a bit of something incredibly enticing, like tuna, on her mouth so that she has to taste it - and then once she does she realizes she wants it. She doesn't even finish her treats most of the time because she only wants the tiniest bit. Same with her wet food - I feed her like a 1/4 tablespoon because she will leave the rest in her bowl for the kittens to gobble up.
But, she has this infuriating habit of meowing and dashing for her food bowl every time we walk in the direction of her food. Which is any time we are moving in the general direction of our bedroom (where her food is). And then if we are in the bedroom she stands over her food bowl (with food already in it 98% of the time) and looks up at us and meows.
I know that our bad habits have probably contributed to this. For awhile we figured out that she was more willing to eat her food when we flicked water on it (turns out, she often just licks the water off and doesn't actually put food in her mouth). So we've all but stopped that. And for a time we tried putting her food up because the kittens would get into it. She would obviously meow for her food and usually when we put it down she would look at her bowl then look up at us and continue meowing. I've pretty much given up on that as her food is a high enough quality it's okay for them to snack on it. So now we leave the dry food down all the time, always filled.
All our cats are fed wet food 3x a day - as much as they will eat in that sitting and we are pretty good at adhering to a strict schedule. The food itself is not a problem, because she readily eats it when she actually wants to eat. I've bought food she doesn't like in the past and man...it isn't pretty.
And no, there isn't a sequestered place in the apartment that we can *only* walk to when we are feeding her. It's laid out sort of in a line, so any place is on the way to another place. Literally getting up from the couch two rooms over has her dashing beneath our feet towards her food bowl.
And don't worry - she isn't underfed. Somehow, through all this, she manages to eat enough to maintain a healthy 12 pounds. It's actually a little hard to feel her ribs.