The Battle Of The . . . Ummm . . . Month.
In this corner, we have Powder "P-Money Bunny," the heavyweight champion of the house.
If you don't fit in the shirt box, maybe you're too fat? Possibly?
Weighing in at a hefty 24 pounds, he has never met a bowl of food he couldn't destroy in under thirteen seconds.
And in this corner, we have his challenger, Ali "Missing Some Marbles" Kitty.
The photo is old, but the tree is still up. Feel free to mock.She's a lightweight, weighing in at a meager eight pounds, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in vocal skills. This girl, she can WHINE louder and longer than any creature on this earth.
The challenge: Who will win the right to be Master of the Food Universe?
The reigning champion, Powder, really doesn't care what kind of cat food is stocked at the buffet. He will eat it all. ALL OF IT. (Obviously.)
The catch?
Of course there's a catch!
The almighty P-Money Bunny is allergic to corn meal. As in, the corn meal goes in, and it comes back out the ugly way. Would you like to guess how many times in his life I have stepped in a puddle of cat puke? If you're answer was anything other than "Too many," you are wrong. See also: I hate cat food companies and their need to continuously reformulate their food as they try to make a bigger profit. (I'm glaring at you, Iams.)
In the other corner we have Ali. No sensitive stomach here! Nope, in fact, she seems to be way healthier than the other beast, and not just because she's 14 years younger than him. She can eat absolutely anything, including stink bugs, and show no ill effects.
The catch?
Of course there's a catch!
She's not real bright, but Ali knows what she wants. She wants Science Diet Kitten Food and NOTHING ELSE. You can try to give her Powder's food or tuna or a $500 steak dipped in glitter and unicorn farts, but she won't eat it. She will follow you around crying and screaming and telling you how very moronic you are. If I spoke Meow, I think I would learn that she's yelling, "I may not be all that bright, but I *know* that's not MY food. Snap to it, human! Get it right!"
So, fine! They can have separate food!
Except that they can't.
Powder is a thief. A sneaky, hungry thief who spends a great deal of time looking for ways to get at the kitten food. He snarfs it all in less than four seconds and then later pukes it all back up.
If I live to be 100, I still will never understand why he seems shocked every single time he eats forbidden food and then throws up. It's as if it hasn't happened over and over and over and over again HIS ENTIRE LIFE.
Ali is officially old enough to not need the kitten food. Yay! We'll just switch her over to Powder's food! Except, no we won't! Because she won't eat it!
We gave her a 50/50 mix of her food and his food two days ago. She refuses to eat it. In fact, she vocally refuses to eat it. Instead, she follows us around chewing us out about the fact that the food in her bowl has been tainted by something other than her preshuuuusssss Science Diet crap.
Which makes Powder puke.
But she won't eat anything else.
And he pukes everything else.
Round and round we go. Who will win the battle to be Master of the Food Universe?
My money is on the gray one starving. Once you've had slimy cat puke squished between your toes at 2:00am, you become impervious to whining and crying.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Reader Comments (22)
Here's hoping you find some semblance of balance. Because cat puke? EW.
Cat puke is the worst. And yes, I've stepped in it bare foot. Oh, ugh. I just gagged.
that sound you just heard was me retching.
cat puke? like dog puke. n.a.s.t.y.
Agreed- cat puke is dis.gus.ting.
And your cat weighs more than my two year old.
One time stepping in cat puke is too many. I'm curious how you narrowed P-Money's allergy to corn meal...
Good luck finding a food for P-Money and Allie. Maybe try taking the switch slower? (we have....*pauses to count* 7.5 cats here.)
And cat puke is *icky* *icky* *icky*
Cat puke is worse than dog puke only because cats can and will do it in your shoes. Dogs aren't smart enough, they do it on the carpet (because the fading remnants of wolf genes tell them that fuzzy a la grass soaks it up).
If grey were human, I'd say feed her what YOU want, eventually before starving she will catch on! But with cats, I dunno ... the unintended consequences are just too vast ...
You just reminded me why I don't want any pets. Does the Science Diet stuff have a special ingredient that you could maybe find in something else?
My aunt has a cat who won't eat unless she sits next to it. Yeah. She's definitely going to be the crazy cat lady in a few years. I tried to explain to her that an animal won't starve itself. She looked at me like I was crazy. She thinks of it as her child. And she had to flake on babysitting my girls so I could have a follow-up with my surgeon because she's taking the cat to have...his teeth cleaned. Is there a big market for feline dentistry? Who knew?
And you missed the obvious heavyweight name with "muhammed" Ali!
