1.) Get a cat
2.) Get the cat used to eating diet food (in Tunch’s case, Felidae)
3.) Think you are giving the cat a treat by feeding him something different for one (1, uno, ein) meal. Then try to feed him his normal food for the next month.
He is driving me insane. Shrill meowing, running between my legs, and he refuses to eat his normal food.
Justin
You could have stopped after Step One.
Tunch
Just get me the different food. Believe me, I will win this battle. You exist to serve me.
t. jasper parnel
Bill Kristol, so it seems, was consistently wrong.
Punchy
They make diet cat food? Are you serious?
craigie
Cats and dogs do not require “treats.” What they don’t know won’t hurt them.
The same is true of children.
jake
Ignore him. Eventually he’ll run between your feet at the right moment and someone will wonder why you haven’t shown up to work well before he’s finished munching on UR carcass.
Then he’ll be SEP.
Cats. They Want to Kill Us!
Face
Also, John, don’t feed him dish soap. You cannot substitute Cat Fancy with Palmolive.
Bruce Moomaw
Well, John, he’s a CAT. He has a heritage to maintain.
The Other Steve
Once, my girlfriend let Bubbles the cat lick her spoon after eating icecream. Just once.
Two years later, she still comes begging when we eat ice cream.
I once let Roxie the dog lick my finger after making toast with peanut butter(it’s delicious!)… she still comes begging whenever she hears me going into the fridge.
My new weight loss diet… stop eating cereal. Eat toast with peanut butter & jelly, plus a cup of tea in the morning and maybe some juice. Then don’t drink more than 8 ounches of soda pop a day. Been at it for 3 weeks, lost 8 lbs. Frankly I think it’s the not drinking pop thing rather than the peanut butter.
Jessica
At some point there was a study that concluded that cats can’t taste sweetness. I think that’s full of shit. Every cat I’ve ever owned has loved sweet foods like mad. Hell, my cat begs for strawberries, canteloupe and my protein shakes. Freak.
norbizness
Consult the Bush Administration Guide to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.
whippoorwill
I once had a cat that I left alone for a couple of days. I filled his food bowl full but made the mistake of sitting a large bag of cat on the floor. Well, when I got home the cat had ripped into the food bag and ate most of its contents. I could have used the little shit for a basketball he was so blimped out.
RSA
One of the cats we owned gulped down meals as if he were starved (i.e., even faster than most cats). One day when I was cooking in the kitchen, I dropped a raw green bean. The cat was on it like a flash and gobbled it down. WTF?
This is true. I occasionally buy a cat toy not for our cat’s enjoyment, nor even for my own enjoyment of watching the cat play with it, but rather the enjoyment of seeing my wife enjoy the cat’s playing with it. Also, given that cats will eat the same damned thing every day for years on end, it seems obvious that finding variety in their cuisine is not one of their top priorities.
Last thought: There’s an insert in the box of cat food cans that I buy:
Okay. . .
Comrad Mattski
Get a Dog. My Great Dane will eat anything. She may not always keep it all down, but man that doesn’t keep her from constantly trying. Just yesterday I had to tell a female housemate that she’s no longer allowed to dispose of feminine products in the bathroom trash can. Let me just say that’s not something i really enjoy picking off the hallway floor. Yeck!
Davis X. Machina
Well, when I got home the cat had ripped into the food bag and ate most of its contents.
Tastes better when you kill it yourself. To us, they’re cute little furry bundles. In fact, they’re the apex predator in their food chain — unless there’s a coyote or pine martin about.
Chuck Butcher
Animals regard “treats” as food, treat is not in their mental vocabulary, it is thus food and the expected result.
I sometimes share a bite of my lunch with my dog, not because he regards it as a treat, but because it is pack sharing. Ordinarily I keep a dog buscuit in the lunch box, so it is familiar stuff & good for his teeth.
Tractarian
John, whatever you do, don’t treat him to tuna. After a cat gets the taste of tuna, nothing else will ever satisfy. And you will get less sleep then the father of a newborn child.
blackfrancis
John,
I would trade you that issue for mine any day. It is my daughter’s responsibility to change the litter box. If it is not done every 3 days, the cats (2 of them) have their own soloution. They decide to go in the corner of the kitchen instead. If that was the end of it, I could manage. However, they decided they need to go on something that they drag into the corner.
