# New Cat Is An Absolute Nightmare Around Food!



## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

Hi Guys,

I've recently rescued a new cat, a little girl called Kenda believed to be around 16 months old and found as a stray when she was just a kitten.
She came to me with quite alot of issues, most of which I have managed to train out of her but she is absolutely terrible if there is any food around at all and I have run out of ideas to deal with this.
This is probably going to sound insane but I'm currently having to eat most of my food locked in my bathroom otherwise she just constantly tries to steal it until she succeeds, its not easy trying to prepare / eat your dinner with one hand and fend her off with the other!
I have taken her to the vet and received a clean bill of health and the vet was happy with her size and that she was being fed the right amount.
I tried feeding her at the same time as I eat but she just bolts her dinner down and then immediately rushes me to grab mine.
I tried shutting her in another room while I ate and she screamed the house down (my poor neighbours) and then worked out how to open the doors.
I can't reward good behaviour in this situation because there literally never is any to reward. I've even tried a spray bottle of water but it isn't enough to deter her from stealing anything she can and running off with it.
Any suggestions much appreciated as she's driving me mad!

Thanks in advance


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

It sounds to me as though you have a hungry cat , how much food do you give her and what type wet/dry a mixture of both and how often do you fed her.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

buffie said:


> It sounds to me as though you have a hungry cat , how much food do you give her and what type wet/dry a mixture of both and how often do you fed her.


Hiya,
She currently eats the Natures Menu Country Hunter wet food pouches, she has one in the morning and one when I get in from work. She is a very small cat and currently indoor only so she isn't getting alot of exercise. I suggested increasing her food to my vet but they felt she was currently the perfect size and any more food would see her becoming overweight. I can't feed her during the day unfortunately as I work full time and she quickly worked out how to break into an automatic cat feeder.
Hope this helps!


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

I agree with @buffie - sounds like Kendra is hungry !

At 16 months (or thereabouts) she's still got some growing to do - so if I were in your shoes I think I'd up her food to to 3 or 4 meals a day.

(I've actually got the opposite problem mine is also a small cat (currently 3.5kgs at age 9) but he's incredibly fussy with his food and I have difficulty him getting to eat more than 2 pouches a day !


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

Bertie'sMum said:


> I agree with @buffie - sounds like Kendra is hungry !
> 
> At 16 months (or thereabouts) she's still got some growing to do - so if I were in your shoes I think I'd up her food to to 3 or 4 meals a day.
> 
> (I've actually got the opposite problem mine is also a small cat (currently 3.5kgs at age 9) but he's incredibly fussy with his food and I have difficulty him getting to eat more than 2 pouches a day !


Hiya, Thanks for your reply 
She's about 2.5kg at the moment but not skinny at all just tiny, you have to push down to feel her ribs if you know what I mean. I could potentially add in one more feed so she gets fed when I get home from work and then just before I go to bed or I could increase the amount of food she has at each meal currently to a pouch and a half maybe. As I said though the vet did advise against this as they felt she would become overweight.


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## oliviarussian (Sep 2, 2010)

She's probably had to scavenge for food when she was a stray kitten and is obviously still in that mindset, she does sound hungry, maybe she is very active and has a high metabolism?

I'm not an expert in nutrition so hopefully @chillminx might offer some of her invaluable advice in these matters, but it seems to me that maybe a change in food to a higher quality brand (Smilla, Animonda Carny) might help her feel more full for longer, have you tried giving her a raw chicken wing to try to keep her occupied?


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

2 pouches of Country Hunter is only 170g of food which is not really enough for a young cat indoors or not.
As @Bertie'sMum has said I would be adding at least another pouch during the day and leaving her some overnight too.
Ideally she needs 3-4 meals a day + food overnight , much as I hate to disagree with your vet I think he is wrong to say giving her more wet food will make her fat ,cats usually will regulate themselves as to how much food they need


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## oliviarussian (Sep 2, 2010)

buffie said:


> 2 pouches of Country Hunter is only 170g of food which is not really enough for a young cat indoors or not.
> As @Bertie'sMum has said I would be adding at least another pouch during the day and leaving her some overnight too.
> Ideally she needs 3-4 meals a day + food overnight , much as I hate to disagree with your vet I think he is wrong to say giving her more wet food will make her fat ,cats usually will regulate themselves as to how much food they need


Oh yes I hadn't noticed that, it doesn't sound much at all!


