Need tips for tempting Dottie to eat

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Jeanne & Dottie

Jeanne & Dottie

Member Since 2016
Well, she is eating, but not enough at any one time. My concern is that her laziness will cause her to crash. She's unpredictable and doesn't eat much anyway.

The only three things that help so far are tuna water, parmesan cheese, and FortiFlora. I don't want to load up on the last two because the parm cheese can cause gastric upset, and so can too much forti flora.

Looks like tonight she's going to refuse to eat up to and including the two hour cutoff before her preshot bg poke.I do not think she's nauseous. Just picky as a two year old. She might however have lost her sense of smell.

I am so desperate for sleep that I am shaky. If I don't get more than two hours sleep in a night I will be the one to crash. Help? Suggestions please?
 
A couple of things I did for Squeaker that helped:

I blended into a paste with added water

Chill it in the fridge

Warm by setting bowl up to the rim in hot tap water (however, if not eaten in a couple hours needs to be thrown out)

You might also try sugar free, unflavored plain yogurt. Loosely mixed in the food with a little dollop on top.
 
She's so-so. It's not that her tummy is upset...she's on strike because she doesn't like the menu. I'm feeding FF or Friskies, but mostly FF.

If I offer her a piece of dry food she makes a grab for it. But her canned food...meh. :stop: I've tried parmesan cheese, FortiFlora...they help a little. Tuna water helps too. Even broken up a couple of pieces of food into eenie weenie bits.

She's 'ok' with both brands of food, but doesn't like the messiness. She's an excessively fussy cat about her appearance. Perhaps it's because she's mostly white fur?

I think the real problem is texture.:banghead: She HATES the soft wet stuff. It gets all over her. Poor thing, watching a toothless cat eat is an excercise in pity. There's no teeth to keep the food inside her mouth, so it keeps falling out the sides. One or two times I KNOW she's clamped down on her tongue. :eek: When that happens she gets up and stalks off to clean herself.

I have ordered some syringes just in case she goes on a real strike. Be Prepared! Right now she's only eating about 2/3 the amount she should. I don't want to get into a pi**ing contest with her, so I'm trying to be cagey. I did puree some, and added water, to make it as thin as the food used for syringe feedings. But she gets tired of lapping. Doesn't like a bib, either.

The pet food companies spray animal digest on their dry food pieces. I'm wondering if I can make tiny little 'nuggets' of my own, and use a liquid spray of FortiFlora to do the trick. Someone here mentioned making 'turkey balls' for their cat. I'm sorry I can't remember who mentioned it, but it's a brilliant idea. I could dry out the pieces in my convection oven, just enough to have a bit of crunch. They'd look a lot like regular cat food, just a bit bigger.

Moglet, I did order the Pure Bites you reccommended. They are to be delivered on Tuesday. I think you mentioned that they are a little bit 'crunchy'. THAT is what she wants. Something she can get her teeth...um, gums, into. Once I get her into eating mode, she'll wade through the messy stuff, if I can just get her jump started.

Bless Amazon. I'm ordering everything I need from them. It's like having a butler, chaffeur, and personal chef, all rolled into one service.
 
Tricky situation, Jeanne.

When you get the protein treats maybe try a thick-ish 'wet food soup' with Purebites on top as kitty croutons? :confused:


Mogs
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are you on start low go slow?
I leave a small bowl/tray out for my boys of the pure bites after I grind them into fairy dust-there are a few bigger pieces so they get the dry fix--
Mine do not like anything on top of the wet-they liked forti flora 1 time:confused:
if you are on go slow method you could grind the dry (assuming you are using young again or evo and on go slow)…. as soon as she can have it you know she won't want it!:rolleyes:
My 1 with FD still likes Mideast feast from weruva--shockingly he has for years. It is not as LC as ff but not high and he eats mayyyybe 1/2 of a 2.8 oz can.
He is kind of digging this 2.2oz 3 pack of bumblebee chunk light tuna in water NOT:stop::stop::stop: the albacore (we now give that to the outside cats)
He seems to like the texture--just wet enough and not too chunky.
They are a mystery….. I have to say since he has been getting the microflora from herb smith he is eating much better (I have to open the capsule mix in baby food and syringe) or it could be the pancreatrophin I pop down his throat before meals?
I was force feeding him for a while before I was giving those 2 things…..good luck!!:cat:
 
