My cat is a fussy little thing.

I did a food shop at Tesco's yesterday and stocked up on cat food, but she's decided that she wont eat it anymore. She had a couple of mouthfulls yesterday evening but wont touch it. I've cleaned her plate, opened a fresh tray & she still wont eat it :(
She managed to pinch some of the dogs food earleir, but only to lick the gravy off the chunks (great - she likes dog gravy but wont touch cat gravy!).

I am 100% sure this is pure & simple fussyness and would bet my life that if I offered her Sheba she couldn't eat it quick enough. She does want feeding as she's doing her usual trick of wandering around the kitchen, scratting at cupboards, smaking the un-opened trays of cat food off the counter and being a general pain.
Unfortunately, I usually give in and get her a different flavour/brand so reaslise I have 'trained' her to be this fussy, but I have a weeks supply here and would rather she just ate it!

How long is it OK to let a cat go without eating? If it were a dog being fussy I'd not be worrying, but she's such a tiny little thing. She isn't fat, so has not got much in the way of reserves (probably ideal weight for her frame or just under ideal)
As she usualy eats wet food, she doesn't drink water (only ever seen her drink water after she'd eaten dry food, but she's not overly fussed on that) - will she drink if she needs to if she's not getting her water from her diet? Do I give in and get her something I know she'll scoff?
She's camped out next to her food bowl waiting for something better to be offered!

ETA the comment about her not liking cat gravy would have made more sense had I left in her entire lifes history of faddyness! - the basics = she wont eat cat food in gravy/jelly, nor fish flavoured cat food unless it's Sheba!

cats can and do go on hunger strike for a couple of days without ill effect.  (if yours goes out though don't be supprised if she is getting food elsewhere and so appears to hold out longer)
some years ago we were given a large goose for Christmas- if was huge, we ate nothing but goose and the cats ate nothing but goose for a few days. when the goose ran out my two cats decided they could no longer eat normal cat food and sat wailing for goose for nearly 3 days before they cracked and ate their normal food again.

I would put down fresh food twice a day (with dish well scrubbed inbetween) and leave her to it. as long as there is clean water and fresh food available provided nothing else wrong she will crack and eat.

do however really go over her- if she has the sniffles she needs vet and not eating is one of first signs of respiratory issues- likewise I'd have a good look at her teeth. 
good luck :)

Cats unlike dogs cannot go without food for too long as it CAN kill them -Google Hepatic lipidosis. It also never fails to amaze me how quickly cats lose weight -which is why I prefer mine on the chubby side where possible, as just 3 days can lose an awful lot of weight.

Most supermarket cat food is rubbish -far more so than dog foods. Are you feeding one that is high enough in meat content? If you read the labels you will see the great majority has just 4 % meat the rest a load of cereal. The best supermarket canned food is Classic, which has 49 % meat. Of course, if money is no object and pet shops are a possibility then go for Natures Menu with 70 % meat or fish, or Applaws! If I had just one or two cats I'd feed nothing but those foods. If you feed something with good enough quality you don't need to worry as much about how much is eaten. But I wouldn't want a hunger strike to go on for more than 2 days. (We are just in the process of changing the way we feed ours, as I worked out we could save over £100 a month. The first attempt resulted in 3 or 4 cats that would not eat it, so after two days we gave up.) Water I am sure she would drink if she needed it.

You might need another cat. :) I took 3 rescue ones in a few months ago, one worried me a LOT. She would not eat anything I offered (just the odd mouthfull) and and within a fortnight had lost over half her body weight. I had to resort to feeding whatever she would eat, even though it was rubbish. I found with her, once she'd settled and started eating with the other cats, she would eat anything as the others did. She didn't even hunger strike now with the change.

> Cats unlike dogs cannot go without food for too long as it CAN kill them

Phew! I'm glad my instincts told me to ask questions before allowing her to go on hunger strike for the next week!

> Are you feeding one that is high enough in meat content?

No, it's just cheap Tesco cat food, min 8% meat (if I'm reading it right - it say min 4% chicken, min 4% ham - so I don't know if that means min 4% of ONE of them or of EACH of them!)

Well, she's just had some roast chicken and now she's preening herself, ready to settle down in her current farvorite sleeping spot :)

She's always been in good health & healthy looking on the cheap food, just very picky with flavours/textures/brands, but it would obviously be a lot better for her if I was offering a hiqh quality food that she would  eat all the time.

I only have the one cat, so allthough money is tight, Natures menu is still affordable. I wont be able to get any for a few days, so I'll have to get her some Sheba for now (I know she'll scoff herself to the brim on that!).