Something:
kitchen towels they drag onto the floor
Potholders they drag onto the floor
The $25.00 cat bed
plastic bags
the catnip play-mats
a curtain they managed to take down in the kitchen.
these cats could run the bush administration.
Tim F.
Is it wrong that this seems to me like the perfect solution? When Tunch loses enough weight he’ll eat the diet stuff again. If it tastes like shit, he’ll eat less of it and lead a more vigorous life for it.
Hell, people diet food works the exact same way.
Cain
Tim F,
I think he means that “normal” is the diet food he was feeding him before. The anamoly was that he gave him regular cat food as a treat and apparently that undid everything.
Speaking of which, my little one expects every day that I’ll feed her wet cat food. She doesn’t like the dry stuff as much although she eats it. Occasionally, I’ll give her a wet cat food treat which she eats like she’s never had food before. It gets so bad that she follows me around every morning and looks at me intently as to somehow by keeping eye contact with me she could perform a vulcan mind meld and get me to give her wet cat food. Crazy feline.
cain
Aaron
33Z N Yr Base! Killing yr D00Z!
/lol
Soliton
We had a Cocker that one Christmas managed to not only open a gift wrapped box of Hershey’s Kisses but managed to unwrap all the Kisses and eat them.
Said Cocker was also absolutely obsessed beyond measure with the Frisbee. We would put the Frisbee on top of the tall bookcase and she would just sit there and stare at the top of the bookcase. That dog was so smart she got to the point where she understood the spelling of some of her favorite things.
I wouldn’t take her in the car for six months at a time during the summer when I couldn’t leave her in the car.
All I had to do was say “go for a ride” in a very conversational, non dog tone and she would be dancing around the car.
TenguPhule
1. Get a Cat
Fixed. Because we all know those Hellish creatures were put on this Earth to destroy mankind.
MarkusB
I feel your pain. My neighbor has a cat. I took care of her (the cat) one winter, and now she is my cat, too. I don’t let her in the house any more, but she camps out on my porch, and I feed her there. The winter of my future discontent, I tried different things to see what she really liked. That was a big mistake. Now all she wants is Fancy Feast, in any tuna variety. Or tuna anything. Tractarian is right; there’s no going back now. Actually, a friend of mine who has many cats mentioned that there is such a thing as tuna addiction. I can’t argue.
Her owner (rather, primary staff member) feeds her Deli-cat dry food, so at least she gets some of that. I think I know what she prefers, though, since she seems to spend the lion’s share of her time on my porch.
craigie
My wife has that. Of course, the tuna has to be raw, and served with rice by a Japanese man with a very sharp knife. I think it would be cheaper if she just did crack.
Anne Laurie
We had a Cocker that one Christmas managed to not only open a gift wrapped box of Hershey’s Kisses but managed to unwrap all the Kisses and eat them.
Count your blessing, Soliton. Less smart dogs eat the Kisses foil & all (sometimes plastic bag, foil, & all) and then require expensive surgery to retrieve the non-food items from their intestines. Some of them will do this more than once, assuming the humans are sufficiently un-alert that they get a second chance. And those dogs are *still* smarter than the dogs who eat stuff like rocks or Play-doh or life-sized plush animals that bear no resemblance whatsoever to food items… I mean, I love my dogs, and I’m willing to make allowances for the fact that they are biologically programmed with the universal dog motto (YOU GONNA FINISH THAT?), but really — why does a dog who’s just finished his dinner and been given a chicken-filled rawhide “for dessert” decide he’d rather chew another hole in my 100% non-organic non-allergenic comforter?
Cats are far less likely to eat un-food-like items, but when they do, it’s usually something REALLY life-threatening. Tinsel, for instance, or string. Or thread with a sewing needle still attached, *shudder*. If you ever have sewing needles in the same house as your cat, keep track of them the way surgical nurses track the instruments in the operating theatre. Not kidding. If you & the cat are lucky, the needle will embed itself in its mouth or throat, form an abcess, and require expensive surgical removal plus weeks of antibiotics (and we all know how much fun it is getting those antibiotics into the cat). Less fortunate animals die slowly & horribly from peritonitis, usually after you’ve maxed out the credit cards on emergency surgery and the veterinary ICU…
(Hopefully, John, this will make you feel a little better about your cat’s new gourmand tendencies.)
