My 14 year old cat is off her food. She asks to be fed but when I feed her she sniffs the bowl and walks off. We've tried feeding her in different places and coaxing her - which seems to help a bit. We haven't recently changed her food so I don't know what the problem is. I don't know if it's related but my other cat (her littermate) died about 5 weeks ago. Initially she carried on eating although not very much - it's only been the last fortnight she's been turning her nose up at her food dish.

Any advice please?

If she is asking to be fed - ie hungry, but then doesnt want to, Id be getting her teeth or tongue checked out by the vet.  It could be that shes got a sore mouth.

Hope she feels a bit better soon.

> If she is asking to be fed - ie hungry, but then doesnt want to, Id be getting her teeth or tongue checked out by the vet

Thank you Alfieshmalfie - I'm taking her today :-)
I have had a look in her mouth and everything looks normal to me. Best to be checked properly though.

I don't believe it!

I was just browsing 'cat not eating' on the internet and I found this;

> If the cats whiskers touch the side of the bowl the cat may find it uncomfortable to eat from the bowl, so will take the food out of the bowl.

When our other cat died we swapped the double dish they'd shared for a new ceramic oval dish that is quite deep - like the dishes you get pate in. I've just put the food she turned down this morning onto a flat saucer and she's wolfed down the lot! :-)

I'm hoping we've cracked it! :-)

yeah in the vets i work in we feed all cats from wide shallow bowls as a lot of cats dont like their whiskers touching the sides. weird huh?
other things that can help, trying very string smelling foods, cats will only eat if they can smell, so if their sense of smell is diminishing a bit then that should help as does warming food up as this also causes it to smell a bit more.
hope shes fine now.

> if their sense of smell is diminishing a bit then that should help as does warming food up as this also causes it to smell a bit more

That's interesting about the temp. Since my other cat died we've been getting through much less cat food and only using half a pouch at a time. I've been keeping half used packs in the fridge - so maybe she's objecting to chilled food as well as the dish. Seems obvious now - duh!
Thanks Suz1985 :-)

no problem! :) we get a lot of older cats in the vets and my boy is 14 years now so i know what its like having an old one. bless him, hes started to look old in the last 6 months or so, but fingers crossed still as fit and healthy as can be expected.