Debby with a Y
Well-known member
I need some creative advice because I'm having a real challenge here!!! It's so darn complicated that I'm going to list the challenges and the situation in list form.
Does anyone have experience getting old senior cats off free feeding and onto a twice a day feeding schedule?
Or am I doomed to watching pets eat and acting like a traffic cop for the rest of my life?
- I have five cats and a baby Cavalier. Some of the cats are as large as Barkley will be when he is fully grown.
- Try as I might to get the cats to eat on a schedule, they refuse...they've been free fed their entire lives. I've tried and tried and...well maybe I should try just one more time?
- Two of the cats are very old seniors and two are 10-year-old siblings, all four were rescued at various times when they were all about 8 years old, bottom line is I can't imagine retraining them.
- The breeder told me to feed Barkley twice a day, breakfast and dinner, he's eating on the 6:30's.
- The oldest cat is unable to jump up onto a counter and even if he did, jumping down would do the poor old boy in. He's a diabetic and has weak legs.
- Yes I could put a stairstep thing up to the food table for the cats, but then Barkley could simply walk up the stairs.
- Because the cats refuse to eat on a schedule, I can't really put them in another room to feed them twice a day. I don't really have a room to do that in anyway except the cat litter box room and that just seems too yucky to feed them in there.
- The cats LOVE LOVE LOVE Barkley's food and they won't leave him alone...they tower over him and they are very intimidating. I keep pushing them away gently but it's a lot of work. The moment Barkley steps away, the cats' heads are right into his dish.
- Barkley won't eat unless I stand over him (another problem that I hope works out soon!) and that is even when the cats are otherwise occupied. Barkley follows me EVERYWHERE and I can't walk away to do anything while he's eating or he will stop eating (is this a Cav thing?)
- Barkley loves the cats' food and he will eat that without my standing over him, LOL!!! I've tried a stern NO when he gets into it and he walks away. So far. I guess that as he grows older, he'll be more headstrong about it.
- I've borrowed my partner's Giant Schnauzer crate and I've tried putting Barkley in that to eat, but he just cries and dances and carries on and won't eat. He made quite a big mess in there this morning. Meanwhile, the cats swarm around the crate and mock him. (The cats did help clean up the mess though, LOL!!!!!)
- The cats could simply leap into an x-pen so that's not a solution.
Does anyone have experience getting old senior cats off free feeding and onto a twice a day feeding schedule?
Or am I doomed to watching pets eat and acting like a traffic cop for the rest of my life?