My baby girl is finicky. Help

[mr body]

So Topanga is a year old and a PITA. I can never find food that she enjoys. From last Labor Day, to now, I don’t know how many brands and textures I’ve gone through. She won’t touch pate anymore. She’ll eat minced, and likes mousse textures. She also likes simple ingredients. She’ll eat Applepaw. This week has been a total shift. She’ll eat a little and that’s it. If I give her something soupy, she’ll lap up the liquid, leaving the solid meat behind. I thought maybe it’s her gums, but she tears up treats. So I thought maybe she’s preferring dry food now. No, she does the same thing. Takes a few bites and she’s done. I just fed her. She took one bite of the wet food and walked away. I know to not expect a cat to always finish their food in one sitting, but she’s not even going back now. I’m honestly at a loss. I’m going to call the vet just in case, but I also wanted to ask here just to see what the experience is if everyone else.

 

[daftcat75]

It's a good thing you're going to call the vet. Not eating is such a generic symptom behind so many illnesses, simple (infection) and not so simple (disease.) Someone else is going to chime in here with tips on how to get a cat eating. But you still need to get to the bottom of this. I would have the vet check blood, urine, and teeth and gums. A visual inspection of the teeth and gums is okay. We don't expect much dental problems in a cat so young. But it is possible and a full dental exam with mouth x-rays might be something to consider if the blood and urine doesn't turn up anything. Pancreatitis is an additional blood test you can request. It's not in the standard panel so you may want to rule that out now rather than going back to re-test for it. Your vet may also recommend either an x-ray to look for a blockage or an ultrasound to look for masses or inflammation if none of the other tests have turned up anything yet. So yeah. It can be simple or serious or just about anything in between. In the meantime, this cat needs to eat. Someone else has a list of tips and tricks to get a sick cat to eat. Or you can check the Cat Articles section of this site.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Is everything else OK with Topanga - drinking/peeing/pooping/playing normally? Is she losing weight? Beyond having her checked out by a vet, I would try anything and everything to ensure she is eating at least a fair amount of calories everyday.

• Crushing up some Party Mix treats and mixing it with her food - or, even the treats that you are currently giving her.
• Using a blender on the soupy foods so that it is more like mousse texture.
• There are broths and bisques that could be added to her food to see if that might entice her to eat more.
• Perhaps, if she likes cat nip, add some of that to her food.
• Novel proteins, such as duck, venison, rabbit, lamb, etc may be more appealing to her.
• I am not sure what you mean by 'she likes simple ingredients' but you might consider trying to mix some canned tuna/chicken in water with her foods.
• Worst case scenario, feed her human meats (turkey. chicken, fish, etc.) and/or baby food meats (Gerber Stage 2 or Beechnut), the latter can add as much as 80 or 90 calories if she were to eat a jar over the course of a day.
• Try foods that come in packets or plastic tins - maybe it is something about foods that come in cans.
• Feeding her in other types of bowls/dishes/flatter plates - or, even paper plates - might be another thing to try.

If she is not ill, and given how much stuff you have tried with her - and, nothing above helps - you might have to 'bite the bullet' and try homemade food for her - it is possible that there are ingredients in the canned cat foods that she finds unappealing. So many of them have gums in them, or potatoes, etc. that don't always sit well with some cats. There is a food chart (Check This Out.... Chart For Cat Food Ingredients | TheCatSite) that you could use to compare the ingredients in all of the foods you have tried to see if you can find a common denominator or two that might explain what she might be finding less than enticing in those foods.