Starve her into submission or indulge her?

[raincitygirl]

So, as you may have gathered from my last post, Young Miss Weaver is throwing up again. We have an appointment with the vet for Saturday morning. In the meantime, I've put her back on the gastro-intestinal diet that she loathes, and for several days she's been eating zilch. Or to be precise, she eats the gravy of the gastric food, but leaves all the chunks of meaty deliciousness. Or meaty disgustingness, as she evidently feels. But she cries for food all the time. Stalks the refrigerator, hangs around meowing plaintively when I'm getting food for myself, etc, etc. This evening I finally cracked and cooked her a chicken thigh. She devoured the small piece I gave her, and hasn't brought it back up again yet. Yet.

My mother thinks I'm handling it wrong. She says when YMW gets hungry enough, she'll eat the vet-approved gastric food, and that by pandering to her with the chicken I'm just delaying the inevitable. I should keep putting out small amounts of the gastric food and eventually she'll choke it down in order to stave off starvation. My head says my mother's probably right, but on the other hand, it's really frelling tough to ignore an animal who's crying for food.

In my situation, what would YOU do, oh wise pet staff on my f-list and dwircle? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Comments

[recessional]

What were you feeding her normally before the vet food?

[raincitygirl]

Natural Balance grain-free wet food. She scarfed it down twice a day for five years and had an iron stomach until last month.

[recessional]

I'm just thinking that given you gave her chicken and she hasn't puked it up, a raw-food diet might work.

[raincitygirl]

I may just try a raw food diet. My local hipster pet food store stocks starter packs of Red Dog Blue Kat so I may swing by and pick up one. I read you can only leave the thawed food out for 30 minutes and then it has to be thrown out, which makes it seem less attractive. But when she finds something she actually wants to eat (like chicken breast/thigh) she scarfs it down in 30 seconds, never mind 30 minutes. It's worth a shot. Thanks!

[commodorified]

Bleas your mother but she's dangerously wrong..

Do not try to starve out a cat. It's dangerous. If they don't eat for two-three days they tend to lose all interest in food, develop a nausea response to it, and end up very very ill.

There's some stuff called feline digest that is good for kittyguts and also super palatable; it can be sprinkled on gooshy food to make it more appealing.

There are also multiple brands of GI food; call your vet and ask if there's a different one you can try her on?

Other options are: warm the food, mush the food up, mash some kibbles into the food. If she's eating the gravy it may be texture rather than flavour.

[raincitygirl]

Eeek! Re: the dangerously wrong part.

These are all excellent suggestions. I will follow them. THANK YOU!

[commodorified]

it is for whatever reason not widely known. I learned it the hard way and was lucky to save my cat.

[twistedchick]

Agreed with above. Do not try to starve a cat into submission to food it will not eat. The cat will get very ill first. Cats are honest -- they will not do something because someone else thinks it's a good idea. They do it because it works for them. Cats determine that food is "good" by smell more than taste, and their ability to smell is far more sensitive than ours. If it doesn't smell right to them, they will not eat it. We have changed cat food at various times to help with an aging cat's declining sense of smell -- one kitty finally would only eat beef liver pate because that was the only thing that smelled good to her.

Warming canned kitty food in the microwave for 3-5 seconds seems to work. Not longer.

I have fed a cat bits of finely minced plain cooked chicken, and that has worked. As long as she was given it in one of her regular cat-food dishes she did not associate it with what we ate and did not beg for food during meals.

Is there any chance that she has a painful tooth/jaw so that chewing hurts? That has been the reason for not wanting to chew on the larger bits for some of our cats, who went back to chewing enthusiastically when the pain was gone.

[raincitygirl]

I don't *think* it would be her teeth or jaw, because she had her teeth cleaned under sedation last August, and had a clean bill of health at that time, not a single extraction needed. I will mention the possibility to the vet on Saturday though.

Thanks very much for the other advice.

[wanderer]

As others have said, starving cats into eating does not work and is very dangerous. Can you mix in a tiny bit of the Natural Balance with the gastro food and see if that will help? Is the texture of the other food different? If it's pieces + gravy and she's used to mush, try mashing it with a fork and a splash of hot water instead of microwaving. Alternatively, with my picky eater I sometimes warm up some chicken broth and dilute the food with that - he'll eat the liquid and ignore the solids, but if they're mushed up together, he's at least eating.

[raincitygirl]

Thanks, I will try that.