I came home to find my 7-8lb tom cat (Witchkin
) has managed to gnaw his way into a clip-top Tupperware container and single-pawedly eat nearly 5lb of dried food in the space between 6pm last night and 3pm today. Plus what the timed feeder handed out at 10am (two cats' dinner)... Leaving not a crumb.
(To anyone worried) Thankfully it seems he hasn't managed to do himself any serious damage, he has passed most of it out nearly undigested into "the palace". He is not in pain when I gently press his bulging tummy, and seems very relaxed. I'm keeping a close eye on the idiot, but he seems okay. Just podged and comatose from gorging. He's pushed his ribs out so far they're visible.
What worries me is that he has such an issue with food, I got him as a very sick kitten at the end of September last year..
Since then (after treatment) he has always had a weighed meal at 9am on the dot, with Lucina-kin and one at 6pm on the dot, then supper at about 10pm (literally a scattering of biscuits to stop them following me to bed). He has grown into a big strapping cat, but is still like a bag of elbows. He's also incredibly stupid and badly physically coordinated we think he just didn't get enough something when he was a baby.
I don't mind because he is an incredibly cuddly friend. he's even taken baths with me, laying on his back on my tummy, his head poking out of the water. I would never give him up.
But he has always been absolutely feral-berserk about food. And I'm starting to see it could be dangerous. He will snatch and run, steal, bite, growl, wail, cry like a human baby (disturbingly accurately) and literally walk across an active oven ring to get food (he arrived with burned feet, and has done it once since living here). Once his face is in something edible, he's clamped to it.
He takes anything edible if I'm not fast enough to stop him (or a visitor is lax). Bread, wheat, oranges, soup, garlic (raw or cooked), cola, Stilton, prawn crackers, curry, chili.. Anything. Except thankfully, sweet things.
When he first came, he was so badly behaved concerning anyone else eating, I had to put him in the cat carrier with a blanket until we were done eating. After about a month I had him calm enough to be loose (but he would frantically beg and steal), by two months he learned that even sniffing my plate was a bad idea whilst I was touching it. The same courtesy is only extended to anyone else (cat or human) as long as I'm in the room. My boyfriend hates cat-sitting because Witchkin goes berserk again. If I let go of a plate or put it down, there's no stopping Witchkin.. Which is understandable, it's "abandoned" food.
I have tried leaving food down for grazing, with and without a dispenser to see if it would calm him down. My other cat is a nibbler, and loves to take one or two biscuits and skip back to her bed. Witchkin though, just stuffed himself until he was having to cram loose food back into his mouth with his paw, panting and upset that he couldn't take more in. Sleep, expel the unnatural amount of food, repeat. After 3 days I couldn't watch him do it any longer and went back to mealtimes. I've tried several times but the result is the same.
Recently he has started savaging plastic cartons, packaging and tubs on the off-chance they contain food. This weekend, he gutted an empty milk carton, foil layer and all because I left it poking out of the bin bag.
I just worry he is going to seriously injure himself, if and when I let him out again... If he gets into someone's rubbish bags, or God forbid, their house through a cat flap, he could cause such problems.
Tomorrow I'm calling the local animal rescue centre to see if there's anyone who can offer advice on dealing with him. I know cats steal, beg and misbehave, but he takes it so such an extreme that it's hard to explain properly. And after today I really worry. If it had been a 5KG bag of food, he could have killed himself trying.
Has anyone here ever calmed their cat down? I feel like I've failed somehow, but in every other aspect he's the perfect companion, and very well trained.
(To anyone worried) Thankfully it seems he hasn't managed to do himself any serious damage, he has passed most of it out nearly undigested into "the palace". He is not in pain when I gently press his bulging tummy, and seems very relaxed. I'm keeping a close eye on the idiot, but he seems okay. Just podged and comatose from gorging. He's pushed his ribs out so far they're visible.
What worries me is that he has such an issue with food, I got him as a very sick kitten at the end of September last year..
Since then (after treatment) he has always had a weighed meal at 9am on the dot, with Lucina-kin and one at 6pm on the dot, then supper at about 10pm (literally a scattering of biscuits to stop them following me to bed). He has grown into a big strapping cat, but is still like a bag of elbows. He's also incredibly stupid and badly physically coordinated we think he just didn't get enough something when he was a baby.
I don't mind because he is an incredibly cuddly friend. he's even taken baths with me, laying on his back on my tummy, his head poking out of the water. I would never give him up.
But he has always been absolutely feral-berserk about food. And I'm starting to see it could be dangerous. He will snatch and run, steal, bite, growl, wail, cry like a human baby (disturbingly accurately) and literally walk across an active oven ring to get food (he arrived with burned feet, and has done it once since living here). Once his face is in something edible, he's clamped to it.
He takes anything edible if I'm not fast enough to stop him (or a visitor is lax). Bread, wheat, oranges, soup, garlic (raw or cooked), cola, Stilton, prawn crackers, curry, chili.. Anything. Except thankfully, sweet things.
When he first came, he was so badly behaved concerning anyone else eating, I had to put him in the cat carrier with a blanket until we were done eating. After about a month I had him calm enough to be loose (but he would frantically beg and steal), by two months he learned that even sniffing my plate was a bad idea whilst I was touching it. The same courtesy is only extended to anyone else (cat or human) as long as I'm in the room. My boyfriend hates cat-sitting because Witchkin goes berserk again. If I let go of a plate or put it down, there's no stopping Witchkin.. Which is understandable, it's "abandoned" food.
I have tried leaving food down for grazing, with and without a dispenser to see if it would calm him down. My other cat is a nibbler, and loves to take one or two biscuits and skip back to her bed. Witchkin though, just stuffed himself until he was having to cram loose food back into his mouth with his paw, panting and upset that he couldn't take more in. Sleep, expel the unnatural amount of food, repeat. After 3 days I couldn't watch him do it any longer and went back to mealtimes. I've tried several times but the result is the same.
Recently he has started savaging plastic cartons, packaging and tubs on the off-chance they contain food. This weekend, he gutted an empty milk carton, foil layer and all because I left it poking out of the bin bag.
I just worry he is going to seriously injure himself, if and when I let him out again... If he gets into someone's rubbish bags, or God forbid, their house through a cat flap, he could cause such problems.
Tomorrow I'm calling the local animal rescue centre to see if there's anyone who can offer advice on dealing with him. I know cats steal, beg and misbehave, but he takes it so such an extreme that it's hard to explain properly. And after today I really worry. If it had been a 5KG bag of food, he could have killed himself trying.
Has anyone here ever calmed their cat down? I feel like I've failed somehow, but in every other aspect he's the perfect companion, and very well trained.
