# One cat keeps dragging food out of bowl



## JimD1007 (Jun 4, 2014)

One of our cats (2 years old) has always picked up and placed her wet food outside the bowl and on the floor. Even if we place a mat down, she will place it just off the mat onto the floor where it makes a mess.

Do I just keep getting bigger and bigger mats until she finally drops it on the mat?

Is this a not an uncommon problem?

What's my next step?


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

It's not uncommon. I have one that does it and the best advice I can offer is just clean it up afterwards.


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## Aeth (Mar 31, 2014)

River does that. Tried a shallower bowl but no can do. I just scrub the carpet every couple of days, there's nothing else for it. The one thing that does make a difference is food 'in gravy' but that tends to be the foods of less nutritional acclaim so I don't want to give her that as a habit.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi Jim, welcome to Pet Forum. 

Yes, I think this is not an uncommon problem. I had a couple of cats 20 years ago who did this. Some cats do not like eating out of bowls at all. I solved the problem for mine by giving them medium-sized ceramic dinner plates (i.e. the type used by humans) and no mats.

2 of my present cats eat off side-plates as they prefer them to eating from bowls. They are OK with the mats I provide, which are low in chemical smell.

I noticed some of the mats on sale in the pet stores have a strong unpleasant chemical smell A cat's sense of smell is about 30 times stronger than ours, so imagine how off-putting it must be to have such a smell near your food. 

If you are feeding your cat chunks of raw meat, or raw on the bone, then giving him a plate may not necessarily be the solution. It is much more common with raw food IME, for the cat to take whole pieces of meat off the plate and eat them directly off the floor. The more the cat's food reminds him of his natural prey, the more likely this is to happen I find. (instinctive behaviour). 

If it is the case you are feeding raw I can only suggest putting the plate on a hardwood floor, not a carpeted one, and giving the floor a quick wipe with dampened disposable kitchen towel after each meal.


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## ForeverHome (Jan 14, 2014)

Mine are fed in a carpeted area and the mat was problematic to them usually ending up in an empty water bowl and soggy carpet. So I invested in a roll of clear plastic carpet protector, and they are welcome to drag and splash to their little hearts' content.


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## JimD1007 (Jun 4, 2014)

We use 6 inch ceramic plates for the wet canned food and they're on a ceramic tile floor.

So clean up is easy - just a constant PIA.

Thanks for the responses. Now I think it's just a cat's natural instincts, so we'll just deal with it.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Just a thought with the wet canned food - if it's a pate type of food 
I find the cats are less inclined to pull if off the plate onto the floor if the food is cut up (but not mashed) into bite-size pieces. Might be worth a try


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## JimD1007 (Jun 4, 2014)

Oh my wife makes sure their wet food is in bite sized pieces (cutting it up with a knife) and at body temperature - 7 seconds if it's been in the fridge and 3 seconds if it's out of the cabinet.


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## Guest (Jun 6, 2014)

JimD1007 said:


> We use 6 inch ceramic plates for the wet canned food and they're on a ceramic tile floor.
> 
> So clean up is easy - just a constant PIA.
> 
> Thanks for the responses. Now I think it's just a cat's natural instincts, so we'll just deal with it.


Do they each have their own plates, in their own places. I'm totally new to this (literally about 10 days), I started with those cheapo double bowls - loads of growling and nosing in the other side. Theyd take the wing bones out and have them everywhere...

Then I got placemats, they still dragged them off the place mats.

Then I got the side plates and separated them. I feed one on one side of the room facing the wall and the other on the other side facing that wall. I don't have to clean the placemats any more.

They also don't growl so much any more, they just relax and concentrate on chewing. One even eats with his eyes closed (not sure if thats normal lool)


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Jim, I agree with the previous poster that feeding your cats in separate areas of the room (if you are not already doing so) or at different heights, might help. Cats are not keen on eating alongside each other.


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## ljs85 (Jun 2, 2012)

My boy McCoy does this!

It would be ok if he at least kept it in the kitchen, but sometimes he takes food out of the bowl and transfers it to the living room, no mat is big enough! Normally it's only the last piece of food that he does this to (no idea why).


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## smudgiesmummy (Nov 21, 2009)

when me and smudge lived with my parents smudge just ate out of his bowl but since i have moved in to my flat 2 years ok he picks his food up only his dry though and carries it in to the hallway and eats it there, sometimes it looks like he's had a party lol


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## georgypan (Mar 31, 2014)

Both of mine do it but their dishes are on a shallow tray which is easily cleaned afterwards. They will also pull their food off the tray sometimes, but it's a tiled floor so not really a problem. With a carpeted floor I can see it would be a pain.


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## Britt (May 18, 2014)

Pooh does the same. I clean his bowl after each meal though.


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## Citrineblue (Sep 28, 2012)

It's all natural pulling food out of their bowls. We have bowls and plates,everything comes out of them!!! We also feed in various parts of the kitchen and around the house but they still tend to pull the food out. I usually have a wipe of some sort in my hand to do a quick clean over. 

It does tend to be a habit with the bigger chunkier food, ours have chunks of meat in their mince so they pull it out to get a better purchase on it. All the mice and quail come out of the bowls. So we just get used to it in the middle of the night to find you've trodden on something squashy. Oh the joys......


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## BROK (Aug 4, 2013)

Cat food is made to attract the human owner, not the cat, because it is the human that buys the food; the owner opens the can and aided by his/her inferior sense of smell, decides "Ah, this smells good, I'll buy it again" and marketing wins over nature yet again. A cat's sense of smell is far greater than that of a human. Imagine that exaggerated smell crammed into a deep bowl and the assault upon the sensitive olfactory organs of the average feline. Add that to the cat's natural instinct to remove its prey to a place where it can be eaten in peace (even if this is more ritual than actual) and we have the scenario observed in many homes.
I have a cat and my neighbour has a cat, both animals will make desultory assaults upon the dried biscuits that are much loved as their name quaintly suggests. However, take a small number of these biscuits from the bowl and place them on the floor and the cat eats them with much more enthusiasm. I have concluded that, out of the bowl, there is no concentration of the "smell made to attract humans" thus much more attraction to the ultimate consumer, tiddles, or whatever appellation has been given to the pet.


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