Finicky eaters

Let us start with the basics. If your cat is not losing weight, if it passes a stool every day and your vet shows no sign of concern, then your cat has no trouble with its food. It may be that you have a problem with the way it eats, but the cat itself is perfectly all right. My advice is to buy yourself a good book, take up a hobby or learn to jump out of an aeroplane with a parachute. Just give the cat a rest. If it looks normal, moves normally and behaves normally, then — guess what? It is normal. Leave it alone. But if it is losing weight, if it passes a stool irregularly and your vet is worried, then you are right: your cat really does have a problem.

Of all the creatures that ever went in search of the Holy Grail, it is the cat that found it. Some cats — a great many cats, in fact — differ sharply from the rest in what they are prepared to count as food, and they will often narrow their choice down to one particular flavour or one particular brand. None of that need worry you, except when the food is hard to come by, or your vet does not think such a diet a complete one. If the food your cat prefers is easy enough to get and your vet has nothing against it, buy several packs at once and count yourself lucky.

But what do you do if you have to change the diet of a cat that is finicky about its food — and, more generally, how do you get a finicky cat to eat at all?

Let us begin by taking a deep breath and relaxing. No healthy animal has ever yet starved itself to death of its own free will. Loss of appetite is not considered chic among cats, however successfully they may have you believing otherwise for a few days at a time.

Remember, too, that cats are predators, and are biologically equipped to fast for a day or two without the slightest harm to anything whatever. So long as they have access to clean, fresh water, a few missed meals will do them no damage. Armed with that, you can begin.

The simplest way to start is to cut the cat’s usual ration for a day or two. Give it only a teaspoon or two of food at each meal, and take the bowl away twenty minutes after you put it down. That will sharpen the cat’s appetite and teach it to come running to the bowl.

On the third day, mix in a tiny amount of the new food. Leave the cat a teaspoon of it for twenty minutes, then take the bowl away. If the cat eats the lot — splendid, that was easy! If it still looks hungry, give it another teaspoon. But do not feed it its fill — not yet, at any rate.

If the cat will not eat, do not worry. At the next meal offer it exactly the same combination again (fresh food, that is, but the same mixture). Keep repeating to yourself that a cat will not starve itself. Once it has been eating the mixture happily for a day or two, increase the amount of the new food in it. The new food should now come to 25 per cent of the total. If the cat is eating well, give it a second helping.

When it is eating that happily too, make the mixture fifty-fifty. You are very nearly there. Once the cat is eating a mixture like that, the success of the whole undertaking is assured. Go on giving it the fifty-fifty mixture for a day or two. At this point you can already bring the total amount of food back up to a normal portion.

Over the following week, gradually reduce the amount of the old food in the mixture and increase the amount of the new. Some cats adapt easily at this stage; others stick at a particular amount or proportion. Pay it no attention. Simply keep to whatever proportion suits your cat for a few days more. It will get used to it.

Now you have arrived, and the whole business has not taken very long. Most cats find a gradual switch to a new diet easier to accept, and it also gives their digestion time to adjust to the new food, which in turn helps to avoid diarrhoea and an upset stomach.

One warning, though: a hungry cat is an inventive cat. Clear everything off the kitchen worktop and put the plates in the dishwasher. The last thing you want is for it to top up its diet with the leftovers of your dinner and sabotage the whole process.