{"id":382,"date":"2013-09-27T05:34:37","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T13:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=382"},"modified":"2013-09-27T05:34:37","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T13:34:37","slug":"can%e2%80%99t-get-kitty-to-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=382","title":{"rendered":"Can\u2019t Get Kitty to Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeding cats can be a challenge. There are the extremes: kitty eats everything in sight and begs for more or she turns her nose up at every morsel you offer. Thankfully, most cats fit somewhere in the middle most of the time. <\/p>\n

My mother has a big boy of a cat with a solid, muscular build who only eats a bite or two from his fancy china plate morning, noon and night. He has a buddy who hangs around, seemingly for the sole purpose of cleaning up Smokey\u2019s leftovers. Gibbs began showing up at my mother\u2019s house a year or so ago. He obviously belongs to someone. The tag on his collar says \u201cGibbs\u201d and gives a phone number. But he is thin and trim despite the gourmet meals Smokey leaves for him on a daily basis. <\/p>\n

So why is Gibbs so thin and why is Smokey so buff? Smokey is one of those cats you cannot keep in, to my mother\u2019s chagrin. At 91, she was hoping this part ragdoll kitten would cozy up in her lap. And he does, only after he has spent the day adventuring in the eucalyptus grove behind her tract of homes. Since he roams the neighborhood, one has to wonder, is Smokey eating at Gibbs\u2019s house or maybe he is scrounging food from several neighbors. We know he does some hunting\u2014he has brought my mother an array of critters. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had two cats over time who refused meals at least on occasion. Both were in renal failure. Currently, it is our little Lily. She\u2019s only four, but has been diagnosed with kidney disease. She loves her special diet and most of the holistic supplements we give her each day\u2014only some days she just doesn\u2019t seem interested in food. Yes, we\u2019re feeding her pumpkin and probiotics to help her digestion. <\/p>\n

\"Lily\"

Lily<\/p><\/div>It breaks a mommy\u2019s heart to see a kitty who was obsessed by food to suddenly turn away from it. However, I\u2019ve found that if I hand-feed her, she will eat. So a few times a week, when Lily doesn\u2019t seem to have a stomach for her food or the energy to eat it, I get down on my hands and knees and feed her small amounts from my fingers. Then she curls up in my lap and sleeps contentedly, while I sit here and write my blog. A little later, she\u2019ll be up chasing around the house with Sophie kitty, helping me make the bed, begging for bites of my cantaloupe or cooked carrots and watching the hummingbirds through the office window.<\/p>\n

Speaking of feeding cats, all of our cats are formerly feral or their mothers were. Sophie was found in a cat colony at 10-weeks. I guess it is because of her early imprinting, but we are not allowed to watch her eat. All of our cats are inside cats. When we feed Sophie, we have to put her plate down and then slip away to another part of the house or at least sit quietly until she is finished eating.<\/p>\n

Max eats only kibbles. We can\u2019t get him to eat the canned kidney support food the vets have prescribed for both him and Lily. He\u2019s 14 and a half and in the early stages of kidney failure. Unlike Lily, he has no symptoms, yet. Max, like Sophie, does not want an audience while eating. <\/p>\n

What are your cat-feeding challenges? What crazy things are you doing to appease your cat?<\/p>\n

Lily has been featured in two books. Her story, along with the story of several other cats, appears in Catscapades, True Cat Tales<\/em> ( http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com<\/a>) And Layla in Catnapped<\/em>, the first in my Klepto Cat Mystery series, is loosely patterned after Lily. Rags, the kleptomaniac cat who always has a paw in solving the crime, is Smokey. Read Catnapped <\/em>on your Kindle and watch for the 2nd in the series, Cat-Eye Witness<\/em>. In this story, Rags meets with a cat psychic and he is a witness in a line-up. http:\/\/amzn.to\/14OCk0W<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feeding cats can be a challenge. There are the extremes: kitty eats everything in sight and begs for more or she turns her nose up at every morsel you offer. Thankfully, most cats fit somewhere in the middle most of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}