Trouble getting food out of the bowl effectively?

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Cali S

Cali S

Member Since 2022
Since making the switch to wet food for both my kitties, I've noticed that my civvie seems to be having a lot of trouble getting all her food out of the bowl.

She winds up licking most of her food into a flat layer on the bottom of the bowl and then gives up on it. If I scoop it back up into piles, she kind of chomps it up from there, but I don't want to have to feed her half her meal every time.

If she leaves too much, Faraday reaps the benefits, but since we're trying to get some lbs off him, I'd like to not have to worry about that!

I tried switching to a very shallow bowl which seems to have helped a little, but is this just a question of patience? I'm bad at that game! If I can find a dish to help her get all her food hoovered up before Faraday zooms in to eat it, that'd be good, but if I just have to wait (it's been 3ish weeks since making the full transition to wet for my civvie), well, I'll just be patient.
 
Most cats do not like eating from a bowl and prefer a flat surface like a salad plate. It's called whisker stress. They also do not like their dishes to move around when they are trying to eat.
 
Deborah & Muffy(GA) & Wendall said:
Most cats do not like eating from a bowl and prefer a flat surface like a salad plate. It's called whisker stress. They also do not like their dishes to move around when they are trying to eat.
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The new bowl I got specifically is designed to be shallow enough to theoretically avoid this, and is nonskid, so hopefully it’s just a matter of acclimating! I think she’s too used to being able to bite her food up off the bowl like she did with kibble and hasn’t adjusted yet.
 
It deems not to be clear if "wisker stress" is real and stress free bowls help
"Conclusions and relevance: Cats fed from a whisker-friendly dish did not spend more time eating, drop less food or eat more food in a 5-min period. Some cats appeared to prefer the new whisker-friendly dish over their normal food dish. Overall, food dish-associated whisker stress did not affect the eating habits of the study cats."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32538246/
Evaluation of whisker stress in cats
 
Cali S said:
I have not tried this - I’ll give it a whirl!
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Most all of us add water to the wet food . I'll add water to Tyler's food and make it like a smooth consistency and get the fork and smooch it up . If he doesn't finish all of it and it dries up just add a little more water to it.
Let me know :cat:
 
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There are some cat bowls that are elevated and/or tilted. If adding water doesn't do the trick, you may want to look at various bowl configurations.
 
Diane Tyler's Mom said:
Most all of us add water to the wet food . I'll add water to Tyler's food and make it like a smooth consistency and get the fork and smooch it up . If he doesn't finish all of it and it dries up just add a little more water to it.
I hope it works for Faraday. Let me know :cat:
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This helped a lot! Adding extra water is much easier than facilitating things with a spoon.
 
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