When we first adopted our guy (neutered adult male) a few months ago, he was used to grazing on kibble all day at the shelter. We successfully transitioned him to four meals per day, three of which are wet and one dry kibble "bedtime snack". He never fails to polish off every last scrap of his kibble portion, but sometimes he'll snub his wet food before deciding to eat it. For example, I'll set his portion down in the morning and he'll sniff it, walk away, and then come back to polish it off in an hour or two. I've tried changing his mealtimes around thinking he wasn't hungry but he still does the same thing. Is he holding out hoping I'll give him kibble? He doesn't do this every time, maybe about 70% of the time, and he switches which foods he'll snub seemingly randomly (we have a bunch on rotation).
My main question is this: by me leaving his wet food out for hours at a time until he finishes it, am I essentially free-feeding but with wet food instead of dry? Is it just as bad for him? Should I be taking away the wet food if he snubs it? There's never wet food out 100% of the time, but he could eat a little and then have some left in his bowl for another three hours (he goes 6-8 hours between meals). I know the "remove any uneaten portion after 30 minutes" rule, but I can't stand to be throwing away such expensive cat food. I would just put it back out again, but he has to have omega 3 oil and vitamin supplements mixed in and they might get nasty sitting in the fridge until his next mealtime.
Thanks in advance for your insight. I would hate to be undoing the progress we made with him by slipping back into a free-feeding schedule without realizing it.
My main question is this: by me leaving his wet food out for hours at a time until he finishes it, am I essentially free-feeding but with wet food instead of dry? Is it just as bad for him? Should I be taking away the wet food if he snubs it? There's never wet food out 100% of the time, but he could eat a little and then have some left in his bowl for another three hours (he goes 6-8 hours between meals). I know the "remove any uneaten portion after 30 minutes" rule, but I can't stand to be throwing away such expensive cat food. I would just put it back out again, but he has to have omega 3 oil and vitamin supplements mixed in and they might get nasty sitting in the fridge until his next mealtime.
Thanks in advance for your insight. I would hate to be undoing the progress we made with him by slipping back into a free-feeding schedule without realizing it.