jayla said:
are you on start low go slow?
I leave a small bowl/tray out for my boys of the pure bites after I grind them into fairy dust-there are a few bigger pieces so they get the dry fix--
Mine do not like anything on top of the wet-they liked forti flora 1 time:confused:
if you are on go slow method you could grind the dry (assuming you are using young again or evo and on go slow)…. as soon as she can have it you know she won't want it!:rolleyes:
My 1 with FD still likes Mideast feast from weruva--shockingly he has for years. It is not as LC as ff but not high and he eats mayyyybe 1/2 of a 2.8 oz can.
He is kind of digging this 2.2oz 3 pack of bumblebee chunk light tuna in water NOT:stop::stop::stop: the albacore (we now give that to the outside cats)
He seems to like the texture--just wet enough and not too chunky.
They are a mystery….. I have to say since he has been getting the microflora from herb smith he is eating much better (I have to open the capsule mix in baby food and syringe) or it could be the pancreatrophin I pop down his throat before meals?
I was force feeding him for a while before I was giving those 2 things…..good luck!!:cat:
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Oh wow, I have tried low, high, balancing on the back of a chair, hanging from the chandelier, you name it:facepalm: Dottie is all about texture. She hates mushy. Wants crunchy. While she is eating...some..she's not eating enough to gain weight, and has actually dropped an ounce or two. This does worry me, I see a trend that is unhealthy...and all because she doesn't want her dainty little face to get dirty. Sheesh.

Dottie loves Fortiflora..she loves Parm cheese too. but the amounts of both that I need to use to get her to eat her wet food, will work against her. I need about twice as much as she should be getting, to get her to finish her meal. I've tried grinding up her dry food...that helps a TINY bit.

What gets my goat is, after fighting with me for an hour about eating, the moment I give up and walk away, she'll eat about 2/3 of that dish.! She's hungry..just anti-messy. Now I'm drained, and feeling like a failure, and she lies down for a nap.

On the bright side, last night I actually managed to find about 5 hours to sleep. So I slept.
 
Hopefully Dottie likes the Purebites. You can break them up between your fingers and sprinkle on top of the dish. Those were Pimp's kryptonite for both testing and the food transition. He still "requires" the dust on most of his meals.

How many times a day does she get fed? Mabye she would do better with smaller more frequent meals?
Jeanne Skadowski said:
What gets my goat is, after fighting with me for an hour about eating, the moment I give up and walk away, she'll eat about 2/3 of that dish.! She's hungry..just anti-messy.
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What happens if you just put the food down and ignore her? It almost sounds like she's protesting.
 
If I ignore her, she will only eat about a teaspoonful here and there. It's why I started pressing her on the food in the first place. I could see she wasn't eating enough.

I'm waiting to put her BG up on the spreadsheet because some editing is being done to the template. But today her numbers are high and flat. I'm beginning to think I might need to increase her insulin by .5u with the next shot. This has been her pattern for the past two days. I've been trying to adjust her to eating FF only, and have been mixing the Friskies with the FF..using smaller amounts of the friskies as each day passes.

Perhaps I should change her over completely to FF before I make the change? I worry because there were a few BG400's in the mix.

I really have to cut back on her parmesan cheese too. I look at the avatar and I see a cat Mona Lisa. She's definitely aced that mysterious Italian smile. Lordy, these cats do love parmesan cheese.
 
About her protesting...yeah I'm worried about that. If she's upset with me, it'll drive her BG up. She stresses easily. I'm sort of darned if I do, darned if I don't. And the stress is catching. Gizmo's now being uber-picky about eating.
 
How about Stella and Chewy's raw? It is a dryish texture and low carb. You can buy just a small amount and see if she goes for it. It is a little pricey but if she really likes it, maybe dress the wet stuff with it? I can find it in my pet store; sometimes only independent stores carry it. I called around.
 
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