Cat Stops Eating As Soon As He Can See Even Just A Hint Of The Bottom Of The Bowl

Mango the Maine Coon

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The bowl is stainless steel with a wide mouth so his whiskers won’t bother him. I have tried many other plate, bowl, and pan options and the result is similar- food around the edges is left to go stale OR recently he has required that the food is piled up, right when he sees the bottom of the bowl he stops and walks away leaving the rest to get stale regardless of how hungry he is acting.

Didn’t know whether to post this in the Behavior section or the Nutrition section. Just as a little test I’m going to laminate a photo of his food and make an insert for the bottom of the bowl to find out if this is psychological or physical
 

ArtNJ

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I think its normal? I always assumed that if I switched to a plate it would be messier as far as good on the floor but they would happier not having to jam their faces in to get at corner food. Our bowls are decent size, but they are positioned such that they don't have 360 degree option if they want to get at corner food from a different angle. Maybe if their bowls were more in the middle of room they would work harder with positioning to get edge food I dunno. When I'm feeling giving, I take a fork, flip their food (smells fresher presumably) and center it.

However, I have found this an effective trick to gauge true hunger and prevent over-eating. I will not put more food down if the bowl is not clean. Maybe, as I mentioned, I'll flip and center the food with a fork, but that is it. Eventually, they do clean the bowl. Neither is too skinny (one is a bit chubby) so this method seems to be working without my having to measure. Probably measuring would be nicer, but then I'd be wasting food? Dunno how other people deal with this.
 

KarenKat

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We are just switching to wet food and our cat Gohan will do this. If I add some warm water to it and make a pate-slurry, he seems to eat most of it.
 

catlover73

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My Apollo will yell meow at me if he can see any empty spot in his bowl. I usually shake the bowl to remove the empty spot. I have two food bowls I alternate between. If the food level is to low to fix the empty spot then I put more food in the 2nd bowl and put the remaing food from the other bowl on the top of the new food. I am a multi-cat household though and one of my other cats will clean out a bowl that is low on food. I make sure they always have food.
 
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