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Enticing Your Cat to Eat
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Sometimes cats just feel too bad to eat... other times, with a little enticing (or begging) you can get them to eat a little on their own. I think it's better for the cat's self-esteem and confidence to eat on his or her own, so try your best each and every day... you never know when the magic day will be.
Here are a Few Ideas to Entice Your Cat to Eat
"Prime the Pump" - you may try offering a little warm food before you start syringe feeding just to see if your cat will eat a little on his or her own. Warm food is more aromatic and hopefully more appealing. If there's not response when you let your cat smell the food, take a little on your finger, open your cats mouth and scrap the food off on the roof of the mouth by pulling your finger across the top teeth. Sometimes this will encourage your cat to eat a little bit.
Kitty Kaviar - top your cat's regular food with a little of this yummy stuff or feed alone.
Pet
Gold Dried Bonito Flakes - Shavings of all natural dried bonito
tuna.
Creme Cheese - Offer on a spoon or plate... and not the diet stuff.
Raw Liver - Yuk! But it's wonderfully primal. Cut small, short pieces.
Jan from NH writes: "Beef liver is a bit heavy - and if one considers what is closest to the kitty in it's natural state... well, if you can get chicken livers (OR rabbit livers) - at least in THIS house the kitties would cheer. They leave the beef liver out of my meat mix any time they figure out how to separate it!! If you DO decide on beef liver, look for calves liver, the lighter colored the better - I'm told this means it's a younger less contaminated liver (don't forget - liver is the systemic detoxifier of a body, and the darker the color of the liver, the older it is and therefor the more it's have to decontaminate)"
Linda Fischbach writes: ''Livers are fairly high in phosphorus; over 1% on a dry matter basis. And don't give too many; maybe one a day. (You can get the information from http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl, and then do some calculations to determine dry matter percentage.)"
Warm the Food - Warming food makes it more aromatic. The smellier the food the better, especially if your cat is having trouble smelling.
Garry & Lewie write: I stumbled onto something from a vet-tech at one of the pet-food companies, and it works like a dream! Let's face it: Our kitties don't race to the bowl of special renal foods, canned or dry, right? Well, see, this sweet lady tells me that the dry foods are pretty well doped up with fats (for calories & weight), which cats DO like a great deal. However, the drying process kills the aroma. So...pop the bowl in the microwave for a bit (I do about 30 seconds...I want them barely warm, not hot), and you'll be shocked at how Kitty responds! It melts the fats and the aroma is much stronger...Lewie LOVED it!
Tuna Fish Juice - If your cat eats crunchy food, pour a little over the food. You cat may only lap up the juice, but that's a start.
Open the Can in Front of your Cat - Sit down on the floor and open the cat and be totally excited about the experience. Your cat may get excited, too.
Freshly Opened, Unrefrigerated Please - Somehow, some cats can tell if you refrigerated and then warmed up the food before presented it to them. Warmed up food is just not the same as a freshly opened can! If this is the case with your cat, use the rest of the can for assist feeding by mixing another assist feed food with the leftover food. Never assist feed a cat the same food that they will eat on their own... you don't want the assist feeding event to be associated with the food because it may cause them to stop eating that particular food.
Presentation Matters - If I put Bubba's favorite food on a plate and set in on the floor in front of him, he would not eat. However, if I laid down on the floor and slightly raised the plate at an angle off the floor, he would eat. Go figure! Whatever works!
Spoon Feed Me - Some cats like to lick a little food off of a spoon.
Baby
Food - CAUTION: Without Onion and Onion
Powder!
Try different flavors of baby food for a treat. Flavors such as ham,
veal, chicken, etc. Don't rely totally on baby food because it is not
nutritionally complete. A major problem is that it does not contain
the essential element taurine.
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Typos? Please email me at Kathy@AssistFeed.com
Copyright © 2003 by Kathy Fatheree. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: Kathy Fatheree is not at all a medical expert. Contents of this web site are a collection of Kathy's assist feeding experiences as well as the experiences of other cat owners who have assist fed their cats. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information, Kathy Fatheree or anyone associated with this web site cannot be held responsible for anything that may happen as a result of using the information on this site.