On 7/8/2016 3:33 PM, MaryL wrote:
On 7/7/2016 4:01 PM, dgk wrote:
Before yesterday, I just put out wet food in two bowls in the
bathroom, and had two bowls of dry food out all the time. The four
cats came by at different times, ate, left, came back, ate, etc. That
pretty much worked, particularly for feral Baby who slinks by late at
night or whenever no one is watching.

But Marlo is fat, and requires a senior, easy on the kidney diiet.
Hills wet ID stuff. No dry stuff for at least two weeks because of her
just completed ($1600) dental work.

Nipsy wants to eat at 5 am and starts whining so I've always just
staggered into the bathroom, dropped some wet food into the bowls, and
went back to bed. I can't do that now. So he whines until 7 when I
finally get up, put out 1/4 can of Marlo food, and two bowls of
regular wet. Then I sit there until the other cats walk away from
their food, and wrap it up and put it in the fridge. Luckily Marlo
likes her Marlo food so I'm pretty sure that she'll finish it.

The other cats are starting to understand that things have changed. I
wait until I notice that Baby is in her hiding spot under the bed and
put some food there for her. I leave it for 10 minutes and then take
it away. I give Scooter and Nipsy treats or other food when I can.

Not as easy on me, but we do seem to be adapting to the new eating
situation. I just can never go away I guess because no cat sitter
could do this. It takes an hour to get them all fed. Ugh.

I also need to do some separate feeding. I have 3 cats. Two of them
(Selina and Nikki) are young and healthy. Duffy is between 17 and 18
years old. He has a very good appetite, but was losing weight. I give
him medication twice a day for his hypothyroidism, and I am trying to
help him gain weight. My method has been to lift him onto the kitchen
counter twice a day, mix his medication into a small amount of food and
sit beside the counter while I watch him eat. I also add some extra
food to supplement his regular diet (canned food). After he finishes
that, I lift him down to the floor and portion out all of their food
into 3 bowls. The other 2 cats have been waiting eagerly, and Duffy
joins them to eat their regular meals. As I said, he has a good
appetite despite losing weight. I clean the kitchen counter at that
time because I had Duffy sitting on it. This has been working fairly
well. I have a lot of back pain if I stand for more than a few minutes,
so I keep a chair in the position where I want to sit while Duffy is
eating. Duffy easily jumps onto chairs and other objects, so it's
possible that I don't really need to lift him down. I do it because I'm
not sure if he is aware of the height to jump from since I lift him onto
the counter to give him his medication and extra food.

MaryL


A few years ago my daughter and her husband had two cats that needed to
be fed separately. The male was a grazer, eating only a little at a
time from the dry food that was left out for them. The female was a
gobbler, and would eat all she could, whenever she could. She was
getting fat, and he was getting thin.

Finally they took a cardboard box, turned it upside down and cut a hole
just large enough for the male to get through. They'd put his food in
there. That worked for a long time. Actually, it worked very well,
because the female began losing weight. Eventually she lost enough that
she could get into the box too, so they stopped using it.

Joy