He's Addicted To Treats

[ThePortMan]

He literally begs for them day and night. I'll admit that I often use them as a way to get him out of forbidden parts of the house (e.g. places where there are plants that I don't want him chewing on). However, he will literally eat dozens and dozens of treats, and he meows and meows for treats 24/7. It's crazy, the stuff is like crack. He finishes the treats, and then literally the next second he's asking me for more and more and more. He's so incessant about asking for them that I always give him the treats, because otherwise he'll claw at my legs when I'm sitting down to ask for them. Once I didn't give him his treats, because he had already had a huge amount of them when I gave him a bunch so I could go back to sleep when he woke me up at 5 in the morning. When I tried to leave the house without giving him more treats, he actually growled at me for not giving him treats. It's crazy. He'll go through a bag of temptations in like 2-3 days or so. I'm just not sure how to wean him off of these things, as it seems like they can't be good for him. I'm just worried he could wind up getting fat from eating so many of these things, as they have more calories than regular cat food and probably have additives in them.

 

[susanm9006]

No, most treats do not have sufficient nutrition in them and if you read the packaging it says limit them to something like one treat per pound of cat weight, with an overall daily limit. So I suggest you take the tough road and start ignoring his pleas. What it sounds like is that he has been getting rewards for misbehaving so it may take some time to turn him around, and you will need to figure out what works. Maybe substituting some play time in place of treats will help with the transition.

 

[katieloo]

I'm not sure what type of treats you're giving him but maybe get a higher quality treat such as a freeze dried chicken which is better than say something like high carb, low quality Temptations.

 

[Brian007]

Cold turkey. With access to the proper food initially liked. You will get lots of doleful looks, strops, and walk offs from his bowl but eventually he'll start eating proper food again. Put his bowl with proper food next to where he's sitting/snoozing then leave the room and shut the door. This should only take a day or two if you're super strict. It might seem like being cruel to be kind. But it's actually just being kind.