Begging for food

[Mark]

Willow's great, she sounds a real character  and Alice, bless her 

I wasn't going to post these but a couple of weeks ago, we had burittos. I was saving one for later but looked down and.......

I had forgotten about this - if only I had know a few weeks later she would be dead 

My poor baby 

[Claire_smc]

Pepsi's been pretty good recently, I think shouting at her did the trick. Ocassionally I'll be sat there, and she'll run up behind my head and sit down. Then out of the corner of my eye I'll see some whiskers twitching into my vision, then slowly a little woffly nose, and then a paw will reach out....  It's amazing what they'll have though, I had a sandwich with dressed salad in earlier, popped out the room for a sec and when I came back Pepsi was licking all the drops of balsamic vinegar off the plate. Yet when I gave her a prawn later on she turned her nose up at it as if to say 'what's this crap you're giving me?!' 

[Mitramonday]

I was proudly boasting to my daughter that Percy doesn't touch any human food (unlike her porky cat) - even if you offer it to him.  Two DAYS later, i came back into the lounge, to find Percy's nose stuck into my ............. garlic and herb dip   !!!!

[Mark]

Willow's great, she sounds a real character  and Alice, bless her 

I wasn't going to post these but a couple of weeks ago, we had burittos. I was saving one for later but looked down and.......

[Den]

If I'm eating in front of the TV, like last night, I get a little person sat on the arm of the chair .. strangely though mysterious things happen in this house and he just can't sit without falling off of the chair  It gets annoying with him to the left of me and Molly to the front. If I'm at the table then he will sit on the table right next to my plate  If he sits nicely then I pretty much always share my food with him, but if he starts getting pushy he will get nothing and will be kicked off the table before he can say prawn 

But in my house its not the cat or dog you need to be worried off ... it's the bunny. He's terrible and will stick his nose right in your food. Although once I did end up with his back foot in my bowl of custard.

[Janeyk]

Willow's great, she sounds a real character  and Alice, bless her 

[Mark]

Willow is terrible for hooking things off plates. The other day, she was sniffing OHs plate on the coffee table so I warned him. A minute later, I called out again (I sit on a different sofa with Alice) and she was eating straight out of the coleslaw pot  - I said that's what you get for being obsessed with  Bejeweled blitz 

Alice on the other hand waits for permission to eat  even her own food  - I am convinced she saves me some as well as I have to stroke her head before she eats the rest 

[clarenmax]

Max was an absolute little monster when it came to stealing food from plates, he's sit behind you on the sofa and you'd see a paw coming down trying to hook stuff from your plate 

Poot isn't quite as bad, but he's not far off lol!  He sits there staring longingly and chirruping, and hasnt tried to steal yet, but I'm sure he will work it out 

[Leanne]

Oh dear, I sympathise as Milo is a little  for this too.

Generally we try to ignore him, but quite often we do end up giving him bit from our plates, we often have dinner at the table with Jess & Milo sat on a dining chair between us as well.

We can't leave dinner unattended as no matter what it is Milo will steal it, he had a basket of naan bread off the table recently  and I am sure that Milo would kill for a poppadom  as they are his favourites. We did have an episode a while about where we cooked fish and had to shut the boys out as they were bouncing off the walls with excitement.

We also can't open a tin of tuna without sharing some of it with the boys, as soon as they hear the can being opened they come running. 

The only thing I wish is that the boys didn't embarrass us when we have visitors as they always try and sit at the table still (never enough room) Milo has been known to appear on peoples laps and try to steal from their plates, I don't think my Mum and Dad were too amused but to us its just the boys being boys and its our house - our best friends have the same problem with their cat so are always fine about it.

[Janeyk]

Another trick I often do is pretend I'm giving Byron something from my plate into her dish and that often works.  Last night she even ate some spring greens because there was just a bit of pork and spring greens left and - because it was from me! she wouldn't have eaten veg otherwise 

[Janeyk]

  Poor old Mrs Brickwood   

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

I once looked through my kitchen window into next door's kitchen and saw my cat tucking into a roast chicken they'd left on their table

I never told them

 

I've told this one before but for the benefit of people who haven't read it...

My Jumpy was a  when he was a youngster. If it wasn't nailed down he's pinch it.  Once a week I would go down the street with a basket full of cat toys he'd stolen from peoples' houses. I had to knock on doors and ask people if they recognised any of them.  Anyway, one day I was washing up and looked out the kitchen window. There was Jumpy sitting on the lawn with a whole fresh Mackerel.  I puzzled for days wondering where he'd got it. Not like we were near the sea then so no chance of a passing Seagull dropping it on the lawn.  Two weeks later I passed old Mrs Brickwood from up the road. We stopped to have a brief chat as you do... she told me she'd just come back from the doctors. He'd put her on antidepressants. I told her I was sorry to hear that. She told me that she is panicking because she thinks she has the onset of dementia. Apparently a couple of weeks previously she was about to prepare her dinner, the phone rang and she went to answer it, came back into the kitchen and no sign of the fresh Mackerel she swore she'd bought from the fishmonger that morning. Was convinced she'd bought one but it vanished without a trace! I smiled and said nothing... 

There's no getting away from it, cats have a different view on the ownership of things than we do. 

