Dealing with an obnoxious cat!!! aka feeding time!

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turnandburn

turnandburn

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My one cat is either
a) really smart
b) highly motivated by food or possibly
c) a combination of both!

In any case, he is EXTREMELY obnoxious about food! He gets fed twice a day, around 7 am and also at 9 pm. I try to keep the pm->am interval the shortest because otherwise he wakes me up at 4 am! The morning feeding I can handle because I just feed him when I get up but it's the evening feeding that is really starting to piss me off!!! He starts in at about 7:30, with constant whining, as it gets closer to 9, the whining turns into practically screaming! It's very, VERY obnoxious- I've never experienced this with any other cat- and I've owned several!

I've tried yelling, squirting water, noisemakers, and putting him upstairs so at least I don't have to hear him- however, after he learned I'm going to lock him up, he started running away from me and now it's turned into a chase around the house. I've tried changing foods. Free feeding (he gorged himself! 🙄)

I don't know what else to do. He's not underweight. The vet hasn't found anything physically wrong with him. He's just always been a foodie.

Any suggestions???
 
are the feedings the same size? try doing it 12 hours between... move the one feeding earlier a little... this may just encourage him to yell earlier, but he could just be hungry because it's been over 12 hours since he last ate...

hmm i'm not very knowledgable on cat nutrition, training, or feeding, but this is the only thing i can think to suggest
 
Not a cat person at all but would more frequent feeding help? Like splitting up the evening feeding into 3-4 smaller chunks? Home from work, mid-evening, right before bed or something?
 
Oh my god, I had the exact same problem. My cat is sooo food-motivated! I hated to reinforce the behavior, but sometimes just out of the necessity for SLEEP I would give in and give him a handful of food....which would make him even WORSE...argh. If I free-fed him, he would gorge, then vomit, then eat his vomit, then beg for more food...ugh.

The best thing to happen for both of us was the purchase of an automatic feeder. It has five chambers and I set it to open every 8 hours. This way, he doesn't get too "starving" (according to him). The main thing is that he now associates the feeder with feeding--he doesn't associate ME with feeding! So he stares at it and hits it and tries to bump it open and stuff...which is just fine, because my bedroom is down the hall and I can SLEEP!!

Best of luck--if you have multiple cats, this might not work. 🙁 But it seriously was the biggest improvement in my quality of life ever and now we have a properly blissful owner-kitty relationship. 🙂
 
You could try this, but I can't guarantee it will work. I have this automatic feeder that you can program to feed 3 times a day. Maybe if he got fed at more intervals he wouldn't be so cranky before dinner rolls around. Or, maybe if you fed him part of his dinner earlier and then the rest before bed to tide him over til breakfast.

I know my feeder is wonderful for me because the cats know when it's time to eat and they relate the food to the feeder and not to me getting it for them. aka I don't get bugged for food by them licking or screaming. It's been amazing in getting my fat cat down in size too. It's something to think about, but it may be just a behavioral situation and you need to just be adamant about ignoring him. I know that's hard if he's screaming, but maybe he will eventually get the picture that he will not be getting food until it's time!
 
The automatic feeder is a great idea! I would definitely be willing to spend $$ on one if it would stop this behavior! I do have another cat though, so I'm not sure how it would work with the two of them. I also have a dog who frequently is allowed to roam the house when I'm not here, although I could probably find a spot to put the feeders that he couldn't get to (like a counter top).

I should also add, I have tried ignoring the behavior. Hasn't worked 🙁
 
turnandburn said:
I should also add, I have tried ignoring the behavior. Hasn't worked 🙁
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I know what you mean. I have a little s*** named Murphy (<--- see my avatar) who serves as a kitty alarm clock, whether or not I actually want to be up. I am disturbed every day between 6 and 630 am. Sometimes if I ignore him and doze off, he resorts to banging, clawing and crying at my roomie's door (not good for the cat OR for me, as she's a dental student and doesn't get much sleep as it is!).

My ex-boyfriend has the automatic feeder, too, and he loves it. I'm thinking of also purchasing one. If you get one, let me know how it works out!
 
Thanks guys for reminding me why I'm a dog person 🙂

I know mine are probably not the norm, but my two boys HATE getting up in the morning. Seriously, if they could they would stay in bed all day.

Although...it does make it very hard for me to motivate myself to get up. Maybe I should get a cat with vet school coming up...sounds like a good way to ensure you get up early every day, power outage or no!
 
We gave up and purchased an automatic digital feeder, so it dispenses her preportioned dry cat food at 6am and 6pm. Ours is the kind that holds a gallon of food. We can set it for 1-4 times a day, with a set amount at each sitting. Had it for 3 years now, replaced batteries twice, has worked brilliantly.
 