I'm also going to google home prepared diets/raw diets. Maybe she'd find that more appetising.

Thank you so much for you advice :)

> You might need another cat

Ah, I've always fancied a ragdoll or a persion, what a great excuse :-D

Oh yes, def a good excuse for another cat, I have a male seal colourpoint neuter ragdoll and he is just gorgeous-both to live with and look at!  In my experience they really are more dog-like in their behaviour than other cat breeds I've known (though have to admit I've not owned other breeds).  He, along with the OES, comes running when we come home or have visitors, and you can't even go to the toilet in our house without Ted accompanying you.  He manages somehow to train over-exuberant youngsters by confusingly flopping over onto his back at their feet, closing his eyes and uttering a pathetic closed mouth mew, which usually results in a confused looking pup sitting quietly to observe, at which point he bounces to his feet swishes his tail across their nose and meanders past at his leisure!
Have to admit though he is the fussiest eater...he will only eat Royal Canin Indoor Long Hair dry food and drink water (a running bathroom tap is the holy grail!).  He positively looks repulsed at anything else proferred as a treat like tuna, canned foods or prawns and will skirt around the edge of the room to avoid it-so if they're all like that can't promise it would persuade your little princess to eat!  I often wonder why we let our cats get away with so much compared to our dogs!

Well, it just had to happen!
She's eaten her cat-food, taken herself of to her high-spot on top of a cabinet in the liveingroon and is sat there looking down on us like a snooty monarch, surveying her lowly subjects, with a look on her face crossed between smugness and contempt!!!!!

I do think her diet needs changing still though.

Clumberjack - sush!! - your making me jealous! :) (We're not in the position to take on another pet at the moment :( )
Your cat sounds so lovely :) Just what I imagined a ragdoll to be like.

> He manages somehow to train over-exuberant youngsters by confusingly flopping over onto his back at their feet, closing his eyes and uttering a pathetic closed mouth mew, which usually results in a confused looking pup sitting quietly to observe, at which point he bounces to his feet swishes his tail across their nose and meanders past at his leisure!

LOL Fantastic! :-D I can just picture it. What a very smart (or extreeeeeemly laid back) cat, to train youngsters like that :)

> I often wonder why we let our cats get away with so much compared to our dogs!

Yes! My cat is an anti-social little madam that would rather swipe at a hand than allow it to stroke her, the way she behaves would not be tollerated from a dog!

Now she's just dived onto the kitchen counter, knocking some boxes flying nearly giving me a heart attack form the sudden racket!!!!....and shot off out the room like a rocket agin....the dogs taken himself down the hallway to escape the cat-zoomies..... No, I can hear 'shuffle...shuffle' as he's reversing back up the hallway *rollyeyes*....

Oh my gosh! Pets are supposed to be good for your health, my cat is going to give me a nervous breakdown between worrying over her pickyness and getting startled with her 'zoomies'.

Ohh to have a ragdoll - laid back & friendly........

I just feed him the same meat as the dogs.

Just out of interest, what do you feed the dogs? We tried this with the cats, but it didn't work as they got dreadfully upset stomachs from it every single time. They didn't seem to be able to cope with raw meat from the butcher -other than chicken carcasses, that works. However cooking the same meat worked fine, but it was too time consuming as we had to cut it into smaller pieces or they would not touch it. So I buy the frozen freeflow mince from Prize Choice and just thaw it enough, that they all love  it. However I don't dare to feed raw only as it is so much more complicated for cats than dogs and they need vitamins etc added to not get ill in the long run (read up a lot on home made diets for cats), so we've stuck to one meal of commercial food and one meal raw.

Mastifflover, i think you must have my cat ! lol.

My little Polly Princess Pants will only lick the gravy if I don't mash everything up, she's also incredibly fussy, Gourmet Pearl is her nosh of choice, but after reading Goldimal's post i think I'll try her on Natures Menu.

Interesting post I have a fussy burmese who will only eat whiskas or similar which I am sure is akin to junk food and a moggy who is slightly less fussy and will eat the occasional raw meat pinched from the dogs food. I have considered raw but havnt researched it for cats and certainly unlike dogs it is quite complicated to get the correct balance. My dogs being fed all raw meat and bones. Will have alook at natures diet however costs are very important as unfortunately like many money is tight. Good luck with you cat mastiff lover 

Is natures menu the same for cats and dogs ?

