I need help please!

Heide Levine

My cat is the weirdest picky eater... the food store where I get my food from just looks at me like I'm nuts when I tell them that he will simply not eat most anything. I always hear how bad one single protein can be for a kitty and how variety is actually better... Here's the problem.. Monkey only eats chicken, and I mean ONLY chicken... If there is turkey, herring, fish, or any other type of meat product somewhere in the ingredients? Nope.. won't eat it... He will taste everything put in front of him, so it's not a matter of getting him to taste things. Funny though... he will NOT eat chicken in Merrick foods anymore, he will ONLY eat cowboy cook out which is beef. Only Merrick. We tried all of the other brands... No go... He will not eat foods that look like ground hamburger with lots of juiceys, but a pate style or little bitty chunks is fine... He will NOT eat human food. Even if it drops on the floor...he will look at it... maybe even bat at it... but will not eat it.... not even chicken LoL... So here's where I need help... Is this a breed issue? Is this normal? I feel like I'm the only one suffering this... When I go to pick up his food and they're out of it? Oh god I begin to panic LoL I don't say anything, but then they follow me around to try to show me this or that... and I have to explain to them ALL over again that this is not going to be an easy task to just "get some food on the fly"... Then they seem flustered at all of the things that my cat won't go near... Ugh... anything I should know??

Misty Christo

I don't know what to tell ya. My guys are pretty open to eating anything. And I never heard you should give your cat variety. Protein is protein, and I was under the impression cats should stay on a consistent diet. I hope your Monkey is well.

Janet Plymire

This is where we get confused. We were told not all protein is the same. For example the protein that comes from mainly grain based foods as compared to a meat based food. The meat based protein would be better. I don\'t know if just consistently giving the same protein, like chicken, is bad though.We were also told to vary our diet to be sure to get all the nutrients we need, but if you\'re getting a good quality food, I would think it has all the nutrients you need. It seems like just when we think we\'re doing what\'s right, we read something else that just complicates things. :? Monkey, that sure is a dilemma that you have, though I\'m sure there are other kitties out there that are just as fussy. My sister, Pretty, has just started to eat canned food and she loves Eagle Holistic Salmon & Shrimp, but meowmy wanted to give us some variety, so she tried Wellness Turkey and we all liked that too, but when she gave us Eagle Holistic Turkey & Barley, Pretty would not touch it. She\'s a fussy girl, MOL! The only advice I have is make sure you don\'t run out of Monkey\'s favorite food and remind the store to keep it well stocked. Every once in awhile try another brand of chicken food and you can always feed the Cowboy Cookout for variety.

Stephanie Changtu

Do they sell Natural Balance where you buy Monkey's food? There's a canned food that says Chicken & Liver Pate Formula, I think he'll problaly like it since it has only chicken for meat. The ingredients are: Chicken, Chicken Liver, Chicken Broth, Carrots, Eggs, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Guar Gum, Taurine, Carrageenan, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitmin E Supplement, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Niacin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Pantothenate, Calcium Iodate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin, Vitamin A Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement. I would try to see if he eats that, So he can have some varitey,Eating the same brand and flavor can cause allergy.

Heide Levine

Ok we tried Wellness chicken and he did the scratch thing like he was trying to cover it... and in his language that's a bad thing.. Funny tonight we tried the very natuiral balance you mentioned and he seemed to eat it just fine... but the real test is more then once... sometimes he'll eat something once and then never again... Don't know what that is either? Tomorrow is Avoderm chicken... But natural balance looks to be the winner for now and they're never out of that one...

Lucybelle G

Oh Monkey! What a finicky eater you are, on top of your game I see. Have you tried mixing his old food with the new food and make the transition gradual? If you are not changing his food due to any complications, then there is not harm is giving him what he wants. Even if you were to serve him the best food in the market, super premium, ultra human grade food, etc, and he won't it, then there's really no benefit at all.

Annalisa Conserti-Jones

Monkey's mom: give him his favorite, it's not such a bad thing. Why? Once upon a time, there was a cat (me), who would only eat Wellness chicken and salmon. If you put anything else in front of me, I would basically turn my nose up. So mom got me all the chicken and salmon I wanted, and then more. After a month of this, I grew booored of it, and stopped eating it. So mom got a tiny tiny can of Wellness chicken, and what do you know? I polished the contents off as soon as they went in my wet food plate. I went through a chicken only phase, and next a chicken and lobster phase. Then I got bored of Wellness, and so mom thought we'd try Merrick. I love it, and though I still eat wellness, and eat different flavors of Merrick, I still play favorites (New England Boil is my current favorite; mom complains it smells like rotten fish, and how could I eat something so wretched smelling, she asks :?). So you see, it's not bad to give Monkey the same thing over and over. He'll reach a point where he will grow bored, and will finally be open to the idea of something else. It sounds like that is what happened with Merrick chicken, which is why Monkey seems to like Cowboy Cookout more (me? I hate anything with beef in it, unless it is these treats that dad's aunt got me for Christmas. Go figure ). Also, sometimes I will turn my nose up at food, but I go back to it once I realize that I'm not gonna get something different. Mom feeds me wet food at night, and if I don't really give the food the time of day and keep snacking on the portions of dry that are still out (I save food, i.e., never eat the entirety of my dry food unless more dry food "comes out" of my feeder later - I'm OC about it) sometimes she "accidentally" leaves the bowl out overnight as the only thing to tide me over until my feeder gives me more dry food in the morning. I won't say that I'll eat the whole thing, but mom does notice I will give it a second and third try lots of times, as long as the humans aren't watching (I have to preserve my dignity as a picky eater, you know? :r)

Kara Dickman

Cat are so funny. Liberty hates chicken but loves things like turkey, duck (something I just learned) and lamb. California Natural makes a hard food that is chicken only. Felidae makes both wet and hard food that is chicken only. Liberty is allergic to fish and if she ate chicken one of these would be my first choice. I have spent the 4 1/2 + years looking for food she can eat. These and Merrick\'s are all I have ever found that were chicken only because most foods contain fish. ( She switching currently to Natural Balance Green Pea and Duck hard food.) I bet she is allergic to a meat product but does not know which one. That\'s why I think Liberty will not eat chicken. She thinks that is what makes her sick (but it is fish) . Liberty never wants to feel they way she did when I first rescued her (she was near death). My grandparents had a cat that could literally only eat one kind of food (supermarket at that). Everything else came right back up. She lived to 14 (died from being allowed outside). I don\'t see it as the end of the world if a cat only eats one kind of food.