Cabalamat
hehehe
My cat is right now sniffing at the drawer where I keep his treats.
Jay
On training cats (and dogs):
Cats are predators. They are, therefore, used to an extremely high failure rate when they hunt. One success in 10, 20, or 100 attempts, while it might not seem like anything to us, can be positively reinforcing to a cat. You giving your cat *one* treat probably convinced it that all that complaining finally worked.
Grumpy Code Monkey
After the whole tainted pet food scare, we moved our cats to a raw food diet and the results have been pretty dramatic. The two girls who were grossly overweight for years on kibble are finally losing weight, the energy level for all of them is way up, and, as a bonus, they drop fewer stink bombs. It did take a couple of weeks to migrate them over, especially since one of the girls hated wet food, but perseverance paid off.
It’s as cheap or cheaper than commercial food (except for maybe the cheapest house-brand kibble), at least the way we’re doing it (we get all the meat through a co-op, so it’s a lot cheaper than the supermarket). Amortizing the cost of the grinder and new freezer over the next year, it comes out to about 30 cents per cat per meal. We have to devote a solid day every couple of months to cutting, grinding, and mixing up to 40 lbs. of food, but that’s not too bad.
The main problem was finding solid nutrition information. There’s an unfortunately large section of the raw feeder community that’s, well, nuts, and some recipes are driven less by nutritional concerns than by other, less rational reasoning.
There are pet psychics out there, man. And what’s scarier is that they earn a living from it.
Punchy
Coming from a non-cat owner, I struggle to understand how one doesn’t just put damn food into damn bowl and….wait.
Stomach empty tells brain to eat. Dry and bland food, but food. Cat eventually realizes it’s eat or die. Chooses to eat. Problem solved.
What’s missing in that summary?
jake
Bingo.
Also, I think we’re overdue some new pictures of King Tunch.
rachel
Diet foods suck. Your cat is smarter than you are.
tBone
Our dog loves it if a visitor leaves a dirty diaper in the trash. Something about tearing it up on our 2-year-old carpet seems to really please her. If no diapers are available, tampons seem to be an acceptable substitute in her mind.
She also loves – LOVES – used Kleenexes. In fact, if she hears someone blowing their nose, she’ll run over and sit there patiently, hoping they’ll toss it to her (or divert their attention long enough for her to snatch it).
When she was a puppy, I found her in the backyard with a half-eaten cactus, one with razor-sharp one-inch spines all over it. Didn’t seem to bother her any.
Don’t even get me started on the damn cats.
zzyzx
We feed our cats a TINY bit of Tuna on Thanksgiving. They seem to have survived that so far.
My favorite cat food story involves my dumber cat. She had to take some antibiotics, so I put the drops on some wet food (which she preferred). She didn’t want to ruin the experience of eating that by having the medicine taint it, so she would first carefully lick that off, at which point I’d say, “Good enough” and remove the food.
The Other Steve
America and western Europe are the only places in the world were pets are fed pre-made pet food. In Russia where my girlfriend comes from, their dog(a rotweiller) was fed a stew of sorts made from leftover parts from the Butcher, some carrots, potatoes and barley.(and other stuff) She lived to be 13 years old and finally died of kidney failure. This isn’t particularly old for a Rotweiller, and had her diet been better balanced with potassium she might have lived longer.
One of our local pet stores, Pet Supplies Plus, has a wide range of raw foods. They also sell some of these newer “fresh” foods. Basically it’s dog food in a plastic wrap in a fridge. It’s made here in the states, and uses only normal ingredients. Was tempted to move to this, but ultimately settled on Royal Canine which was less effected by the scare.
The Other Steve
Laziness. It takes time to wait.
Cats can be trained to eat like dogs. Don’t leave food out for them. Feed them twice a day. Put down bowl with food, then take food away if they don’t eat.
The downside of the training, is that cats can figure out how to open kitchen cupboards and scrounge for their own food.