Natures Menu does separate cat food.

thank you have just found it, shame it so expensive with my two I think the would need 3 packs each per day which is about £3.00 a day. May consider abit of each whiskas and natures menu. Will also see how they go with classic.
I am quite concerned that the cats are getting junk and the dogs get good meat and bone. Until I read you post I hadnt realised how bad ordinary cat food was :(

Classic is good enough, so much better than other supermarket canned foods, and much more affordable. Usually about £2.76 for a pack of 6 cans, and they are full sized cans. :) My problem is I need 12 cans a day for ONE meal LOL.

Marianne, I feed the cat same as the dogs.  Mainly beef and chicken, some offal, some bone.  He loves the chicken on the bone and will snatch it out my hand while I'm making up the bowls!! My dogs get the meat cut into small bites as the spaniels tend to just swallow the larger muscle/tendony bits and then puke them back up later.  Cutting it up into bite size pieces saves me cleaning up later!! The cat however loves his big and likes a good, ole chew so I leave his whole.
He also gets fish, rabbit and of course, what he catches himself.  He tends to bring home mice with the heads missing and the middle girl scoops up the rest!!Yuck.  She also got into the bird shed once and ate the whole rabbit which I was defrosting for the birds dinner.  All that was left was the head and claws! That is the dog that would eat me if I died in front of her!!
The cat has also caught himself a pigeon once and brought that home for tea.  That cost me dear as it was a racer!
I figure that cats are carnivores and have no need for carbs or veg.  So I tend to follow the prey model raw diet rather than the BARF or whatever.  I figure that a cat like him in the wild would live on bird(chickens in his instance) and small mammals(mice, etc).  The amount of beef he eats is my worry.
I am going to start ordering him food from the birds place.  Then I can order mice, rats, baby chicks, rabbits that sort of thing which would be more his natural diet.  Dunno if I could go him chewing on a big old rat in the kitchen right enough!!Bleugh!

Goldmali...i'm glad you posted about the Classic cat food as I have a moggie who loves wet food (struggles with dry) and he really enjoys the Classic which I have been buying him for a long time now.  I honestly thought because of the price it might not have been too good.  Our Devon Rex cats eat Arden Grange dried food....been on it for coming up 7 years and doing really well.

And after saying that we had a Siamese x who in her whole life would only eat Go Cat Crunchies...tried all sorts but nope that's all she wanted and she lived until the ripe old age of 20 with no health problems until her last year which was an age thing.

I have had a pedigree  silver tipped chinchilla persian who ate raw green tripe , but must admit we started our rescue cats on tuna flakes  , or sachets ..4 for £1 at Morrisons ... all of them love it .

>He also gets fish, rabbit and of course, what he catches himself.

Sounds like he dines better than you!  :-)  :-)

I figure that cats are carnivores and have no need for carbs or veg.  So I tend to follow the prey model raw diet rather than the BARF or whatever.  I figure that a cat like him in the wild would live on bird(chickens in his instance) and small mammals(mice, etc).  The amount of beef he eats is my worry.

Yes this is how I think as well; cats may eat birds, so chicken will be fairly natural, and certainly rabbit, but they would not catch and kill a cow. Nor do I think most would eat fish to be honest as they simply would not be able to.

How long have you fed like this though? All the info I ave ever read says you cannot easily feed a cat the same way as a dog, which is why I have not dared to drop commercial food altogether -it works out both cheaper and easier than having to buy vitamins etc to add to the meat. And I of course have everything from kittens to an 18 year old (an 18 year old with no teeth!) and often pregnant queens as well.
Here's some links to pages that mention you have to add supplements: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood
http://www.catnutrition.org/supplies.html
http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/bybrawdiets.htm

Re. fish. 

One of the Tonkinese kittens we bred struggled to get back through the catflap when he was about 3 months old.  Because he was dragging an huge ornamental koi carp from a neighbours pond . . .

I'm not saying what mine eat.....but as they eat it all then I think its money well spent and all are in fabulous condition!

Must cost you a fortune though Christine! I'm still not saying how many cats I have but it's a lot and our food bill is now £110 a month. If we bought your food wholesale and fed only that it would cost us roughly £200 -retail I daren't even think of. We have a lot of oldies as well, never before have I had cats live so long.

> All the info I ave ever read says you cannot easily feed a cat the same way as a do

I had a quick google last night, re: home preparing food for cats. From the little bit I read, home cooking is tricky, but feeding raw is a lot easier.
Somthing to do with cooking breaking down taurine. But also, grinding raw food can cut down the amount of  taurine (somthing along the lines of the surface area is increased through grinding, which allows more bacteria to break down the taurine), so the bigger the chunks the better. Also feding extra red meats (such as muscle meat, heart and beef) can help bump up the taurine levels (due to the higher taurine content of these things).

