Yeah but Ty, they got an ex-stray. They tend to wolf down ALL the food in their bowl and STILL demand more. So the cat can’t eat it throughout the day since it’s gone in 15 minutes.
Right, sorry, I wasn’t clear… there’s a big difference between a cat that has known easily available food since it was a kitten, and one that has nearly always gone hungry as a kitten. I guess they get “imprinted” with the food behaviors at that critical early stage in life and they never change.
Which is also kinda creepy if similar psychological things happen to human children. :(
But she will not eat unless someone can watch her back while she eats, so she ends up eating anytime anyone is by the kitchen or the opening in the loft above.
Really? So if you leave food out, she won’t immediately wolf it down? Wow, that’s strange… usually strays are CRAZY about food and are nervous only when eating around unknown entities-- eg potentially unsafe situations where, in their mind, they might get attacked from behind while eating.
Wen we first got Floyd we’d put the food out and he would just peer at us (and the food) from behind the bookshelf. He’s a bit shy, so we had to slowly work our way up to him eating around us over a period of a week.
2 cats - two feeds a day - 7 AM and 5 PM…1/2 scoop of Iams Less Active for the two of them…they beg but their weight stabilized…had them both in the 12-15 range. Got them back down to 10-12.
My cat’s an ex-stray, and in fact nearly starved (she was stuck inside a wall of someone’s house for like two days, and then it took me 18 hours to figure out why she wasn’t eating, find somewhere that sold cat formula, and figure out how to feed it to her). But she doesn’t wolf all her food down now. I fill her bowl whenever it’s empty, and she just eats what she needs to and hasn’t gotten fat yet (although I’ve only had her about a year).
I’d post a picture, but they’re all Stone Age paper photos. Suffice it to say she’s the cutest cat there ever was.
Wumpus - yep, won’t eat unless someone is around, she really isn’t that picky about who, but she prefers men to women if they are a stranger.
When we first “took her in” we couldn’t really let her inside the house for the first two weeks and didn’t want to leave food out, so we would bring a bowl out a couple of times a day and sit with her while she ate, I think she just got used to it.
Sally doesn’t like the squirt bottle. We got it to discourage her constant furniture scratching. One day, she’s scratching away at the couch and I go for the squirt bottle. She hauls ass. A few minutes later, she comes wizzing back through the living room, hooks one claw in the couch and tears ass off. That’s my cat.
We started our kitten out with a squirt gun. Only when on counters and tables because she did not claw things up yet. The first couple of times she flinched, but now she will sit there, take it, and when we are done she will simply give herself a little bath. Its almost as if she saying," Fuck that shit. I’ll show you. Hell, I appreciate the water. Bring it on. That’s less saliva I have to expend."
We started our kitten out with a squirt gun. Only when on counters and tables because she did not claw things up yet. The first couple of times she flinched, but now she will sit there, take it, and when we are done she will simply give herself a little bath. Its almost as if she saying," Fuck that shit. I’ll show you. Hell, I appreciate the water. Bring it on. That’s less saliva I have to expend."
Yeah, Elsie is like that. You can squirt and squirt, and she doesn’t particularly enjoy it, but it doesn’t really bother her either. Of course she is 99.9% crazy. It sort of see-saws between “incredibly entertaining” and “insanely annoying”.
I oh-so-strongly encourage the purchase of a cheap laser pointer. For the incredibly low sum of $5 you can drive a cat absolutely apeshit. Careful to keep it away from their face - just pretend it’s a bug and crawl that evil red dot around on the floor, up the walls, and in circles around 'em. Cats cannot stand it. My kitten is pretty antisocial - I can’t even pet it. However, I break out that laser pointer and I’ve got a solid hour of cat fun.
Very true. My old room mate had one,and his cat didn’t pay any attention to it, however sally as a kitten went completely bonkers about the thing. Hours of laughs.
We used to have a cat that was very, very stupid. One vet though she was brain damaged a little as a kitten. If you shot her with a squirt bottle, she just looked at the spot in puzzlement and then started licking it off. At least it gave her something else to do & stopped the unwanted behavior.
May I present Bill’s successor, a gigantic three-year-old Maine Coon cat with six toes on each front paw:
Got him from an area shelter, where he was dropped off due to the arrival of a new baby in the family who turned out to be allergic to him.
He’s been really affectionate today – he was so relieved to be out of Petsmart (which had a bunch of shelter cats on display) he purred for the first hour-and-a-half straight. And he’s already a lap cat.
His name was Mittens, which just will not do for a 20 pound Maine Coon. Henceforth, he shall be Mitty.
The six toes thing worries me a little, though. The extra one could be prehensile, and we know it’s only been cats’ inability to use tools that has kept man dominant over the species so far.
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