When I started to read your thread, it could have been about our cat, Charlotte. When we adopted her from the shelter she was underweight, and had recently had a litter. I think being on the street made her food obsessed because she never knew when her next meal was coming so she gorged herself whenever food was left out. She's wake us up at hourly intervals to be fed. AHH!!

We finally got a Pet Bistro Feeder from PetCo. It was the best $80 I have ever spent. She got used to the machine feeding her and didn't associate me with her feeding. BRILLIANT! I would highly recommend it! She gets 1/4 cup twice daily.

It's actually hilarious to watch her at "feeding time." Charlotte can hear the gears turning before the food falls out. She literally wakes up from a nap and starts RUNNING at full speed to her dish. :laugh:
 
ReadyBeVet said:
It's actually hilarious to watch her at "feeding time." Charlotte can hear the gears turning before the food falls out. She literally wakes up from a nap and starts RUNNING at full speed to her dish. :laugh:
Click to expand...

My cat does the same thing!!! And it's so funny to watch him try to get the food out earlier because his right front leg was amputated when he was young. Sooo, he braces himself against the floor with his left front leg and shoves his "shoulder" (where his scapula would be/cranioventral part of his chest) against the feeder. Repeatedly. So hysterical.

I'm housesitting and I just got a call from my roommate asking why Sebastian was locked in the office. I was like, "I'm willing to bet that was an accident..." Sure enough, he had shoved the feeder against the door and it closed on accident. The feeder is never in the same place twice...he shoves it all around with his little non-stump. :laugh:
 
My cat has serious food issues - if he doesn't get his dinner on time, he runs around yowling and eats plastic, tissue, tinfoil, styrofoam, etc. Well, actually, he does that all the time. Last week he ate my ethernet cable. He's like a Lab trapped in a cat body. I had an automatic feeder for a time, but he spent so much obsessively staring at it, lying on it, and trying to break into it that I had to get rid of it.

Right now, I'm using a "treat ball" which seems to work really well - it's a little translucent plastic ball I got at the pet store - it has little holes in the bottom (which you can adjust in size) so the cat can roll the ball around and eat kibble as it drops out. It's great because it makes him eat slower (less vomit, yay!) and I think it's more mentally stimulating for him. Maybe you could keep a pre-filled ball in your nightstand, and just throw it at him?

edit: to try to keep him from associating me with food (which he still does a little), sometimes I hide ball around the house when he's not paying attention
 
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CatVet2Be said:
I laughed so hard I almost cried:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q

No good advice though, my cat won.
Click to expand...

I LOVE that! LOVE LOVE LOVE.

And I'd like to add my vote for the automatic feeder. Kept me from killing my cat. 🙂 We set it for four times a day, though. And he figured out how to override the motor (it's the kind that has set compartments and rotates) so we had to wall mount it (looks ridiculous!). We had one before that dispensed a set amount from a hopper, but he's on a calorie restricted diet and it never seemed to give him the same amount of food twice. That was annoying, so we changed to this one.

Good luck!
 
My cats do the same thing when they hear those gears turning! They are at the feeder before the food even comes out. My feeder was just under $50, and well worth that price. I'll add that I do have two cats and they use the same feeder. Sometimes I can tell one cat eats more food than the other at a particular meal, but they seem to trade off and get a pretty fair share of food most of the time. If all else fails you could get two of them. But I have two males and they seem to share well (for cats at least!):laugh:

I have the pet bistro too, but if you check it out on amazon it's only about $50! Highly recommend, and I got it the day after I ordered with regular shipping. It was amazing.
 
alliecat44 said:
The feeder is never in the same place twice...he shoves it all around with his little non-stump. :laugh:
Click to expand...

haha i find the feeder in the middle of the room sometimes...it's some nice enrichment for them to say the least.
 
i thought i could save the day with auto-feeder advice, but looks like i'm late! my younger kitty is the same way. disassociating me from feeding time helped a lot. he can only get a few kibbles out of the feeder with his arm, but after about six months he's figured out how to remove the lid (and the lids to some tupperware storage containers) so i've had to employ some duct tape to foil him. around here, no food containers can be left on the counter, table, stove (that one makes me nervous!). also hops in the kitchen sink to lick up food residue. i can't believe the things he goes for- tofu, veggies, cheez-its, he'll try anything.
 
DVMorBust said:
Thanks guys for reminding me why I'm a dog person 🙂

I know mine are probably not the norm, but my two boys HATE getting up in the morning. Seriously, if they could they would stay in bed all day.

Although...it does make it very hard for me to motivate myself to get up. Maybe I should get a cat with vet school coming up...sounds like a good way to ensure you get up early every day, power outage or no!
Click to expand...