[Fire Fox]

It's a common thing.  I remember one cat I had, Henry, was a total  for pinching human food. We'd be sitting at the dinning table and we'd see this paw creep up from under the table over like Dracula's hand reaching out of the coffin.  He would never raise his head to look round as he thought it would attract too much attention. He would then 'feel' all around the table with his paw trying to strike lucky. 

 

[Kay and Penny]

of course you could make a bowl of really hot chilli ...................

I once looked through my kitchen window into next door's kitchen and saw my cat tucking into a roast chicken they'd left on their table

I never told them

[Claire_smc]

It's a common thing.  I remember one cat I had, Henry, was a total  for pinching human food. We'd be sitting at the dinning table and we'd see this paw creep up from under the table over like Dracula's hand reaching out of the coffin.  He would never raise his head to look round as he thought it would attract too much attention. He would then 'feel' all around the table with his paw trying to strike lucky. 

Hahaha I can just picture him whistling innocently, with this face  as his paw was feeling around the table 

If I'm giving her a little treat like chicken or tuna, I'll make sure to do it in the kitchen so she associates the kitchen with food, not our plates! Tonight when we were eating tea she was trying to paw the plate so she got put in the kitchen again, when I went in there to get dessert she came out and just sat away from us both, not begging at all. I don't know if this means she's starting to learn or wether she just found the apple pie we were eating for dessert a lot less tempting than the sausgae rolls we were having beforehand 

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

Kocka used to sit as close as possible to my plate and I used to give her some at the end but she would get really worried as she saw the food going down on the plate and she would shuffle closer and closer. 

I tried giving her the same as me in a dish but that wasnt the same of course 

Afraid I just took it as  her being a cat but somethngs I could only eat in peace when I visited my mother, like chicken, salmon. fish, lamb lol, I could eat sausages in the end cos they became beneath her as better things were available she discovered.

She did embarrass me once cos next door were eating outside on a little table and having chicken and the first I knew of it she was on her back legs with her paws on their table    They had finished but she had icecream with them 

Ducha loves the smell of chips from the shop but he only likes one 

[snarf]

mine did this - one used to want the milk in cereal and when he worked out i wouldnt let him lap it he switched to just trying to get a paw in, then to trying to knock the bowl out of my hands!! i had to resort to eating cereal standing up till he gave up!
However standing up didnt work with things like chicken as im just an entertaining climb on the way to food then so i started just pushing them away or if convieniently placed, off the sofa. not hard, not quick  etc just gentle shove. they dont seem to object to it but they get the hint that its not wanted. i also , if its safe for them to have, leave them a little bit to have after as a reward but only if they havent tried to steal. Any attempted theft= no reward.
its worked well for me but it hasnt stopped them stealing off guests who are apparently fair game

[Janeyk]

    

reminds me our Squeaky was once sat on the chair arm next to me and I was eating chips he was facing forward not looking at me and all of a sudden he turned to my plate and in a flash grabbed a chip in his mouth and shot off with it  as if he'd been sat there planning it.

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

It's a common thing.  I remember one cat I had, Henry, was a total  for pinching human food. We'd be sitting at the dinning table and we'd see this paw creep up from under the table over like Dracula's hand reaching out of the coffin.  He would never raise his head to look round as he thought it would attract too much attention. He would then 'feel' all around the table with his paw trying to strike lucky. 

[Janeyk]

Byron will sit between us whilst we eat our tea and sometimes try and get her paw into my plate  so we've had to keep lifting down and now she doesn't bother but it took a while.  Another thing I often do (which works) is give them some food at the same time - often in the same room as us so they feel like they're having what we are  (which often is it) or feed them before we eat so they aren't as hungry.

[Claire_smc]

Hi, we don't feed her at any particular time of the day, I'll put a pouch down for her and she'll eat a couple of mouthfuls at a time, and slowly graze from it over the day so I couldn't really distract her in this way. The idea about washing the plates straight away is a good one though, I'll see if that helps a little Anyone else had this same problem?

[Kay and Penny]

I would feed her in the kitchen with the door shut at the same time as you are eating - perhaps you could try putting her food out in small portions in different parts of the kitchen, so by the time she has found it all you will have finished eating and can come out of the kitchen

I would also rinse all your plates and dishes right away as if she finds dirty plates in the kitchen she will go on associating food with plates

[Claire_smc]

Hi all, just a quick question really 

Whenever me or my boyfriend sit down to eat, Pepsi will try to get at our plates and steal the food. I sit with my feet up along the sofa, and she'll stand on the back of the sofa, lean right over me, and try and paw the plate. If I turn around and put my feet down she'll sit next to me and try to get at the food this way. I don't know if her old owners fed her scraps off the plate but this is something I really don't want to do with her as it will just encourage this annoying behaviour every time we try to have some dinner. I try to push her away but after a few times she'll get annoyed with me and lash out with her claws, so my boyfriend has taken to putting her in the kitchen and closing the door until we've finished, is this a good way to deal with it? The thing is that after a little while she'll start scratching at the door to be let out again, and apart from being a big softie and feeling sorry for her, I'm worried that she's going to damage the door (we live in a rented house) if she keeps doing it. Any suggestions of ways to deal with this? Boyfriend says that two of his old cats used to do this too, and shutting them in the kicthen worked but it took about two or three months to learn not to beg.

Thanks in advance