@Leslie--Trial and error. It took about two years to finally figure it out for sure, and we had some help from a vet. Apparently corn meal/corn gluten is used as a filler in cat food and a lot of cats are allergic to it. The tricky part is that manufacturers will up the quantity of corn meal they use without drawing attention to it on the bag. We figure it out because Powder starts yakking all over the house.
Just be glad you're only stepping in old cat food. Our old Siamese used to deposit the occasional half-eaten mouse beside my brother's bed, for him to step in first thing in the morning. (That's one way to ensure that your day will improve as it goes along.)
But aside from the odd mouse, all that cat would eat was dry Friskies. Nothing wet, no people food, just dry friskies. Easiest cat ever, to feed. Just keep the bowl full and he'd pick all day.
You have my sympathy! I've had cats around all my life, and I've known a couple just like your Ali.
Have you tried adding stinkbugs to the catfood?
Seriously, I say mix the foods (starting with a really small amount of the target one) and ignore the tantrums. Also there are other cat foods that don't have corn; not many but they are out there. Maybe another one would be more acceptable to Madame?
We have a very similar issue.
Kerrygirl is a food thief and a big eater. However she's allergic to almost everything (it's a very long list) and has IBD. We have to feed her very specific limited ingrediant meals.
The Hound is picky. Really picky. She will not eat the Kerry's super expensive stew because in her world, it has too much that is not meat. So she goes off and kills things to eat them --except that's a bad idea because an all-meat diet is bad for the kidneys (especially when our neighbors use poison to get rid of the rabbits, mice, etc.). So we have to feed the picky one in a crate.
ugh!
In defense of Ali, I wouldn't eat anything dipped in unicorn farts either.
Try pouring a little tuna "juice" from a can of tuna into the food Ali won't eat. It's hard for cats to resist tuna. If that doesn't work, let her whine. Cats run on instinct, she won't let herself starve to death.
@Diana--The weirdo doesn't like tuna. I tried giving her a can when I forgot to stop and buy her food once and she just followed me around MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW. It's as if she doesn't recognize that something is food unless it's that exact thing that has been food her whole life. The little weirdo.
How bizarre. It probably won't help any, but we feed Lou in the pantry. Our sneaky dogs like the Meow Mix. So when Lou's eating, the pantry door is open. When Lou's not eating, the pantry door is closed. Dog food is always out. Lou stands in front of pantry door to ask for his food - loudly.
@Karl - my dog def. got sick in one of my white flats this summer. I'm pretty sure she was mad at me and aimed right for it. Little stinker!
My white cat used to be huge also, and then I changed the food, and he went on a hunger strike and is now the skinny cat in the house. After he lost 5 pounds during his little tantrum, I finally gave in and bought him what he wanted (don't worry, he's still 9 pounds.) He too has the Kibble Shriek, which we call "meeping." He meeps when I walk in the door, meeps when I walk past the bowl, meeps when I'm eating my dinner, and meets right after he's been fed. It starts out cute, like the first two meeps of the evening, but by the end of the night the meeping is The. Most. Grating. Sound. In. The. Universe. I feel for you!
Been there, lived this. What you need to do is separate the cats when they eat, and make sure Powder doesn't get into the kitten food. If Powder is a grazer like my cats, only leave out the food he can eat. The kitten can then wait for feeding time or eat the healthier stuff.
Ugh I have had puke issues with my cats lately.
I have one cat who will eat almost anything animal food related but will not touch people food and is very picky with treats.
I have another that eats anything, including people food. So much that he knocks the loaf of bread off the counter only to have the dog creep around the corner and steal it from him. The dog that will eat anything including stink bugs and kitty poop. Nasty!
So I have a dog and two cats. I used to buy both dog and cat food until we got our new dog who started eating cat food. Then the cats started eating dog food. Then they all started throwing up and diarrhea everywhere. But they kept eating it.
We found that mostly the Iams toy dog food we were buying for the dog was the culprit. It then disappeared off the shelves at the stores. I never bought anything else and had to search for something new. So after trying a few things we settled on ONE food that both the dog and cats will eat without puking all over the house.......... until Sunday when my sister came over I had the lovely treat of stepping in a pile of puke on the kitchen floor. Nice.
Ok that was a long story for a comment LOL
I guess, I hear ya! And I sympathize!
My family had a similar dilemma several years ago. We finally had to resort to scheduled feedings, in separate closed rooms, with finite windows of opportunity to complete their meals. It took them a couple weeks to adjust to the system, but once they did it worked splendidly.