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My cat Juliet is suddenly refusing to eat from her bowl. It's a raised bowl with a saucer-type top and it's made of ceramic (this one from Chewy). She's eaten from this bowl for months and starting last night, she is acting as though she is afraid of it.
She just had a vet visit last Tuesday and was given a clean bill of health (including bloodwork and fecal screening). She's had intermittent soft stool (not diarrhea but definitely soft/sticky type poop) for a couple months and the vet didn't really have a definitive answer for what could be causing that. We are proceeding with a theory that she might be allergic to chicken.
We did just change food from Science Diet Sensitive Skin (Chicken) dry food to Natural Balance L.I.D. Duck and Green Pea dry food. I transitioned slowly over the course of a little over a week. She ate the new food happily for the first several days (like dig in and finish it faster than her old food!) and then last night when she had a bowl of about 80% new food and 20% old food, she suddenly seemed afraid of the food and/or the bowl.
I woke up this morning and found a hairball under the cat tree so I assumed that she would eat better after that. But nope, she seems just as hesitant to eat today as she did last night. She will eat some if I put pieces of food on the floor but still not all of it. I've tried her normal bowl, a small Corelle plate, a stainless steel bowl, and food on the floor. She is refusing to eat more than a few pieces before she walks away.
Her sister Contessa is having no problems with the new food. She was hesitant on the first day but she's happily eating her food now. I normally feed mostly wet food with some dry but I wanted to get them on a dry food alone to see if the poop issue got better before I started messing around with wet foods. Juliet is notoriously picky so I had high hopes when she took to the new food right away. She's also very skittish and we think she's at least partially deaf because she often doesn't hear us coming and gets surprised but she can still hear us pull out a treat bag so she can hear some things.
Any thoughts on what I can try to get her to eat? Should I schedule a vet appointment? Local vets are booking 6ish weeks out unless it's an emergency so I probably need to decide soon if I want to bring her to the vet.
She just had a vet visit last Tuesday and was given a clean bill of health (including bloodwork and fecal screening). She's had intermittent soft stool (not diarrhea but definitely soft/sticky type poop) for a couple months and the vet didn't really have a definitive answer for what could be causing that. We are proceeding with a theory that she might be allergic to chicken.
We did just change food from Science Diet Sensitive Skin (Chicken) dry food to Natural Balance L.I.D. Duck and Green Pea dry food. I transitioned slowly over the course of a little over a week. She ate the new food happily for the first several days (like dig in and finish it faster than her old food!) and then last night when she had a bowl of about 80% new food and 20% old food, she suddenly seemed afraid of the food and/or the bowl.
I woke up this morning and found a hairball under the cat tree so I assumed that she would eat better after that. But nope, she seems just as hesitant to eat today as she did last night. She will eat some if I put pieces of food on the floor but still not all of it. I've tried her normal bowl, a small Corelle plate, a stainless steel bowl, and food on the floor. She is refusing to eat more than a few pieces before she walks away.
Her sister Contessa is having no problems with the new food. She was hesitant on the first day but she's happily eating her food now. I normally feed mostly wet food with some dry but I wanted to get them on a dry food alone to see if the poop issue got better before I started messing around with wet foods. Juliet is notoriously picky so I had high hopes when she took to the new food right away. She's also very skittish and we think she's at least partially deaf because she often doesn't hear us coming and gets surprised but she can still hear us pull out a treat bag so she can hear some things.
Any thoughts on what I can try to get her to eat? Should I schedule a vet appointment? Local vets are booking 6ish weeks out unless it's an emergency so I probably need to decide soon if I want to bring her to the vet.
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