For me, it has been a learning process over time. If she repeatedly goes to the food dish and won't eat it, hours later, I may try something else. But, there are other times, even hours later, once I moisten the food up a bit again (after already having it done it before), she ends up eating. This varies.Hm, to your point about your Feeby may be content with refusing food even if shes hungry...then what happens?
This is likely true about the Mirtazapine. And, Feeby would have to be a lot worse than Sassy sounds right now for me to even consider giving her the stuff. There might be occasions when nothing of real significance is going on and the Mirtazapine 'jump starts' the eating process again, but I have never felt that Feeby has reached that point to try.My vet would always say 95% time any cat shouldnt really need Mirtazapine as its just masking up an underlying issue. Which I can believe and agree with...so thats the reason why I always get scared when she doesn't eat, its because of an issue.
I have only made this comparison as I have seen it in other cats, and dogs as well. I seriously can't imagine that aging animals don't have their on and off days, just like humans. Their systems start to slow down, same as ours do. Does it mean they are actually sick? Maybe so, or maybe not.I mean Cats are not humans per say, but I honestly don't know how true that older cats can be in comparison to older human appetites. Makes sense, but not sure how official that info can be.
As far as I am concerned, some cats also become more 'needy' as they age. At least that is what I am seeing with Feeby. And, they don't always choose the best times to display that. Feeby wakes us up a lot more during the night anymore, when she used to sleep nearly straight through. Maybe some of Sassy's bugging you isn't really about food at all?