stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2022-09-18 10:52 am
stevenpiziks) wrote2022-09-18 10:52 am
The End of Canned Food
Dinah and Dora love their canned food. The routine is that I feed them when I get home from work, and they greet at the door: "Time for food! Time for food!" When I crack open the cat food can, Dora gets so excited, she runs laps around the kitchen island. On the weekends, they think they can get fed early--as in ten in the morning--and they bug me until I wave the spray bottle at them.
And then there was Friday.
(What follows is a little icky. You have been warned.)
When I went downstairs to work out, I found five lumpy puddles of cat diarrhea scattered about the carpet. Apparently, the cats had both gotten sick and had decided the litter box was the wrong place to handle it. Ohhhh, I was upset. We have an entire main floor with wood flooring, and they can't do it there. No, they have to choose the one area of the house that's completely carpeted. It took Darwin and me considerable time to clean it up.
Clearly, something in the wet food got to them. I don't know if it was one can, an entire batch, or something in their physiology changed, but it ultimately doesn't matter. No more canned food for the cats, ever again. And they have been banished from the basement entirely. Once cats have decided that another spot in the house is a good alternative to the litter box, it's almost impossible to break them of the idea. They'll have to be content with the main floor.
Of course, we have no way of explaining any of this to the cats, and I knew what was coming. Yesterday, they started the food demands. They don't actually yowl and prance around. Instead, they both get all lovey-dovey, like they're trying to flatter me into feeding them. ("You're so great. We can't help adoring you. Yes, you! So how about some food?") I responded with an immediate squirt from the water bottle. They retreated. A bit later, they were back at it. Another squirt, another retreat.
I expected this to last all day, but by four o'clock, they'd clearly given up. I handed out catnip as a recompense, and they were happy with that. Today, they haven't bugged me for canned food at all, though Dinah firmly pointed out that the hard food dish was empty. I refilled it.
I wonder if they themselves figured out that the canned food made them sick, and they don't want it anymore as a result.
And then there was Friday.
(What follows is a little icky. You have been warned.)
When I went downstairs to work out, I found five lumpy puddles of cat diarrhea scattered about the carpet. Apparently, the cats had both gotten sick and had decided the litter box was the wrong place to handle it. Ohhhh, I was upset. We have an entire main floor with wood flooring, and they can't do it there. No, they have to choose the one area of the house that's completely carpeted. It took Darwin and me considerable time to clean it up.
Clearly, something in the wet food got to them. I don't know if it was one can, an entire batch, or something in their physiology changed, but it ultimately doesn't matter. No more canned food for the cats, ever again. And they have been banished from the basement entirely. Once cats have decided that another spot in the house is a good alternative to the litter box, it's almost impossible to break them of the idea. They'll have to be content with the main floor.
Of course, we have no way of explaining any of this to the cats, and I knew what was coming. Yesterday, they started the food demands. They don't actually yowl and prance around. Instead, they both get all lovey-dovey, like they're trying to flatter me into feeding them. ("You're so great. We can't help adoring you. Yes, you! So how about some food?") I responded with an immediate squirt from the water bottle. They retreated. A bit later, they were back at it. Another squirt, another retreat.
I expected this to last all day, but by four o'clock, they'd clearly given up. I handed out catnip as a recompense, and they were happy with that. Today, they haven't bugged me for canned food at all, though Dinah firmly pointed out that the hard food dish was empty. I refilled it.
I wonder if they themselves figured out that the canned food made them sick, and they don't want it anymore as a result.