Pander to your cat/dog?

tankgirl1

Hi

I'm going to cut and paste what I wrote in another thread, which may or may not be relevant.

Generally with young/adult animals I would say leave the food down, remove after 30mins or so, and give nothing else till their next meal - they will soon learn to eat what they are given! With older animals it is a bit more difficult, and there have been some good suggestions, such as warming her food up. Some cats also prefer saucers as they don't like their whiskers touching the side of deeper dishes.

I would however stick with the idea, that if it isn't eaten in 30 mins take it up - maybe just for an hour or two in her case, and then offer fresh - cats are notouriosly faddy, especially when old or ill, and if food is left down for hours they just won't touch it!

Anyway, good luck with your old lady and here is my (probably irrelevant) cut and paste:

I agree with all the above comments - great advice

One thing I would like to add, is please please don't start feeding him all sorts of different tasty foods to try and get him to eat - this wil make him spoilt and fussy, and if, god forbid, he should get ill later in life you will find it a real struggle to get him to eat!

My lot eat what they are given and are glad for it - dry food for the main, with the odd treat of half a pouch of wet every now and then. I'm hoping that their good quality dry food will a) help prevent problems further down the line, and b) the 'treat' aspect of wet food/the odd slice of chicken etc, will help them to see them as 'high value' foods, more likely to be eaten by a sick pet, should that ever happen.

I see a lot of 'spolit pets', fed only chicken or tuna or caesar etc, and so when they get ill there is nothing left to tempt them to eat with - they see these treats as normal fodder and turn their nose up! Conversely, I see a few who are fed as mine are, and once you get the pet equivalent of fast food out, they just can't resist!

Also I wouldn't worry - said pooch is eating daily, drinking, and presumably prefectly active and urinating and defecating normally - it may just be he needs a bit of time to get used to his new environment - dogs get stressed too, and one of the signs is reduced appetite - this should resolve with time.

If at any point he stops eating or drinking altogether, then I would suggest a visit to the vet.
Whew! Long reply! Hope it helps some

I_luv_cats

Now it is colder/draughty I keep my Living room doors closed and my cat keeps wanting to come in and out of my living room!!

He pulls the towel off the radiator and sleeps on it under the radiator!!

Emmylou_2

Some people think my guys are fussy. They eat (in lovely quantities - big and strong cats but not fat) their Hills Science dry food, which is free fed (in two locations - one near their bedroom, one near the back door, but they absolutely will not touch most wet foods. If they're offered Whiskas, or Felix, or similar, they may deign to lick off the gravy or push it round the bowl with their noses, but will not eat it. However, Applaws (tinned and pouches) and Cosma, they absolutely love it.

And I don't mind buying it. I currently have enough income to do this, and when I don't, they don't get it. They were perfectly happy over the summer with just their dried foods and the odd treat of cat milk. I see it that I don't have kids, but when I do, I won't feed them "orange food" from Iceland etc all the time. Yes, once in a while it's fine, but the rest of the time they'll have good quality stuff. So why should I treat my cats any differently?

Their absolute favourite treats though are melon (Nev) and grapes (Splodge - bitten in half and held while she licks them, with the juice being squeezed out slowly). Oh, and Nev adores raw potatoes - either to play with or to nibble the peel of. You have to be careful when you're preparing Sunday lunch not to get sliced Neville's noses in with your veggies!