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

Thanks for your replies guys! I will ignore my vet and increase her food. I wish I could give her a feed around lunchtime but I think its probably going to have to be one before work, one immediately when I get home and one just before I go to bed. 
Is Country Hunter not a good quality food? I picked it as it was 96% meat and grain/gluten free. Happy to swap to something else if it isn't good enough.


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## SbanR (Jun 16, 2017)

You could get 4 meals in by feeding her immediately on rising, again before going out the house, on return and finally before going to bed.

She could do with more food too as she's not fully mature yet. Also get some baby scales off Amazon or eBay to monitor her weight


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

The Harlequin said:


> Thanks for your replies guys! I will ignore my vet and increase her food. I wish I could give her a feed around lunchtime but I think its probably going to have to be one before work, one immediately when I get home and one just before I go to bed.
> *Is Country Hunter not a good quality food? I picked it as it was 96% meat and grain/gluten free. Happy to swap to something else if it isn't good enough*.


You may find if she feels better with the extra food available that she settles and is less likely to try breaking into a timed feeder so that you can try it again to give her food mid day.As for Country Hunter I think it is fairly good food but I'm no expert on food as my lad is a fussy sod of a cat and refuses point blank to entertain any "good food "
Have a look at this link compiled by a member of PF,if you are happy to order on line it may help you to find something else for her............
https://www.petforums.co.uk/threads...-just-the-good-stuff-work-in-progress.440844/


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

@The Harlequin, Country Hunter is a good quality food but I agree with buffie that 170 grams of food a day is not enough for a 16 month old cat who is still growing. My 2 female cats, both small build, were eating about 300 grams each of wet food at 16 months old, and were not overweight.

I also agree with those who said your cat needs feeding more than twice a day. Research has shown that in the wild, a self-sufficient cat catching their own prey would eat about 8 times a day!

Feeding your cat only twice a day means her tummy is empty for about 10 hours between each meal which is far too long a gap and results in excess gastric acid forming in her stomach causing an unpleasant burning feeling. That is why she gets desperate for food.

All my adult cats are fed 4 times a day. Roughly this works out as breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. A couple of my cats also have a little food left overnight for them in autofeeders to save them forming too much acid in their tummies.

I have been using the same timed autofeeder for the past 25 years for both past and present cats, and not one cat has ever managed to break into it. This is the one I use:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cat-Mate-C...-3&keywords=cat+mate+c20+automatic+pet+feeder


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

chillminx said:


> @The Harlequin, Country Hunter is a good quality food but I agree with buffie that 170 grams of food a day is not enough for a 16 month old cat who is still growing. My 2 female cats, both small build, were eating about 300 grams each of wet food at 16 months old, and were not overweight.
> 
> I also agree with those who said your cat needs feeding more than twice a day. Research has shown that in the wild, a self-sufficient cat catching their own prey would eat about 8 times a day!
> 
> ...


Thanks so much for your reply! Bit annoyed that my vet told me not to feed her any more than she is currently eating, I will deffo increase both the amount of food she is getting and the number of feeds. I'm going to order that cat feeder now! Feel really bad now


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

The Harlequin said:


> Thanks so much for your reply! Bit annoyed that my vet told me not to feed her any more than she is currently eating, I will deffo increase both the amount of food she is getting and the number of feeds. I'm going to order that cat feeder now! Feel really bad now


Please don't feel bad, your heart is in the right place as you came onto the forum to ask for our opinions. 

My vet likes cats to be slimmer and lighter than I like mine to be. IMO none of mine are overweight (at least not in the summer months when they are more active!), so we have to agree to differ.


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

The Harlequin said:


> Thanks so much for your reply! Bit annoyed that my vet told me not to feed her any more than she is currently eating, I will deffo increase both the amount of food she is getting and the number of feeds. I'm going to order that cat feeder now! Feel really bad now


No need to feel bad, like many people you expect a vet to know about food and nutrition but sadly this is not always the case , at least he/she hasn't advised you to feed "dry food" which is what so many of them still do .
Hopefully you will now be able to enjoy your meals in peace .


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## Jackie C (Feb 16, 2016)

Don't feel bad, you're just trying to do what's right for your cat. Some greats ideas here, and I agree that your cat is simply just hungry as she's still growing. 