I once came home to find a bag of treats from the cupboard on the floor ripped open and eaten.
RSA
Constant whining on the part of the cat while going through “withdrawal”. After all, cats have little else to think about.
grumpy realist
During one Boston blizzard many many years ago when we had vamoosed to a friend’s apartment that wasn’t quite so likely to remain snowbound for 3 days, we dealt with the cat by putting packets of Little Friskies out all over the apartment and a large bowl of water.
She survived quite well.
Oh, and dogs and uneatable things? Came back to discover Tycho had managed to find all the anti-cockroach poison hidden back of the stove, get it out, and eat it. I panicked, took him to the vet, they kept him a few days for observation. Flat normal. He had supposedly eaten 10 times the lethal dose of boracic acid–with absolutely no effect.
(This is a dog that has managed to get a jar of marmalade off the table, unscrew the lid, and eat the contents.)
Jill
Why do you have a cat?
Bill H
Molly disdains any kind of canned wet cat food.
When I open a can of tuna, she could care less.
When I open a can of kippered herring, meh.
When I open a can of Spam she goes nuts, ankle polishing and bleating until she gets her taste.
She can be asleep in the closet in the back room and if I open a can of spam she will be in the kitchen yelling at me before the lid is off.
Wierd damn cat. But then I like Spam, come to think of it.
Fred
Not sure if this will help by try changing they “type” of food, not the brand. I had cats who would not eat any kind of seafood, dry or wet, only chicken and miscellaneous organs. After a friend cat sat them for a few weeks during which they would not eat at all, I couldn’t get them to eat either. So, I tried giving them salmon and whitefish foods (both dry and wet) and now that’s all they’ll eat. After switching to salmon flavored dry food and canned food of any fish variety they’re back to eating normally. Same brands all the time.
MNPundit
Then he can fucking starve. If he ate it before, he’ll eat it again when he gets hungry enough. It’s not bad for him, it’s perfectly good food. There is no problem.
If the cat is running around my feet, I shove him out of hte way with said feet. Or ignore him completely and eventually he manages to get kicked in the head or his tail stomped while walking: again his own fault.
Cats may not like me very much but they damn well know I’m their master. The only reason I tolerate my OWN cat is because he thinks he is a dog, he plays fetch and such.
Tax Analyst
I just love all these cat/cat feeding stories. Makes me remember why I liked having a cat lo those many years ago. Also reminds why I don’t have one now. There’s really only so much room for totally spoiled, lazy creatures in my household and it seems that these days I pretty much fill up the quota on my own.
Silver Owl
LOL! He’s a talker and teaching you how to be a spontaneous contortionist and how not to get yourself killed when falling. How very thoughtful of him.
The other Steve is right. Feeding twice a day is the way to go and gets rid of the need for “the diet food” which in many cases mostly fillers. A handful twice a day is all it takes. Both my cats dropped weight. Also increasing their excercise helps a lot too. Laser lights and feathers on sticks gets them moving.
Silver Owl
Grumpy Code Monkey I tried to switch my cat to raw and it failed miserably. At 17 years old she is set in her ways. The dogs have been raw fed for over 5 years now.
When Nanuk had to have surgery on his knee I told the vets he was a raw fed dog and that he wouldn’t eat processed food. I offered to package up a meal for him and they said naw he’ll eat their stuff. lol I laughed and you let me know how successful that is. The dorks tried all their dog foods and cat foods and he wouldn’t eat it.
The one vet tech asked me “Does he always show his teeth when he’s fed?”
I laughed, “I guess he didn’t eat eh? He only gives his EWWWW face when the food stinks to him.” lol
Bombadil
Ooooo! Me, too!
kritter
Our cat goes into the pantry on his own, and drags out the whole bag of food, if we forget to close the door tightly. I found it empty in the middle of the kitchen floor a couple of times. The little glutton also loves to eat butter- if you have a little on your finger he will swipe at it like you’re his prey.
John Cole
I think there are some things people do not understand:
1.) I am an idiot for giving my cat a treat.
2.) I gave my cat a treat because I love him and want to do nice things for him, which would answer the question ‘Why do you have a cat.”
