cat won't eat dry food, presc food, etc..

MargeS

Our cat is one fussy eater. She will only eat food with fish, no chicken, beef, etc. She's not to bothered with dry food either.

She recently had a bout of gingivitis which resulted in her having a dental and in total it cost us >300 euro. While I wouldn't think twice about spending that kind of money on her again if it was needed, I still wouldn't like to see her in the pain she was in again.
We never realised that while wet food my not be the best, we were giving her dry food at the same time, but wet food is so bad for their dental hygiene.
Anyway, we've started her on prescription cat food, (Kibble), big pieces of dry food. She ate it for the first few days, I guess because it was new, but now she refuses to eat it. And she is holding out for hours until we break and give her wet food.

Does anyone have any successful method of getting a fussy cat to eat prescription food??

portgirl123

i think you will just have to get tough and stick with the dry food. As hard as it is if she dosent eat it it after 15-20 mins take it away and dont give in and dont give her anything to next meal. She wont die of the hunger and you will see she will quickly cope on that she is getting nothing else and will eat. Might take a few days but she will eventually eat it. good luck

The Sweeper

First of all, 'hours' isn't holding out. If you feed your cat twice a day, and they literally do not eat what you're feeding, you can ignore uneaten breakfast day one, ignore uneaten dinner day one, ignore uneaten breakfast day two (but leave something down during the day and plenty of water) and only start stressing if dinner goes uneaten on day two.

If your cat has an issue with her teeth, try feeding her chunks or strips of raw beef, or raw lamb - the chewing action helps clean the teeth - or a chicken neck (hit it with a hammer first the first time you feed it to make it easier to tackle - domestic-fed cats forget how to chew and tear natural food because wet food is just lapped up and dry food comes in mouth-sized pieces). It can also add some variety to her diet and reawaken a sort of interest in food.

Feeding a cat only raw meat isn't a balanced diet - to eat raw properly they need a balanced raw diet including offal and meat on the bone so they eat the bone and get calcium (chicken necks are good for this, so are chicken wings). However if you can get her to eat something that cleans her teeth, like necks or chunks of meat, you can give her kibble or wet food for her other meal of the day.

mymo

I had a cat here with a health problem that required special food, he held out almost 4 days, and the vet said that was fine. Vet said even a couple more days wouldn't have done him any real harm. If the cat is a good weight don't worry.
I feed a mix of foods here, some raw(chunks of stewing beef, or scraps of meat, chicken wings), some dry food, and some wet. I get good quality wet online from zooplus and feed it 2 or 3 times a week, cats eat it all.
Get the cat on the dry stuff first(if you put it in the microwave for 30 secs to warm it a little, it smells better to them), then you can give other things on random days, if mine turn their noses up at the dry, they get nothing else(just dry) for a few days. I think this stops them getting fussy.

theghost

Don't know if this will work with cats but when my dogs wouldn't eat dry food I put a little gravy on it - just enough to moisten it - to tempt them. Or try adding a sardine and a little of the oil from the tin to the food.

MargeS

theghost wrote: »

Don't know if this will work with cats but when my dogs wouldn't eat dry food I put a little gravy on it - just enough to moisten it - to tempt them. Or try adding a sardine and a little of the oil from the tin to the food.

Thanks all!

@theghost: I think the problem with your suggestion is that the cat needs to eat hard food to remove the tartar from their teeth. By softening the food with gravy it counteracts the affect of the hard food.