Heide Levine

Ok I'll tackle this one at a time.. LoL Feeding Monkey the same thing is not actually my issue... It's the pet store where I go actually having the things monkey likes stocked at all times that becomes the issue... and they are the ONLY ones open when I need them to be because of my schedule... So finding another store, when I can afford to buy it and NEED it at the same time? Not good... We tried the "transition" way of feeding a new food... not a good idea... even if we put a pinch of something new in with his favorite, that will send him away from his food faster... He's so smell sensitive that he treats it like his favorite food is tainted LoL Another thing is that we leave the bowl out whether he eats it or not... So in the morning my hubby will see if there's still food or not and wash the bowl... I do the same at night... I come to wash the bowl and whatever is left from the day will tell us how he's doing... If he loves it he'll eat it all in one sitting... If he's ok with it he'll go back and forth every so often like every 15 min or so and keep nibbling... if he hates it he'll taste it and then meow... then a little later he'll sniff and make bitter beer face and meow... then he'll start knocking everything off of counters and anything else he can find till he's been heard LoL The "hate" behavior will also occur if he's got some new food in his favorite... I know the whole thing about leaving food out past a certain point and I know it's not good... but I also know he simply will not eat it if he doesn't like it... and so leaving it out is not a health hazard in our case because he won't eat it... We also used this tactic a while ago while trying to "force" him to eat a certain food because we thought if he figured out it was all he was going to get then he would cave... but it never happened... So the latest news is that AvoDerm Chicken was the winner ding ding ding!! LoL He gobbled it up so happy that he got it all over his face and on his whiskers LoL it took him a while to try to get it off the whiskers and we had a nights worth of entertainment laughing our tushies off at him... Tonight we gave it to him again and he happily licked all the juices first then made his little trill happy noise and came back 10 minutes later to eat all of the rest in a frensy... Sooooo AvoDerm it is!! ;c;:c9:^:

Beth Costa

Hector is picky, too, and the joy of it now is that he's on prescription food for allergies so I can't even try different things with him. Like Monkey, he would eat something once or even several times and then suddenly balk at it. He's less picky with dry food, luckily. I don't think a single protein source is bad for them except that I have heard that too much fish is bad (since Monket likes chicken, you should be okay.) Good luck in your quest...

Kim Washburn

Mom doesn't know what to do with me either. My brofur Felix is supposed to eat c/d wet and he does. Mama Kitty will it eat too, but not me. Mom tried the wellness pouches, but none of us liked them nor did we like any type of Wellness wet either. Go figure. I like Fancy Feast but mom says she wants me to eat something better. Even with my favorite Fancy Feast flavor, I turn my nose up at it sometimes. When Chloe was sick and dying, she simply would not eat any food other than Fancy Feast for some reason. It got to the point where mom had to decide to feed it to her or let her go hungry, so Fancy Feast it was. The vet agreed at that point too. I tasted it then a few times when mom gave it to me as treat, and still have one flavor I like....sometimes. Mom has tried all kinds of stuff, but my vet says I'm a junk food junkie :r I prefer people food, but mom says I only get a nibble sometimes and can't live on it. Mom feels so guilty when we run to the kitchen at dinnertime and I won't even eat. Now I don't even bother going to the kitchen at all when it's time to eat. Mom feels so guilty. Mom would like to feed me and Mama Kitty the same wet food. Any suggestions? One thing she's worried about is that if Felix sees us getting something else, he'll want it instead of his Rx food. Mom says if it's good stuff, she may let him try it too. Because I won't eat wet and we all still like to have our nibbles of crunchy, mom has to keep out the c/d dry because of Felix. She'd rather not us eat that stuff, but says Felix's pee pee problems have to come first. Mom is buying some of the brands she's read about in this thread, but she's tried so many over the years and I just turn up my nose. For a fat boy, I sure am a picky eater. P.S. I have to have pate type wet food or it's a no go.

Janet Plymire

Jack have you ever tried Eagle Pack Holistic wet food? We have been eating that for a couple months now and even our picky sisfur likes it. It\'s pate and meowmy smooshes it real good in our bowls and it\'s easy to lick up. My brofur Cocoa is a recovering dry food junkie and since he\'s been eating the wet food he seems to be more satisfied after meals. He has to go back to the vets soon to get weighed again and hopefully he will have lost a few ounces or more MOL! Hey I liked your video of you with your new water fountain. That looks like so much fun! I love playing in water too. Maybe one day meowmy will get us one of those. Try some Eagle Pack maybe you\'ll like it. Head bonks, Bandit

Kim Washburn

Thanks Bandit. That is one kind mom has been wanting to try. Mommy has had a bad past few days, so she hasn't looked for my food yet. She is pretty sure one of our local health food stores carries that brand, so she's going there today to see. I'll keep you all posted on whether mom finds it and how I like it. Generally mom buys a whole bunch of cans at once. She gets several cans each in lots of flavors. Wish me luck. Mommy really wants us to eat mostly wet. Jack