Kitten Playing With Older Cat's Food

[Hortonhearsadan]

Hi all, just got some questions about kitten habits. Our youngest kitty Gilly (9 months old) LOVES to play with our older cat's Dental care granules because they're big balls, and then eventually eats the granule when she's decided she's victorious.
What do i do to stop her doing that realistically?
We try to stop her whenever we see her doing it and direct her to her own bowl of kitty granules but soon she goes back to patting around Timbits' granules and we cant watch her all the time. Do they grow out of this? Timbits never did this so she didn't learn it from him.

There's countless granules under the fridge and in random places that we find when vacuuming, so has anyone got any thoughts on this?

 

[Anne]

She sounds really cute
Feeding two types of diets in a multi-cat household is always a challenge. Generally speaking, you just need to prevent her from accessing the granules by feeding in separate rooms and on a schedule. I would also look into getting Gilly more toys, specifically feeding balls like this one -
PetSafe SlimCat Interactive Toy and Food Dispenser

 

[margd]

As Anne points out, the only way to ensure that Gilly doesn't make off with the Dental granules is to feed your older cat in a separate room. It's hard to do this if your older cat is used to free feeding or if he or she likes to leave some food in the bowl and then come back for it. My Chula is like this - she likes to save some for later. My question is: is the dental food helping your older cat's dental problems enough that she actually needs it? I've heard mixed reviews of the efficacy of those foods so if it's not really helping that much, you might consider just eliminating it from the equation.