Sassy cats — Sasha’s food aggression

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Sasha: Nothing better after a good meal than a nap with Teddy!

I get perfectly normal cats and then I ruin them. They turn into divas. Demanding and particular. Or maybe they are just cats settling in.

I have done it again. Sasha wasn’t a fussy eater. I liked that. The other three are.

Gracie will only eat one thing and she grazes. She would rather starve than eat something she doesn’t want. Morgan and Mollie don’t always eat when I feed them. They prefer kibble. That means that wet food sits around for a while.

Sasha ate Friskies which is what she was fed at her foster home. She loved it there.

The others split two Fancy Feast cans a day. Sasha started to finish up everyone’s food. Sometimes she didn’t wait until they were finished pushing them out of the way. I had to be a food monitor. (Flashback to high school!)

Initially Gracie had some food aggression but as she learned that there was enough and she could con me out of giving her more, she eased up. The other cats wait politely if they want to snack on someone else’s food. Sasha wasn’t getting that message. She flunked charm school.

For a few days she refused to eat Friskies until she stole all the Fancy Feast was gone and there was no hope of more. (Of course this happens when I have a half case of Friskies left.)

There must be a flavor difference between the two despite the fact that they are both chicken pieces in gravy made by the same company at the same plant.

I gave up all sense of being in charge and changed her to Fancy Feast, same as the others. The food aggression has stopped. She eats all of her own food first. She is always willing to clean up anyone else’s dish but she will wait until they are done.

Peace reigns again (except that I can’t get her to share the feather toy with Gracie).

59 thoughts on “Sassy cats — Sasha’s food aggression”

  1. I had to laugh at your thought that you take a normal cat and ruin it! LOL! That’s so funny! I’m glad that Sasha is getting on better and isn’t being as aggressive. Just like a child, I think, just testing! Maybe she just wanted to see what she could get away with. 🙂

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    • Yes they do. Gracie was initially but grew out of it. They don’t growl or hiss. They just steal it out from under the other cat. Gracie put her paw on the dish and pulled it out from under the other cat but Sasha will put her head underneath and push the other cat out of the way. The other cats know there there is enough food for everyone.

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  4. Both Teddy and Jack will eat whatever is in the bowls. Jack likes to eat a bit then go out on the balcony for a while. Of course, while he is out there Teddy finishes what’s left in Jack’s bowl

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  7. We have a feral cat. He shows up inconsistently at meal times. H feeds him no matter. I think he realizes this and comes and goes at his pleasure. He is very picky for someone who’s basically begging! 😂 He will not eat the canned turkey and cheese out of the variety pal we buy, walking away with his nose in the air. We have a back stash of that flavor, hopping one day he will change his mind.

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    • One of the benefits of ordering from Chewy.com is that I can buy cases of a single flavor. I used to get variety packs and there was always one flavor that no one wanted. I would donate to the shelter. Now I try to get only what they like but even that changes.

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  12. She probably wants to eat the same thing they do. If they were all eating Friskies and she was getting Fancy Feast she’d want Friskies–LOL! Some cats are desperate to fit into the clowder. 😉

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  15. I’ve found all animals go through that initial stage of pretty kitty, pretty puppy, till they get the lay of the land. Then the training begins. If done correctly, they can have us doing whatever they wish in a short time. haha!!

    Reboot, my only cat, will go to her area on a filing cabinet. If her plastic bowl is empty, she lifts the edge with her paw, and drops it. I turn around and meet large round eyes staring at me. Telling her to wait a minute. This runs the cycle every 2 minutes, about 4 times. Then she pushes the small bowl off the filing cabinet. That is the point I baby talk, and apologize for being a bad daddy.

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    • She has you trained although I’m surprised it takes 4 times for you to react. You know what’s coming. Might as well fill it the first time around. Gracie was the most demanding. She would throw the dish on the middle of the kitchen floor to let me know her displeasure.

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  17. The cats have your number. That’s all there is to it. And once they’re tried Fancy Feast they’re not going back to Friskies. It’s like giving a kid candy and then asparagus…guess which one they will choose!!

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    • Morgan, Mollie and Gracie came from rescues that fed them kibble and to some extend they still want it. It took some training to get Gracie to eat wet. She was having crystals so the vet wanted her off kibble. Try telling that to a cat. Oh yeah and drink more water. If I were a cat I wouldn’t want kibble.

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  20. And it was mandated that staff get up much too early this morning…
    Love that first picture – she looks like a teenager with punk hair who finally crashed out from exhaustion.
    Food monitoring does cut into time available. So happy Sasha is adapting to expected table manners and the same food. (I never know whether to keep the half case of now rejected food in case of emergencies like hurricanes or take it to the animal shelter. RC will starve rather than eat once she’s made the selection, but maybe the dog….HAHA)

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    • Morgan and Mollie will eat the rejected food. Especially if I seed it with treats. It just makes it more complicated. I have a collection of rejected food. Every once in a while I will sneak one in. I can get away with the tuna reject but not the chicken feast. No one (not even me) likes that. It’s called chicken but smells like long dead fish. At least the tuna is supposed to smell like fish.

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  21. I’m worse than you, Kate. My cats wake me up at 4:00 AM to feed them wet food and I comply. I even feed them a meal at 11:00 PM and it doesn’t stop them. I am an enabler…….

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