- Joined
- Jan 15, 2020
- Messages
- 150
- Purraise
- 104
Hello! Since kittenhood my cat had a peculiar problem: she doesn't know how to pick up food with her teeth in order to eat. What she does instead is lick her food in order to acrobatically put it into her mouth with her tongue. Naturally, that doesn't work too well.
I must stress that there is no medical problem involved. Healthy gums, healthy teeth. She's been like that since the first day we adopted her and up until now (almost 2y.o.).
This caused us a lot of problems. The cat is unable to eat wet cat food or human food, even if she clearly wants to: any small piece she tries to lick up into her mouth will keep falling a few times in a row. She may manage to throw it into her mouth after a few attempts if she really wants the food, but she will give up on eating quickly anyway, because it's too strenuous for her to deal with each small piece misbehaving. This has led to so much frustration for her that she doesn't even try to eat wet cat food anymore: she just licks up the sauce and leaves the meat alone.
Fortunately, she eats kibble. It's not without its own problems, but it's much easier for her. She eats it by licking it up, of course, but maybe its more solid state and smaller size help. She is free-fed, so she eats many times per day, which isn't long and tiring for her, like only 2-3 times per day would be. Even so, her bowl is always surrounded by kibble that she accidentally throws out of the bowl while licking it up.
I'd like to find a way to teach my cat to use her teeth to pick up the food. That would solve a lot of problems and would make eating less frustrating for her. At one point of time, last year, she was ill with panleikopenia, yet couldn't eat the medical wet food prescribed to her, due to these problems: she tried and tried, but eating wet food was such a long and frustrating process for her that she eventually completely gave up on eating in 3 days. She was prepared to starve rather than eat with such frustration, and I had to give her kibble again, despite vet's prescription. I hope to avoid another situation like this, but it might arise.
Any ideas on how to help my cat?
I must stress that there is no medical problem involved. Healthy gums, healthy teeth. She's been like that since the first day we adopted her and up until now (almost 2y.o.).
This caused us a lot of problems. The cat is unable to eat wet cat food or human food, even if she clearly wants to: any small piece she tries to lick up into her mouth will keep falling a few times in a row. She may manage to throw it into her mouth after a few attempts if she really wants the food, but she will give up on eating quickly anyway, because it's too strenuous for her to deal with each small piece misbehaving. This has led to so much frustration for her that she doesn't even try to eat wet cat food anymore: she just licks up the sauce and leaves the meat alone.
Fortunately, she eats kibble. It's not without its own problems, but it's much easier for her. She eats it by licking it up, of course, but maybe its more solid state and smaller size help. She is free-fed, so she eats many times per day, which isn't long and tiring for her, like only 2-3 times per day would be. Even so, her bowl is always surrounded by kibble that she accidentally throws out of the bowl while licking it up.
I'd like to find a way to teach my cat to use her teeth to pick up the food. That would solve a lot of problems and would make eating less frustrating for her. At one point of time, last year, she was ill with panleikopenia, yet couldn't eat the medical wet food prescribed to her, due to these problems: she tried and tried, but eating wet food was such a long and frustrating process for her that she eventually completely gave up on eating in 3 days. She was prepared to starve rather than eat with such frustration, and I had to give her kibble again, despite vet's prescription. I hope to avoid another situation like this, but it might arise.
Any ideas on how to help my cat?
Last edited: