Why is my kitten

[MEmama]

Desperate for people food?

She loves her kitty food, isn’t picky at all and eats well. But whenever I try to cook or there’s people food around, she lunges for it and nothing I have tried deters her. Our year old kitty might come over occasionally to check our food out, but won’t eat it. The kitten, however, will snatch anything in sight, even licks our frying pans (omg so gross), will come running from wherever she is in the house if she hears the fridge open or a box being unopened, drinks whatever we have in a glass. It’s truly an obsession and I’m at my wits end.

She isn’t bored. She isn’t hungry. We’ve never fed her people food. Any ideas or suggestions to get her to stop? 

[PeterPan]

Is the cat on the counters? How is she getting at the frying pans?? 

You could use a spray bottle of water if she's jumping or put up a gate to keep her out. You could also re-direct more positively with high value treats. If the cat is jumping on the counter, maybe you want to get that to stop. You could put barriers at her preferred launch point, haha.

[Chris in VA]

Was she a stray or, at any time before you got her, did she experience food insecurity? Could just be highly motivated by food, too, which can actually be a good thing, since cats are hard to train. 

[fairfarmhand]

Some of our cats have loved people food and some don’t want it at all. No rhyme or reason.

[RootAnn]

I had to put a cover on the frying pan that we leave out. We have a cat who loves people food. He will tear up bread bags to get at the bread. He will rip onto candy bars to lick the insides. (Yes, I know. Chocolate is toxic. This happened when he was a kitten and he was none the worse for it. DD had to learn to keep her candy locked up.) He surfed the counters when we were not in the room. He knows how to get into cabinets. We thought about baby proofing the place again. So, he's kept away from the kitchen at night. I have a cover on the frying pan. He got around the sticky tape we put on the edges of the counter....

He stopped counter surfing for awhile after he broke his leg, but he's definitely thinking about it again.

For our cat, it is likely food insecurity from kittenhood on the streets. 

No advice, just commiseration.

[MEmama]

2 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Is the cat on the counters? How is she getting at the frying pans?? 

You could use a spray bottle of water if she's jumping or put up a gate to keep her out. You could also re-direct more positively with high value treats. If the cat is jumping on the counter, maybe you want to get that to stop. You could put barriers at her preferred launch point, haha.

Yes, she jumps on the counters and the kitchen island. The stove is connected to the counter. There is literally no way to keep her off. 

[MEmama]

1 hour ago, Chris in VA said:

Was she a stray or, at any time before you got her, did she experience food insecurity? Could just be highly motivated by food, too, which can actually be a good thing, since cats are hard to train. 

I don’t know her history. It’s quite possible she was fed people food or experienced food insecurity. She eats like she’s never eaten before, although she is learning boundaries with our other kitty’s bowl if she finishes first. She doesn’t go after our food because she’s hungry, although she acts like she’s starved. 

[MEmama]

52 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

I had to put a cover on the frying pan that we leave out. We have a cat who loves people food. He will tear up bread bags to get at the bread. He will rip onto candy bars to lick the insides. (Yes, I know. Chocolate is toxic. This happened when he was a kitten and he was none the worse for it. DD had to learn to keep her candy locked up.) He surfed the counters when we were not in the room. He knows how to get into cabinets. We thought about baby proofing the place again. So, he's kept away from the kitchen at night. I have a cover on the frying pan. He got around the sticky tape we put on the edges of the counter....

He stopped counter surfing for awhile after he broke his leg, but he's definitely thinking about it again.

For our cat, it is likely food insecurity from kittenhood on the streets. 

No advice, just commiseration.

I’ve taken to covering our frying pans too. She tried to eat the sticky tape on the counter (put there to deter her from jumping from the island to the sink), so that had to be removed.

She’s super smart but not easily deterred. She’s been accidentally closed in the fridge, but that doesn’t stop her from dashing in whenever she can. She will eat anything left on dishes in the kitchen sink, licks water on the floor of the bathtub after we shower, jumped into the toilet once (!!) and hoovers up any crumbs that might be on the floor like a dog. 

Shes a terrific and loving kitten but oh my. She can be a handful. 

[OH_Homeschooler]

Our youngest cat was found in our neighbor's yard, left behind by her litter. She was starving. She gorged like crazy the first week we had her. She tried stealing pizza from my ex, right off the plate he was eating from. I don't know when she finally stopped being interested in people food, but it's over a year later and she is happy with her cat food.

[TechWife]

17 minutes ago, MEmama said:

I don’t know her history. It’s quite possible she was fed people food or experienced food insecurity. She eats like she’s never eaten before, although she is learning boundaries with our other kitty’s bowl if she finishes first. She doesn’t go after our food because she’s hungry, although she acts like she’s starved. 

This sounds like food insecurity to me. It may last years and the behavior may be permanent. 

Just to be sure, check in with the vet and make sure the kitty food you are feeding is nutritionally appropriate. You may need to be vigilant about weight management as she gets older if she continues to gorge. Weight really affects quality of life for cats in their later years.

[MEmama]

18 minutes ago, OH_Homeschooler said:

Our youngest cat was found in our neighbor's yard, left behind by her litter. She was starving. She gorged like crazy the first week we had her. She tried stealing pizza from my ex, right off the plate he was eating from. I don't know when she finally stopped being interested in people food, but it's over a year later and she is happy with her cat food.

I’m glad to hear there might be hope.

Our other kitty was interested in people food when she was around the kittens age, but she didn’t try to eat it and has always had boundaries. Hopefully kitten will grow out of it.

[MEmama]

18 minutes ago, TechWife said:

This sounds like food insecurity to me. It may last years and the behavior may be permanent. 

Just to be sure, check in with the vet and make sure the kitty food you are feeding is nutritionally appropriate. You may need to be vigilant about weight management as she gets older if she continues to gorge. Weight really affects quality of life for cats in their later years.

She has a vet visit in a couple of weeks and I’ll definitely ask. We feed her really high quality kitten food and watch amounts carefully. We can’t leave food out for her to graze now that we have two cats, but she gets plenty at regular intervals. She’s quite slim and has a different body shape than our other kitty, but she seems healthy and energetic. She’s definitely grown in the few weeks we’ve had her, though she’s still small (we aren’t certain about her age, maybe around 5-6 months). She’s a Blue Russian-tabby mix).

[MEmama]

15 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

I don't know why they do it, but our kitten does it and I'm pretty sure he never dealt with food insecurity as he and his mother and rest of his litter were rescued when he was a newborn. I have another one who sounds like RootAnn's and his most recent exploit is eating through a bag of Hawaiian rolls overnight and eating the tops off of half the rolls. 

I used canned air on the kitten if he tries to get our food while we are eating. Like the type of air spray to clean your keyboard. I don't like water spraying and then having that to deal with too. The canned air is easy and it works with nothing to clean up. 

The counters are harder. My dd has recently suggested I leave them covered in aluminum foil for a couple of days instead of tape. Neither is really practical, but the tape is more work, so I might try the foil. Apparently the sound when they land on it is supposed to scare them. 

Canned air might work. I accidentally sprayed her with Method granite cleaner this morning (I swear she appears out of thin air) and she wasn’t disturbed in the slightest, so I don’t think she’d mind being sprayed with water. 

I'll try aluminium foil but I’m guessing she’ll just eat it or walk on it anyway. And I can’t cover every kitchen surface, so idk. It only bothers me that she’s on the counters when I’m preparing food. Otherwise I don’t mind (she likes to sleep on the island). 

[Katy]

When I was a kid I had a cat like that.  She had worms and the behavior went away when those were treated.

I wonder when it comes to kittens who never had food insecurity or worms if the issue isn't epigenetic.  Like if a parent or grandparent experienced a lot of food insecurity they are born with the instinct to eat when they can.

[Terabith]

Cats are weird.  Some are super oriented towards all kinds of food.  Some aren't.  Sometimes it's related to food insecurity or medical conditions and goes away.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes cats are just obsessive and you have to cover pans/ lock cabinets/ etc.  