3.) Yes, I understand he will eventually eat his food, but will it happen before I go insane.
4.) No. Shooting the cat to keep my sanity is not an option. See point 2.
5.) Many of you have clearly never been around a hungry and spoiled cat who knows you are not going to harm him.
YellowJournalism
John, I feel your pain. My husband gave our dog cheese whiz in her food, and she’s been the pickiest little shit ever since then. Of course, I’ve fed her crap, too, so I’m just as much to blame. Damn those big brown eyes and that loveable nature!
As far as number three on your list goes, the answer is a definite “no”.
Tax Analyst
What’s spooky is how much of this your cat seems to somehow know intuitively.
You stand utterly defenseless – a big, well-intentioned, fully-gullible & goofy feeding machine.
I never could figure it out, I finally decided to roll with it, for lack of anything else to do…no, you really don’t want to harm the cat…you’d really feel like a prick later and that feeling probably wouldn’t go away any time soon, either.
chazaroo
Kill the cat and go buy dog you stupid asshole.
Bombadil
A dog has owners.
A cat has staff.
Tax Analyst
Truth…
Kafka Lives
Cats know that the only reason a human ever enters a kitchen is to feed them.
That Felidae sounds like a fabulous health food– for humans. I’ll bet it’s expensive, but so much of it is going to waste (literally) because the cat’s system can’t use it. Cats are obligate carnivores, which means that they cannot digest vegetable material. I found out the hard way that most dry cat food is carbohydrates and vegetable protein, which is good (cheaper) for pet food companies but not good for cats because it’s fattening and can cause feline diabetes. Vets and owners of diabetic felines call dry food “kitty crack” . Maybe your owner’s body is trying to tell you something?
The other bad news? Silver Owl is so right: unlike dogs, cats don’t follow the “if they’re hungry enough they’ll eat” routine.
All that pontificating aside, I know precisely what you’re going through and it’s really frustrating. (Changing my cats, all three former strays, into indoor-only cats was a real relaxing pleasure, too.)
I think we need to start a pool on when you’re going to give in and make the treat the regular diet. Good luck!
mclaren
Your first error here is the assumtpion that humans own cats. In fact, cats own us…and they teach us to do tricks.
Chuck Butcher
Before you get all “dogs have owners,” you need to experience a Great White Pyrrenes, they are very nearly catlike in their independence. If you want a dog to play fetch or come right when called, get something else.
What I will say for Gus (all 145# of him) is that he is very well mannered, he takes a dog biscuit with the utmost delicacy, his lips will not touch your fingers, he does not chew things, he will find a bush or some obstacle to back up to in order to poop (that’s really polite), he does not jump on you, he likes and is gentle with children, he does not steal garbage or people food, and he eats Atta Boy dry chow, it’s what he likes and it’s cheap. He is dedicated to me, and then to the “pack” (my wife, my employees), he does not harm the cat, he does not jump up or flinch if you step over him, and he stays completely off the furniture. Two draw backs, he drools – bootlaces hanging from his face and he has to have a nest when it’s warm out – that means a hole. It’s not promiscuous digging, same hole will do, but he is an earth moving machine. Gus is pretty cool in a big goofy way.
I like the cat pretty well, she likes me better – figure that out. Named Marlin, for the 45-70 lever that was going to shoot her when she (calico kitten) found us deep in the mountains, but that’s too much bullet to use when something is entwined in your ankles and I didn’t have the heart to punt. 12 years of food & litter &&&&, and big vet bills to straighten her back out – a handload – $0.75…
Dress Left
Thought I’d jump in:
Got Kismet, my 15 yr old fur-covered stink factory started on MissingLink supplement after she was misdiagnosed with kidney failure (it was the poisoned food).
The stuff is amazing. She gets a tsp daily of the canine (same stuff as feline- half the price). Finally figured out the best way to get it into her was to put the dry powder into her bowl, shake dry food in my water coated hands, and then dump damp food into bowl and flip until coated.
More energy, shiniest coat ever, happy healthy cat.
Fantastic product.
http://designinghealth.com
Tax Analyst
Glad your cat recovered…I hadn’t heard much good news in the aftermath of that pet food poisoning mess.