It's obviously more invloved than that, but from the bit I read I am considering doing a bit more research into raw & possibly feeding it but I wouldn't even consider home cooking for a cats diet - that is scarey stuff!

> One of the Tonkinese kittens we bred struggled to get back through the catflap when he was about 3 months old.  Because he was dragging an huge ornamental koi carp from a neighbours pond

Oh yes, cats are great fishermen! I've sadly lost quite a few large pond fish, including koi, to neighbours cats (my cat isn't interested in them - she actually spooked herself with her reflection in the pond and is now too wary to get too close!!).
We do have a net to stop cats now, but there is no doubt a cat can catch a fish much larger than it would be able to eat!

> One of the Tonkinese kittens we bred struggled to get back through the catflap when he was about 3 months old.  Because he was dragging an huge ornamental koi carp from a neighbours pond

Oh yes, cats are great fishermen! I've sadly lost quite a few large pond fish, including koi, to neighbours cats (my cat isn't interested in them - she actually spooked herself with her reflection in the pond and is now too wary to get too close!!).
We do have a net to stop cats now, but there is no doubt a cat can catch a fish much larger than it would be able to eat!

Our 1st Havana spud manage to catch a cooked chicken and dragged it over the fence like a lion dragging it in between his legs.
The funniest thing was it was hot.....so goodness knows whos' house he raided to get it, i never tried to find out. Dead already cooked things was the only thing he could catch, to lazy for any little furry critter catching.....

My current bengal will only eat the sachets from morrisons the 4 for a £1 with high content of fish in, she will also nibble on Once dry food. She is very good at sitting by the side of you when it is dinner time and giving those big puss eyes that say 'you love me and i know you will give me a little of what you have' which does quite often happen.

our moggy on the other hand will eat all sorts she is not at all fussed, and her speciality is shrew, usually in our bedroom in the middle of the night and running under the bed, before settling down to her feast and leaving  gizzards by the side of the bed ready to tread in in the morning.

My dogs are less trouble :)

> spud manage to catch a cooked chicken and dragged it over the fence like a lion dragging it in between his legs.
> The funniest thing was it was hot..

Oh my gosh, I nearly wet myself laughing at that!!!!! :-D Oh dear, somebody must have wondered what on earth had happened to their lovely, freshly roasted chicken, LOL :-D :-D :-D

I had a quick google last night, re: home preparing food for cats. From the little bit I read, home cooking is tricky, but feeding raw is a lot easier.
Somthing to do with cooking breaking down taurine. But also, grinding raw food can cut down the amount of  taurine

Yes I saw this too, but this is the problem. Cats can only cope with FRESH raw meat, unlike dogs that can eat it even if it's almost rotten. My experience with anything other than just thawed mince or chicken carcasses is that they do get really ill from raw meat. Believe me, nothing much worse than having a large number of Persians with the runs from both ends! and this is exactly what happened. I don't know how to get around that.

Diddles - that's hilarious! Looking at my lump (who's just managed to squash himself onto the end of the grooming table with one of my boys) I'm beginning to be grateful that he is a picky eater... at least he's easy!  My friend's enormous moggy can't get in through the catflap as he is so fat so usually sticks his head in to call people to open the door.  Lately though he has started shoving injured but still-alive wood pigeons and rabbits though before demanding the door is opened.  There is something to be said for having a house cat!

> Our 1st Havana spud manage to catch a cooked chicken and dragged it over the fence like a lion dragging it in between his legs.

OMG there must be something about Havanas! My friend's Havana brought home many trophies including a whole pack of raw chicken wings, still in date, packaging only broken by his teethmarks; a quarter of a whole Brie (ditto) (friend ate it after cutting off the punctured corner); two dead budgies (never found out whose they were); and a dead kestrel.... rather smelly and old, but forced in through the cat flap with a lot of banging. They also found out he was wandering into the back door of the local kebab shop and demanding meat with menaces - they were paying him with leftover Doner to keep him away. His antics earned him an article in the Havana breed club magazine, he was truly one of a kind..... or so I thought til now! LOL

I did have a Siamese who thought a 1kg polywrapped package of black paint powder was a carcass, and did the lion-dragging thing.... from the top of a fridge freezer where it was stored 'out of reach' [ahem!], along a landing and down two flights of stairs into my room without a single atom of the powder escaping! Just imagine what a dog would have done with that....!!!