[Scarlett]

My little cat is like that.  I have to strictly measure her food or she will eat until she is fat.   She doesn't try to get our food much....sometimes if we are eating popcorn in bed she tries to come up and get some.  Mostly she yowls like she is starving to death.  A lot.  4:00 a.m. is the most annoying time.  

Can someone tell me what high quality food they use for their cat?  And how much of it do you give your cat per day?

[Katy]

36 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

My little cat is like that.  I have to strictly measure her food or she will eat until she is fat.   She doesn't try to get our food much....sometimes if we are eating popcorn in bed she tries to come up and get some.  Mostly she yowls like she is starving to death.  A lot.  4:00 a.m. is the most annoying time.  

Can someone tell me what high quality food they use for their cat?  And how much of it do you give your cat per day?

 

I had a cat live til 19 years old on Meow Mix and cats die at 8 on expensive food.  I wouldn't worry about it.  I would feed in the evening so she doesn't yowl to be fed in the morning.  And unless the vet said she is too fat I'd leave out a bowl overnight and see how much she'll eat on her own.  It might not be as much as you think if you leave it out for a few nights in a row.

[Scarlett]

4 minutes ago, Katy said:

 

I had a cat live til 19 years old on Meow Mix and cats die at 8 on expensive food.  I wouldn't worry about it.  I would feed in the evening so she doesn't yowl to be fed in the morning.  And unless the vet said she is too fat I'd leave out a bowl overnight and see how much she'll eat on her own.  It might not be as much as you think if you leave it out for a few nights in a row.

She went from 7 pounds to 11 pounds in like 2 months.  Vet said she was gaining too fast and needed to only feed her 1/2 cup per day total.  I give her 1/4 in morning and 1/4 in evenings.  

[Katy]

1 minute ago, Scarlett said:

She went from 7 pounds to 11 pounds in like 2 months.  Vet said she was gaining too fast and needed to only feed her 1/2 cup per day total.  I give her 1/4 in morning and 1/4 in evenings.  

 

In that case I'd give her 1/2 cup or maybe 2/3 cup in the evenings only.

[popmom]

I have 3 indoor cats. Only one of them is like this, and he can be such a menace! He is by far the most mischievous of the three--not just food. I have given up on trying to keep them off the counters. Our dog was gaining weight stealing the cat food, so now we have to feed them on the kitchen island. I'm working on a solution, but for now I just wipe down the counters regularly with disinfectant.

Boo (the mischievous one) will grab an entire chicken breast and try to run with it. The he growls when we take it away! He eats weird things, too, like butter and mayonnaise. We've just had to adjust--keeping lids on pots and pans, etc. We also have to feed him separately from the other cats because he will devour his food while the others eat SOOO slowly. He will run them off and devour their food, too. So we put him in the pantry and won't let him out until the others are finished. This is just for wet food. He's not like that with the dry food.

We think it's food insecurity, too. We think he may have been from a feral litter. One of our neighbors found him in a parking lot at her workplace when he was tiny. Turns out she is allergic, so she asked us to keep him until they could find an adopter. I fell in love with him, so he stayed. He was so tiny when we first got him, we had to bottle feed him formula. So I'm not really sure why the food insecurity--except that it may be hereditary in feral colonies. 

He is such a sweetheart. I'll put up with it. 🙂

[Scarlett]

1 minute ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

I'd switch her to wet food in the evenings. Leave out a little bit of dry the rest of the time in a limited amount. But I *think* that the theory is they actually consume less calories with wet food. More liquid, which is good, but fewer calories overall.

I know I was trying to get one of mine to gain weight and so I was feeding him lots and lots of wet food-3x a day, but he actually ended up losing weight, so I had to back off the wet food to once a day and then have him eat dry food the rest. I don't know if that is universal, but dry food makes my cats gain weight. He gained almost 2.5 lbs when I cut back on the wet. Maybe your cat needs the reverse!

We use Purina Cat Chow because the expensive dry foods gave them anal gland problems of all things. I use Fancy Feast for the wet food. 

She will eat very speck of any food left out.  When we were on vacation ds fed her and he didn’t know how much...he gave her a cup and she at every bite.