Peanut is going bonkers!

[orangeishcat]

Begging for food has always been an issue with Peanut-- we can't free-feed him because he will literally gorge himself until he's a furry basketball with feet. We have a strict feeding schedule that we stick to- 7A, noon, 7P. The problem is that he's started begging up a storm in between feeding times, to the point where I'm worried he'll hurt himself. This morning I was woken up at 5AM to this cat physically flinging himself at the door to make as much racket as he could, so we'd get up and feed him. He always paws at the door, yowls at it, rattles the knob, whatever he can do- but now he's taken to just throwing himself at it as well, in the hopes that we'll quit ignoring him and get up. I really don't want to change his routine or give in to bad behavior, but I don't want him to hurt himself, either! What should I do?

 

[StefanZ]

Im thinking, has he enough to do?

Say, a video with fishes or bird so he can look at them.

Or even simply, TV on....

A netted balcony is quite effective.

Or a food station for birds just outside you windows.  So he can look at them, but cant get at them...

toys where you have some dry food inside them, so he must "fish" it out one after one with his paw...

There are surely also other ideas.

Does he gets exercise?  With lotsa of exercise you can afford to give him his beloved food more often.

ps.

What sorter of food does he gets?

Many sorter of dry foods are sprayed on with scents they do love. It is why they do always "choose" this food...

Wet food is better at this. Not so tasty, but in the long run much better.

 

[ldg]

I know it sounds disturbing, but you'll have to do your best to ignore it.

I think Stefan has some great suggestions. :nod:

Because he's SO food motivated, you really may want to consider one of those treat balls where you adjust the size of the opening - you can make it REALLY difficult for the treat to get out. If you're feeding him dry, you can put 1/2 of what you'd feed him in the morning in there for him to try to get at overnight. :dk:

 

[orangeishcat]

He's currently on Taste of the Wild dry food- I've been looking for some quality canned food but the local pet store is always "ordering it" and it never seems to arrive. Hmmm... maybe time to start looking somewhere else.

For the treat ball- I have tried that- he batted it around, got all the food out, scarfed it, and promptly puked it back up. 

 He does this a lot- he'll get so frantic about eating that he'll just inhale it and then barf. Very attractive. The treat ball I have does not have an adjustable opening, though... so that is something I'm going to look into!

So far I've been just ignoring him, which really is quite hard- he has plenty of toys, plenty of entertainment- typically he'll even sleep with us until 5 or so and then walk up to start pawing my face, which is when he gets put out of the room- all of his toys and such are upstairs, where he can easily reach them, he just would rather fling himself at the door apparently. 

I play with him for about 2 hours spread out over the course of the day, depending on when I've got a few spare minutes to toss a ball for him or use his fleece-on-a-stick thingie. He also loves his catnip mouse, and can play with that on his own for quite a good amount of time.

 

[ldg]

Yes, there are treat balls with adjustable openings. You can buy a larger kibble or actual treats that are a little larger than those blue buffalo kibble pieces. We have one that makes it nearly impossible to get the treats out, and our food hound, Billy, spends hours at it. (He never gets them all out!