Dogs are NO better trust me :scared:. One of my little guys wakes up between 630-7 AM every day. I absolutely refuse to feed them before 7, or they just keep waking up earlier....been through this already. So, if they wake me up before 7, I let them out, tell them 'it's too early' and we try and go back to bed. This results in one of them trying to 'groom' me and sitting on my head. If he sees one of my eyeballs open, it's all over. I feed them 4 times throughout the day, but still get the whining and staring contest before every feeding 🙄

An automatic feeder for kitties sounds like a fabulous idea.
 
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I have 5 cats who all sing for their supper. They get fed 4-5 times a day, 1oz of raw food at a time (otherwise they scarf'n'barf). One of the things that I had to learn about was the concept of satiation vs. nutritionally appropriate, so I started adding some water to their food, to increase volume. This has toned down the yowls a bit - they seem to be a little fuller. Perhaps water to dry food could help as well?

And they're fine while we're in bed - but as soon as someone opens an eye, they start the chorus, taking turns to jump onto the bed and meow in our faces before running off towards the kitchen.
 
It would take a lot more work but you could also train a settle or go away cue. Our boys are fed when we get up and then at 5pm. If they try to bug us for food before five they are told go settle and ignored. Another acceptable option is to sleep on my lap until dinner time but I can only do one cat at a time. If its 5 and they are not in the other room settled they don't get fed until they are. Their cue that they are about to be fed is "are you hungry" which brings them into my room at an all out run! Then I make them work for their dinner (sit/speak/lie down) I know I'm mean!

Good luck
 
Angelo84 said:
Then I make them work for their dinner (sit/speak/lie down) I know I'm mean!
Click to expand...

Yes. My Peanut cat has to squeak, Seraphim has to go up on her hind legs (although not right now - she has a partial tear of a ligament in her LH, and is on metacam - I'm praying for recovery, because i can't afford an ortho consult right now!), and the other cats have their own routines before they get their food.

yay for hoops to jump through! 🙂
 
The automatic feeders are great, but they have some limitations. My evil genius kitty crouches down and shoves his paw up inside the feeder. He'll stand there all day eating the 3-5 kernals of food at a time. He'll go through the entire gallon in a day that way. He even taught the other not food motivated cat to do the same. Now I just use our VERY expensive automatic feeder when I go out of town. But I don't turn it on, just leave him to help himself. Thank god he doesn't have oposable thumbs. He'd take over the world. Sigh.
 
I second the idea of the treat ball. The Smart Cat Peek-a-Prize box is also pretty good, though they usually can go through that in 30 minutes or so.

I do think there are benefits to a multi-cat household with regard to these issues. My cats literally never wake me up for breakfast. I think a major part of it is that since they have each other to interact with, food isn't such a big deal to them. Of course, they do look forward to meals and get *very* excited when they realize I'm awake. But to them it's just one of many cool things in their day.

I also think there is some benefit to not feeding them the instant you get up. Feeding my cats is pretty much the last thing in my morning routine, so they're used to having to wait 30 minutes or so after I get up before they get fed. They're clamoring the whole time but that's okay.
 
my cat used to wake my up in the morning for breakfast (she used to find plastic bags to chew on because she knew I would pop out of bed if I thought she was going to swallow them), so I started only feeding her at night instead of twice a day.. didnt really think it was going to work, but I was suprised to find that it did.
 
critterologist said:
The automatic feeders are great, but they have some limitations. My evil genius kitty crouches down and shoves his paw up inside the feeder. He'll stand there all day eating the 3-5 kernals of food at a time. He'll go through the entire gallon in a day that way. He even taught the other not food motivated cat to do the same. Now I just use our VERY expensive automatic feeder when I go out of town. But I don't turn it on, just leave him to help himself. Thank god he doesn't have oposable thumbs. He'd take over the world. Sigh.
Click to expand...


Charlotte had been doing this for a few weeks before I realized it. I couldn't think of a way to keep her out of it. :idea:Finally I got a heavier piece of cardboard and taped it to the opening. She can't get her arm in at this angle so she can't self-serve! 🙂 😀 Maybe you could try this if you haven't already.
cat.jpg
 
well done!
i think i will do that too.
the cats get their arms up there, and my dog tries too. he can't get his fat stubby arms in the opening, so he tuns his head sideways and sticks his tongue up the opening- gets a few out that way (so I had to put it up high).
 
The things they do to get to food astounds me. I have one cat on a special diet and the others know they aren't allowed to eat out of his bowl when I feed him. I caught my problem child hiding under the table and sneaking his paw up the side into the other cats bowl, pulling out kernels of food onto the floor and eating them underneath the table so I wouldn't catch him! 😱
 
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