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Hello everyone,
Im thankful to anyone who can offer advice or reassurance. We are going on a one week trip soon and are trying to figure out how to feed our cats while we are gone. Currently they eat three meals a day that I have perfectly calibrated. They need to be monitored because Fizzbin will eat the girl‘s food if left unattended. We have a pet sitter coming twice a day because that is the only option open to us. The plan was to have her feed them two wet meals a day and then have the timed auto feeders dump kibble in the middle of the day. We figured out how much of the kibble Fizzbin is likely to eat and how much the girls will manage to get. The problem has become that Penny seems terrified of the feeder (I think it’s the sound of it dumping the food) and just won’t eat, so of course Fizzbin will eat too much. We can’t allow that because he is already slightly overweight, which we’ve been working on and making good progress, and I hate that this trip is interfering with that.
So now I’m thinking, would it be possible to just do two meals a day for just this week? I could take Fizzbin‘s daily calories and divide by two, and I know he will have no problem to eat his portion. Then for Chloe, who is a skinny little thing, the pet sitter can just feed her until satisfaction, and she too can put it down in one sitting if she is hungry. The problem becomes Penny, because she is very set on the portion she eats. I don’t think she’ll get enough calories, and to make matters worse, she has issues with regurgitation, so I’m afraid eating a larger portion will be difficult for her to keep down. We still have two more days to experiment, so I’m thinking of trying the two portions and seeing how Penny does. Maybe she’ll actually eat more if she’s only getting the two portions. Or maybe I should keep trying the auto feeder and see if she gets used to it. We are also thinking of having the auto feeder dump half the food we planned and just figuring Penny won’t eat but at least the other two will get a small snack. We started them on it on Monday and she’s still scared.
I hate how stressful this is. We have the pet sitter coming tonight to meet the cats and we don’t even know what to tell her about how much to feed. I guess my main question is, will they be okay doing two servings a day for a week and will Penny be okay going a little hungry? I feel terrible about it and it makes me wonder if I will ever enjoy traveling again. We have two more week long trips coming up this summer so I need to sort it out somehow.
Also, just in case anyone mentions it, we really can’t have any other situation than a twice a day visit. We are rather rural and don’t know any neighbors well enough to invite them into our home and don’t want to rely on acquaintances to drive out here. We’ve made that mistake before and we are going with a professional this time.
Im thankful to anyone who can offer advice or reassurance. We are going on a one week trip soon and are trying to figure out how to feed our cats while we are gone. Currently they eat three meals a day that I have perfectly calibrated. They need to be monitored because Fizzbin will eat the girl‘s food if left unattended. We have a pet sitter coming twice a day because that is the only option open to us. The plan was to have her feed them two wet meals a day and then have the timed auto feeders dump kibble in the middle of the day. We figured out how much of the kibble Fizzbin is likely to eat and how much the girls will manage to get. The problem has become that Penny seems terrified of the feeder (I think it’s the sound of it dumping the food) and just won’t eat, so of course Fizzbin will eat too much. We can’t allow that because he is already slightly overweight, which we’ve been working on and making good progress, and I hate that this trip is interfering with that.
So now I’m thinking, would it be possible to just do two meals a day for just this week? I could take Fizzbin‘s daily calories and divide by two, and I know he will have no problem to eat his portion. Then for Chloe, who is a skinny little thing, the pet sitter can just feed her until satisfaction, and she too can put it down in one sitting if she is hungry. The problem becomes Penny, because she is very set on the portion she eats. I don’t think she’ll get enough calories, and to make matters worse, she has issues with regurgitation, so I’m afraid eating a larger portion will be difficult for her to keep down. We still have two more days to experiment, so I’m thinking of trying the two portions and seeing how Penny does. Maybe she’ll actually eat more if she’s only getting the two portions. Or maybe I should keep trying the auto feeder and see if she gets used to it. We are also thinking of having the auto feeder dump half the food we planned and just figuring Penny won’t eat but at least the other two will get a small snack. We started them on it on Monday and she’s still scared.
I hate how stressful this is. We have the pet sitter coming tonight to meet the cats and we don’t even know what to tell her about how much to feed. I guess my main question is, will they be okay doing two servings a day for a week and will Penny be okay going a little hungry? I feel terrible about it and it makes me wonder if I will ever enjoy traveling again. We have two more week long trips coming up this summer so I need to sort it out somehow.
Also, just in case anyone mentions it, we really can’t have any other situation than a twice a day visit. We are rather rural and don’t know any neighbors well enough to invite them into our home and don’t want to rely on acquaintances to drive out here. We’ve made that mistake before and we are going with a professional this time.