The only thing I would add is don't add any dry! It's addictive to cats and isn't good for them.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

Well she's been having 3 meals a day for the last 2 days and with the arrival of the new auto feeder I'm attempting to add in a 4th meal at lunchtimes as well although I'm not holding out much hope for this unfortunately. As soon as I put it down she absolutely lost her mind trying to break into it and somehow managed to get the empty bowl out from under the lid, turned the timer wheel and flipped it upside down. She's either going to have the food out straight away or do something so she doesn't get the food at all, bloody cat!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

The Harlequin said:


> Well she's been having 3 meals a day for the last 2 days and with the arrival of the new auto feeder I'm attempting to add in a 4th meal at lunchtimes as well although I'm not holding out much hope for this unfortunately. As soon as I put it down she absolutely lost her mind trying to break into it and somehow managed to get the empty bowl out from under the lid, turned the timer wheel and flipped it upside down. She's either going to have the food out straight away or do something so she doesn't get the food at all, bloody cat!


Such behaviour is still a sign of a hungry, desperate cat. But this is behaviour she has learned as a result of being kept hungry every day for quite a long time. She suffers from "food anxiety" and when you put down the feeder she took it as a challenge try and get to the food she thought was inside.

You need to give her time to learn to trust that you will feed her enough food so she can stop feeling hungry. The way to do this is to keep the food coming for now so she never feels hungry, and that way her confidence will gradually grow. 4 meals a day should be the minimum at present. Continuing to ration her and keeping her hungry will not change her behaviour.


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

I agree with @chillminx you really need to keep Kenda's food bowls filled so that she begins to realise that she has no need to think that the food she see's might be the last meal .
She may appear to over eat for a while but she will slow down once she is happy that there is always going to be food available for her.
If the use of a timed feeder isn't going to work then would it be possible to get someone to pop in at lunchtime for a while to leave her a meal . You may need to pay a cat sitter to do this if you don't have any friends or neighbours who could help you out.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

chillminx said:


> Such behaviour is still a sign of a hungry, desperate cat. But this is behaviour she has learned as a result of being kept hungry every day for quite a long time. She suffers from "food anxiety" and when you put down the feeder she took it as a challenge try and get to the food she thought was inside.
> 
> You need to give her time to learn to trust that you will feed her enough food so she can stop feeling hungry. The way to do this is to keep the food coming for now so she never feels hungry, and that way her confidence will gradually grow. 4 meals a day should be the minimum at present. Continuing to ration her and keeping her hungry will not change her behaviour.


Yeah I figured that and it makes me feel awful seeing her that frantic, she had a meal when I got in from work last night, another one before bed and she'd just had her breakfast this morning when I put the feeder down. Just really wanted her to have an extra meal while I was out so hopefully she didn't turn the dial to more hours or leave it upside down. 
She's been on 2 meals a day for the last 3 months so no wonder shes so anxious, deffo never trusting a vets opinion on feeding again!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

@The Harlequin - maybe your vet doesn't have any cats, so he/she is going by what used to be the accepted wisdom on frequency of feeding them. Or if the vet does have
cats maybe they go outdoors and hunt.

When I was a kid growing up, 50 yrs ago, our family cats were fed twice a day and this was normal, it was what everyone did with their cats. But in those days nearly all cats went outdoors and hunted prey to supplement the food they were fed at home. It was expected that was what they would do, so twice a day meals at home were adequate.

These days it's different, with so many cats kept indoors without opportunities to hunt and supplement their diet. As a result the practice of feeding cats only twice a day has largely been superseded, due to experts' better understanding of what cats need. IME vets are often not experts in feline nutrition unless they have done post grad studies in the subject, or have undertaken a lot of their own research on the topic.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

chillminx said:


> @The Harlequin - maybe your vet doesn't have any cats, so he/she is going by what used to be the accepted wisdom on frequency of feeding them. Or if the vet does have
> cats maybe they go outdoors and hunt.
> 
> When I was a kid growing up, 50 yrs ago, our family cats were fed twice a day and this was normal, it was what everyone did with their cats. But in those days nearly all cats went outdoors and hunted prey to supplement the food they were fed at home. It was expected that was what they would do, so twice a day meals at home were adequate.
> ...


Yeah I've had cats my whole life and they were always fed twice a day when I was growing up so not knowing any better I just continued that with my own cats as an adult and checked their body condition with the vet to determine how much food to give them. I guess all that matters now is correcting what I've been doing wrong and hope she eventually forgives me for starving her for 3 months! Poor baby, no wonder shes been so unhappy


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

@The Harlequin - looking forward to hearing news of her progress. 

