First time poster here so let me give a little background first:
I am 60 and have had literally dozens of cats since I was a child. Many from very varied backgrounds. the first began with a stray from whom we kept three generations. Later I had Siamese/Angora mixtures all born in a horse stable. Later, as I grew into adulthood, all my cats have come from shelters. I’ve dealt with many an odd behavior, from one that wouldn’t come out from under a couch for her first three months to young toms bent on fighting. I’ve had biters, scratchers, nasty attitudes, howlers, destroyers, and so forth. I‘ve managed to tame them all.
Today I’m faced with the oddest combination of behaviors that has me stumped. It’s a set of behaviors that are basically incompatible. Three weeks ago we picked up two “siblings” (according to the HS ad), one male tabby, and a female calico. Fred and Ginger. As I have learned from all my previous cats obtained from shelters, the employees there love to be helpful but often think they know lot more about the animals they care for than they really do. I’ve found that virtually all of them turned out to be completely different from what I was told. First off, we figured out FRED AND Ginger couldn’t possibly be siblings since they were obtained from shelters two separate times only one month apart. So they don’t even share parents. I was also told that Fred would try to hog all the food so to feed them at opposite ends of the room and there shouldn‘t be much problem. Wrong! There’s trouble if they are fed at opposite ends of the HOUSE! I tried using a gravity feeder from our previous cat. That did not last long.
Fred and Ginger are four years old so its going to take a lot of patience and time to retrain any behaviors.
To fully understand the conundrum, you need to understand each cats behavior and suss out how they complicate the matter:
Fred, if left to his own devices with a gravity feeder, will eat until his stomach swells and he predictably upchucks it all. He’s a gorger. He is fed separately now, but wolfs down his food then goes looking for Ginger’s. Fred is extremely human friendly and spends a lot of time on our bed with us.
Ginger would very likely do well with a gravity feeder. She’s a grazer and eats little bits at a time. But there’s another problem. She’s extremely skittish. Most encounters she has with Fred result in her hissing at him and swatting his face. He’s not bothered by it much. Ginger hides a lot and prefers, for now at least, to be in a room by herself. Most of the time she avoids Fred.
If they are in the same room together, it’s usually at opposite ends of the couch. A few times though, we have caught them sleeping in contact with each other. Ginger has given Fred baths, and vice-versa, but that’s not a daily thing. So there’s the background, and here is the issue in a nutshell:
We can’t use a feeder so we feed them twice a day with two separate bowls. Ginger‘s bowl looks different in the hopes we can get Fred to make the association that it’s not his. Fred is fed in the kitchen downstairs. Ginger was, until now, fed on a stair landing. We are figuring a different spot for her because she:
1) Is disturbed by traffic.
2) Hates being watched while she eats. She literally scopes her feeding area and if she makes eye contact or sees Fred coming, she leaves and hides.
So far we’ve had one good try. She happened to be under our bed last night, so we kicked Fred out, shut the door and let her eat in our room. That worked last night, but only because she was already in there. Fred is easy to find and put out. Ginger isn’t usually in our room, but hiding somewhere we can’t get to her. As I’m writing this, her bowl is up where we can see and guard it, but she’s nowhere around and doesn’t come when called. The ONLY time she comes out and around us is during food preparation. Fred though, devours his food so fast that by the time I coax Ginger to come get hers he is already on the prowl to steal it and she’s gone off because of him.
This is the most difficult feeding situation I’ve ever encountered. I’ve had several bully cats before. Usually the other cats get sick of them and fend them off. Ginger hisses at Fred and smacks him all the time, but never does when it comes to her food. I am concerned Ginger isn’t eating enough.
So what would you do? I’m open to suggestions.
I am 60 and have had literally dozens of cats since I was a child. Many from very varied backgrounds. the first began with a stray from whom we kept three generations. Later I had Siamese/Angora mixtures all born in a horse stable. Later, as I grew into adulthood, all my cats have come from shelters. I’ve dealt with many an odd behavior, from one that wouldn’t come out from under a couch for her first three months to young toms bent on fighting. I’ve had biters, scratchers, nasty attitudes, howlers, destroyers, and so forth. I‘ve managed to tame them all.
Today I’m faced with the oddest combination of behaviors that has me stumped. It’s a set of behaviors that are basically incompatible. Three weeks ago we picked up two “siblings” (according to the HS ad), one male tabby, and a female calico. Fred and Ginger. As I have learned from all my previous cats obtained from shelters, the employees there love to be helpful but often think they know lot more about the animals they care for than they really do. I’ve found that virtually all of them turned out to be completely different from what I was told. First off, we figured out FRED AND Ginger couldn’t possibly be siblings since they were obtained from shelters two separate times only one month apart. So they don’t even share parents. I was also told that Fred would try to hog all the food so to feed them at opposite ends of the room and there shouldn‘t be much problem. Wrong! There’s trouble if they are fed at opposite ends of the HOUSE! I tried using a gravity feeder from our previous cat. That did not last long.
Fred and Ginger are four years old so its going to take a lot of patience and time to retrain any behaviors.
To fully understand the conundrum, you need to understand each cats behavior and suss out how they complicate the matter:
Fred, if left to his own devices with a gravity feeder, will eat until his stomach swells and he predictably upchucks it all. He’s a gorger. He is fed separately now, but wolfs down his food then goes looking for Ginger’s. Fred is extremely human friendly and spends a lot of time on our bed with us.
Ginger would very likely do well with a gravity feeder. She’s a grazer and eats little bits at a time. But there’s another problem. She’s extremely skittish. Most encounters she has with Fred result in her hissing at him and swatting his face. He’s not bothered by it much. Ginger hides a lot and prefers, for now at least, to be in a room by herself. Most of the time she avoids Fred.
If they are in the same room together, it’s usually at opposite ends of the couch. A few times though, we have caught them sleeping in contact with each other. Ginger has given Fred baths, and vice-versa, but that’s not a daily thing. So there’s the background, and here is the issue in a nutshell:
We can’t use a feeder so we feed them twice a day with two separate bowls. Ginger‘s bowl looks different in the hopes we can get Fred to make the association that it’s not his. Fred is fed in the kitchen downstairs. Ginger was, until now, fed on a stair landing. We are figuring a different spot for her because she:
1) Is disturbed by traffic.
2) Hates being watched while she eats. She literally scopes her feeding area and if she makes eye contact or sees Fred coming, she leaves and hides.
So far we’ve had one good try. She happened to be under our bed last night, so we kicked Fred out, shut the door and let her eat in our room. That worked last night, but only because she was already in there. Fred is easy to find and put out. Ginger isn’t usually in our room, but hiding somewhere we can’t get to her. As I’m writing this, her bowl is up where we can see and guard it, but she’s nowhere around and doesn’t come when called. The ONLY time she comes out and around us is during food preparation. Fred though, devours his food so fast that by the time I coax Ginger to come get hers he is already on the prowl to steal it and she’s gone off because of him.
This is the most difficult feeding situation I’ve ever encountered. I’ve had several bully cats before. Usually the other cats get sick of them and fend them off. Ginger hisses at Fred and smacks him all the time, but never does when it comes to her food. I am concerned Ginger isn’t eating enough.
So what would you do? I’m open to suggestions.