And another Siamese who went for a stroll in the garden one summer's afternoon and came back growling with pride at her catch - a hot freshly-cooked sausage!

> Cats can only cope with FRESH raw meat, unlike dogs that can eat it even if it's almost rotten

Yes, I read about that, and found out it's part of the reason why cats are so 'fussy', they have evolved a 'fussy' palette to eat only what suits their digestive system - pretty amazing really :)
With only the one cat, defrosting the right amount just for her would be a lot easier to manage than defrosting for a large amount of cats and any left-overs would be in small enough quantities to dispose of in the dog.
I suppose, for a lot of cats, a large refrigerator or two (or more, depending on how many cats you have!), dedicated soley as a cold place to defrost the following days food, may be a way around it? Or would that still not be fresh enough?

> Believe me, nothing much worse than having a large number of Persians with the runs from both ends! and this is exactly what happened.

Oh no, I can imagine!!! All that lovely long hair acting as a loaded paintbrush, spreading the runs everywhere!! That would be a lot of mess from one cat bum, but with lots of them

I knew that cats were obligate carnivores and had a tendancy to much fussier than a dog, but never knew any more than that untill yesterday. I am quite surprised that, considering the very specialised digestive system they have, how so many cats do well on cheap, low-quality food!

Mitsy's diet will be impoved!

Yes, dogs are much easier to feed. If I have any meat meant for us that has been forgotton about and gone a little 'funky', I don't think twice about chucking it to the dog, but a cat, as you say, fresh needs to be fresh.

Actually, I am not even confidant to feed Buster a completely raw diet, I'd worry too much about getting the balance right for him. I don't know if I could cope with the stress of trying to get it right for the cat!
Your way of feeding, 50:50 seems like a very good idea :) I think I will try it. If I put Buster back on that too, then feeding the cat the same will be easy (obviously, the dog will have DOG complete and the cat will have CAT complete!).

I suppose, for a lot of cats, a large refrigerator or two (or more, depending on how many cats you have!), dedicated soley as a cold place to defrost the following days food, may be a way around it? Or would that still not be fresh enough?

That's a good idea -worth trying out. Not that I know where we would put an extra fridge or two considering we already have 3 freezers just for dog meat! But I'd never thought of that so will give it a try!

My lot are fussy so and so's and will
Only entertain eating whiskas or felix ! I have tried alot of the premium foods including Aplaws and they have just turned their noses up at it .

Tried raw and the same response. The only difference is Dave who likes to eat the dogs food so eats James Wellbeloved Lamb and veg , nature diet , natures diet and frozen beef and pork mince.

I feed the girls by scattering rather than in bowls for alot of their food so Dave just joins in eating with them ( he does show many dog like behaviours :-D )

A good example of the fussiness just now was I filled their bowls with left over chicken from last nights stew and they all looked very interested until the heads went into eat , lots of sniffing then all three walked off looking quite disgusted !

Why not try feeding them naturally.  You can get small mammals and birds frozen fresh from suppliers that BOP people use.  My cat will eat the same as the dogs in a lot of ways but when the meat is too 'old' he will not eat it(talking 3 days refridgerated) even though the dogs will.  Thing is, I figure that cats in the wild, catch their kill and if it's large enough, will store it and eat it for a while.  They also bury prey and dig up later(so sort of refridgerating the meat).  I'm not bothered about the times when he turns his nose up as I just open a fresher pack for him.

Also, although I feed him raw, he still gets the choice of dried biscuit.  He just chooses not to eat it.  9 times out of 10 the springer steals it!! He will mew round my legs in the kitchen for meat even though his bowl is full of buscuits.

Honeybrook is the name of the suppliers I use for the bird.(and almost the cat!!lol)

I have to add mine won't eat Applaws either.  Their 'wet' is frozen fish (The value bags from Tesco's) cooked and mashed up, divided into 4 bowls and then tins of cat food mixed through the fish.   This is fed twice a day, they have Royal Canin (BSH/Hair & Skin/Sensible/Oral) out all the time to nibble.  The RC British is a big hit with all 5 even though 3 are Selkirk Rex.   I now know they won't deviate from this diet so it saves trial & error.

They won't look at anything raw, they may sniff it and then look down their regal noses with disdain at it.  HRH Hope has this down to an art.

Christine I have tried the fish and all of them turned their noses up at the even mixed apart from Dave who likes to have his own bowl of fresh cod fillet when we have fish and chips . I think he would like a place set at the table given half the chance !