My cat has become finicky in his old age. Although I’m not sure he is that old. I mean, he was born in 2000. So he is eleven and a half years old. Maybe he is just going through a mid-life crisis.
Let me explain. When I first adopted cats I made the stupid decision to give them wet cat food. Could have just stuck with the dry food. The dog we had when I was growing up (an Irish Setter named Rusty) only ate dry food. My brother’s cats only ate dry food. But I was enthralled with the idea that I have these cute little cats and I wanted to give them a treat. So I gave them wet cat food. But instead of this being an occasional treat, I ended up “having” to give it to them every night. I probably could have stopped at the beginning but I didn’t realize this until it was too late and they were used to the wet stuff.
So, when Cupid came along, I was already giving his mother, Francesca, and his “aunt”, Kitira, wet food so I gave him and his sisters wet food as well. It wasn’t a whole lot of wet food. I would put one can of food on a plate and they all got to nibble on it a bit a time until it was gone. Then they had the dry food, which was always out (gravity feeder). Somewhere along the line, not sure when this happened, I began feeding them a can of wet food in the morning and a can in the evening. I think it was when Kitira got older and she seemed to prefer the wet over the dry and so, to indulge her, I began feeding them the wet twice a day…while still leaving the dry food out all the time.
As the number of cats I had dwindled, the remaining cats were able to have more and more of the wet food. When it became just Cupid and his sister, Kismet, they shared the can of wet food. They weren’t that particular about it but seemed to prefer the chunky variety over the classic pate kind.
After Kismet died last year, I debated about this wet food thing. It seemed like a whole can of food was going to be too much for Cupid. I didn’t want him to gain weight and he did have the dry food to eat. So I began to give him the smaller Fancy Feasts cans of cat food. Then I realized that I could buy the cheaper larger cans and just give him half in the morning and half at night, leaving the can in the fridge during the day.
Just recently Cupid has decided that he doesn’t like most varieties of wet food. He can’t stand anything poultry and won’t touch it. That leaves out all chicken and turkey varieties. I can’t believe the kinds of wet cat food out there that contain combinations of ingredients including chicken. I thought that seafoods might be ok and he would eat them but he doesn’t seem to like them either. I changed brands and tried the kind in the pouch. Nope…he didn’t really care for that either.
Thats when I noticed what he was doing. He was only licking the gravy and leaving the pieces of meat on the plate! It wasn’t like it hurt for him to eat the meat. He was still eating the dry food and actually eating more of that than he used to eat. So I bought a variety of the smaller cans of cat food that seemed a little more gravy like than the others.
He still wouldn’t eat the chicken or turkey kinds and would nibble a little on the seafood varieties but what he really seemed to enjoy was the beef kinds. He likes beef.
Then I noticed at the store that they have a gravy lovers variety of beef wet cat food. I decided that he really doesn’t need that much variety in his life, or any variety for that matter, and I bought him all gravy lovers beef cat food.
So far so good. He seems to be eating it. Not all at once and sometimes he doesn’t finish it all by the time the next meal time rolls around. But he is eating more than just licking the gravy off.
I haven’t told him yet that he is a cat and cats don’t normally eat cows. I think that it might just upset him to realize that he is straying from true cat behavior and eating like people. After all, he feels he is superior to all humans and it would crush him to realize that he has lowered himself to our standards of eating.
He is truly Cupid the Finicky now. I wonder what other strange habits he will develop as he ages. My brother’s cat, Ren, would eat nothing but the Fancy Feasts primavera meals the year before he died. But he was 18 or so. I hope Cupid doesn’t get even more fussy for the next six years! Otherwise I may just have to have a talk with him…
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ñïñ!…