greedy cat!

[Christina]

hmmm, it is difficult as i dont want to feed her a dry only diet, but dont want her to be sick all the time. i think she only had a dry diet at her old house. she only has small meals as it is, but maybe i could try splitting her two meals into four! shes been wormed so im not worried about that.
 ill check out some of those brands then. maybe i could  feed her mostly dry, but with a little bit of meat food mixed in every now and then.
she is off to the vets to have her three week booster jab on sat (her previous owners never vacinated her either!) so i will metion it there and see what they say. thanks again!

[Desley (booktigger)]

i wouldnt recommend a dry food only diet - if she is being sick from wolfing food, you are much better off splitting meals into at least two portions with at least 15 minutes in between, it does work wonders. If you want to feed dry only, you need a good quality one, and I wouldnt recommend any of the ones in the supermarket - Whiskas is no better than TEsco's own. I use James Wellbeloved, and a lot of people on here like PAH own brand.

[Hippykitty]

Patch may have a furball. This is easy to get rid of with something like Defurrum or Katalax. If this vomitting continues after a few days of furball treatment, I would recommend a visit to the vet for Patch.

By the way, vomitting can also be worm related. Maybe get some worming pills from the vets and do all the cats. 

[Christina]

hi again, thanks for the reassurance. i suppose it may just be something i have to put up with!
 i just wondered, i forgot to metion that patch is sick quite a lot too. not all the time but maybe once or twice a week. im guessing this is cuz she wolfs her food down so quick, as (sorry if you are eating dont read!)  it is still in big chunks when she is sick as if she hasnt chewed. does this happen to any of your cats?
weve decided now to change her diet. we feed her small bowls of wet food with dry crunchy food mixed in to try get her to chew more, but obviously doesnt work. so have decided today (after she threw up all over the hallway floor) for the sake of her and my carpet to start on on a dry foor only diet. she drinks a lot, so am not worried about that, but i just wondered if anybody could recomend a good dry food. at the mo they have cheap tesco cat crunchies that i dont mind giving them as they have a good quality wet food. but as she will be on dry only, i know you have to get a good well bablanced one, but im not sure where to start. would wiskers or something be ok? thanks!

[ginge66]

Hi Christina, I read your post with interest because this is exactly what my new cat Ozzy has done since we had him from a rescue two months a go. All we know is that he has been living as a stray possibly for two years. Like your cat he is absolutely frantic for food and will steal the others given half the chance and every time we go in the kitchen he is behind you begging for food even if just fed. I know its not medical because he has been checked out and has put on weight. Like you I hope given time he will eventually calm down.

Andrea x

[Hippykitty]

When I first had Samantha she turned over every bin in the house. If she saw a bin, she'd investigate it. This may have been because she was taken into the rescue as a stray; perhaps she'd survived on the contents of people's rubbish bins. On sunday nights here she wants to go out because it's bin night; the silly cat still wants to investigate bins after 15 years of being well-fed!

It does take ages for cats to break survival habits. Sam no longer overturns bins in the house - she knows I don't like it! 

If your cat had thyroid problems, she would be likely to be losing weight; it would be very rare for a cat or person to have an overactive thyroid and be overweight.

Has she been dewormed recently?

[furballmom]

christina,
 when we got gimlee he was under weight also and he was fed out side but the neighbourhood cats would steal his food.when he came here he did the same thing that your cat is doing it took him a couple of months to realise that no one was going to steal his food he put on all the weight he had lost(we didn't think he was underweight till we realised how much he put on in the first month) and now eats normally. it may take her a while to realise that no one else will steal her food but she will get there don't worry she will settle down it will just take time

[blackcat]

definitely normal behaviour in any animal that has been long-term food-deprived. That is why when you get a starving animal it is easy to kill it or cause illness by over-feeding. It will just keep guzzling. It happened to a lot of POWs who survived the death camps but ate too much too soon on liberation..

[Christina]

ok thanks. glad that you think there isnt anything wrong with her. i keep to regular meal times too, to try and get her into a routine of eating. hopefully she will calm down eventually, even if it takes a long time. main thing is that shes healthy.

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I think this behavior is as Des says and very typical of a cat who never knew when she was getting her next meal and had starved enough to get thin.

I suspect because you have another cat she suspects it will steal her food and although you have had her for months that is probasbly a very short time compared to her memorys of being starved.

If your vet is not worried about her weight then I wouldnt be either and the main thing now is for her to understand that she is loved and gets regular food, eventually the fear should go away but will likely take a very long time.

I have a cat who is semi feral and is scared of being touched or me being close, so I have to trap her for the vets and recently cos she had fleas.

She now will not go in any of the places where I have tried to trap her and the first one of these was two years ago!

I know its a different story but it shows how they remember specific events.

[Desley (booktigger)]

I think this is typical behaviour with her background, and not sure what you can do to stop it really - she might realise in time she doesn't need to worry over food anymore.

[Christina]

hi everyone. i just wanted some advice on my new 8 yr  old cat. shes just so greedy! when we first got her she was very very thin, as her owners just didnt feed her properly, adn thier dog would eat any food put out for her if the actually bothered to feed her. i feed my cats a bowl of wet food twice a day , and they get some dry food to nibble on during the day. shes now put onweight and looks healthy now, but the problem is she seams obsessed with food. if i go near the kitchen, even if shes just been fed she gets up and runs in desperate for food. shell eat anything, and she stole my steak the other night and ran off with it in her mouth. i thought maybeit was just cuz she never knew where her next meal was coming from, but weve had her for months now and she hasnt calmed down. she steals my other cats food which inow have to hide. she constantly looks like shes sniffing for food.
i told the vet about it when i took her for jabs, and vet said she wasnt concerned as she had put weight on, and if there was a problem she would have lost weight. but, im not convinced. i cant see how her behaviour is normal. does anybody have any advice on this subject, or know of anything that could possibly be causing this? any thoughts greatly appreciated!