A photo of her would be nice too.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

chillminx said:


> @The Harlequin - looking forward to hearing news of her progress.
> 
> A photo of her would be nice too.


Well she broke into the feeder in less than an hour, instead of having breakfast and lunch she is apparently having breakfast, second breakfast and then a long wait until dinner!
Shes gone from 2 meals to 4 meals a day and already seems alot happier :Happy

This is Kenda on the day I got her, sorry for the huge photo I'm not sure what I'm doing!


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## buffie (May 31, 2010)

Kenda is a gorgeous girl







and don't worry about the size of the pic that's about normal 
So pleased to be reading that she is already beginning to be happier about her meals.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Awww, she is beautiful, look at those ears! I love ginger cats!  

I am glad she already seems happier.


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## Mrs Funkin (Mar 12, 2018)

Oh this is good to read - she looks beautiful  

From my (very limited) experience the food anxiety "thing" takes a while to break. When we adopted Oscar (aged 11) he wolfed down the food we gave him, often going mad for more. Now he realises that if he doesn't eat it all, there is still food available for him, so he likes to graze on his breakfast and then from about 3pm he has about two thirds of his daily intake. It took well over three months for him to start to realise this. 

Any time you want to post more photos of your gorgeous girl, feel free.


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## Bertie'sMum (Mar 27, 2017)

Kenda you are one very beautiful little cat 

A better way to determine if a cat is the right weight is to use a body conditioning score chart rather than going by weight alone - something like this one










on this chart my petite boy (age 9) scores between 3 and 4. But unlike Kenda has little or no interest in food and it takes all my ingenuity to get him to eat enough to maintain his current weight of 3.4kgs !!!!


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## SbanR (Jun 16, 2017)

Kenda is beautiful. Definitely pictures please!
Good to hear she's happier now with more food. How much in total is she getting a day? Perhaps you could try giving her a little more at breakfast?


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

Hiya,
Going off the above chart I would say she is probably a 4 or 5? According to the vet she is the perfect body condition hence them telling me not to feed her anymore but the change in her behaviour clearly shows how hungry she was. I'd rather have a slightly 'overweight' but happy cat than one in perfect condition who is unhappy and frantic for food!
She's now having 4 pouches a day which is double what she was previously on, currently spaced (by her) as 2 for breakfast, one when I get in from work and one just before I go to bed.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

So after things looking like they were improving with Kenda they have gone drastically downhill unfortunately.
I increased the amount of food she was having and the amount of meals and her behaviour seemed to improve for a short time, she then went back to how she was before - no matter how much I fed her she was just constantly yowling at me and trying to steal my food.
She then developed very regular diarrhoea so I took her back to the vet who took bloods from her which all came back normal and weighed her - despite me having doubled her food intake she hadn't gained any weight. She was given an extra top-up wormer on top of all her usual flea and worm treatments and also a weeks course of antibiotics, these don't seem to have had any effect.
I'm now back to eating my meals locked in the bathroom and she has started attacking me regularly and viciously, I'm getting scratched and bitten multiple times a day on any part of my body she can reach including my face. She came close to clawing my eye a couple of days ago and is leaving me covered in cuts and scars.
She's clearly very distressed so I'm trying to do everything I can to make her feel better but also try and protect myself.
We're heading back to the vets for further investigation / treatment. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of this soon because I think we're both pretty unhappy at this point!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

I'm very sorry to hear this news @The Harlequin.

Poor Kenda, she does sound unhappy to keep attacking you. Poor you too. 

As she hasn't gained any weight in spite of you doubling her food intake there is evidently a health problem of some kind. I hope you will be getting some stool samples tested at the lab as that will tell you more than just the blood tests and urine tests.


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## The Harlequin (Jul 9, 2015)

chillminx said:


> I'm very sorry to hear this news @The Harlequin.
> 
> Poor Kenda, she does sound unhappy to keep attacking you. Poor you too.
> 
> As she hasn't gained any weight in spite of you doubling her food intake there is evidently a health problem of some kind. I hope you will be getting some stool samples tested at the lab as that will tell you more than just the blood tests and urine tests.


We're doing faecal testing at the moment so fingers crossed that turns something up! I just want to get her feeling better as soon as possible for both our sakes.


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