Funniest thing I’ve seen all week!
The late, mostly-lamented Ahab – he was evil, but I miss him anyway – would bite through bread bags to chew the bread inside them, leaving us with a copiously-perforated bag of bread crumbs. He would also do whatever it took to get into the pound cake my wife’s grandfather would bake. Apparently, Ahab had a wheat addiction or something.
RR
Luna: Blast! Foiled again! <sounds like Meow, Meow>
One of ours does this with all kinds of processed grain and potato products. It’s hard to tell how much of the attraction is the taste, and how much is the sheer joy of killing something in a crinkly bag. Everything like that goes in a cupboard nowadays.
And… this stops her? :dubious:
Foil is one of those things that is supposed to repel cats. Supposedly they don’t like the sound it makes when they walk on it or when it crumples. I think Luna might be immune to that, though, as well as not minding the scent of citrus (cats supposedly don’t like the smell of citrus, but Luna begs for lemons).
The foil would at least make it so that we could hear her getting into the cornbread, if we were at home and on the first floor, so we could go into the kitchen and shoo her off.
Huh. I didn’t know that. We throw wadded-up balls of foil for ours to chase – being sort of round but not very, foil balls roll in a nice erratic prey-like manner.
I had heard about the citrus thing, and have found it useful but limited: If the bad kitty is in a peeing-on-things mood, something that smells thoroughly of citrus by way of a liberal sprinkling of essential oil is less likely to get peed on than the same item without the oil. The effect lasts about two days before I need to sprinkle more oil. Lavender oil doesn’t have the same effect.
I wanted to be the first in this thread to post the kitty pic. Darn you, emmaliminal! (Those kittens are too cute!)
Awww, she’s a pretty kitty!
To her credit, Luna’s peeing outside the litter box seems to be limited to when she has a urinary tract infection (knocks on wood). She peed on my down coat this winter, but some antibiotics from the vet seem to have fixed that problem.
It is considered distasteful according to the Geneva Convention to feed Danny DeVito or Rhea Perlman to cats. [sub]Though it is apparently good for their diets[/sub]
Ah, well put. So accurate, yet concise.
I was considering going into a long-winded explanation of how many surprising animal families are members of Carnivora, yet who have adapted to a largely plant-based diet. Dogs are one example - in the wild they eat lots of meat, but there’s nothing besides calorie density that they can’t also get from plants. Cats, on the other hand, are true carnivores who must have at least some animal products in their diet. And I once heard someone comment that there are no true herbivores, only “opportunistic omnivores”, given that most creatures eat lots of bugs unintentionally, not to mention the various stories of squirrel eats baby bird, deer eats cow-skull, etc.
As to strange plant matter eaten by domestic cats - who knows? In addition to my own cats and those of family & friends, I have been acquainted with hundreds of cats in my >5 years employment with veterinarians, including >3 years at a cat-only practice, and I have heard all kinds of stories of kitty’s favorite vegetable… My impression is that most cats don’t really go for fruits & vegetables in general, but most have one or two they might go nuts over. I had one who loved cooked carrots. Many people report kitty loves ripe cantaloupe or watermelon. Or pumpkin or winter squash (which are good fiber sources if kitty has intestinal issues). Or strawberries. And the bread products do seem popular too, though really grains are probably the most unhealthy thing commonly present in cat food. (BTW, Zsofia, you can buy canned catfood with no grains - lots easier than making a raw diet at home, probably about the same price; more than normal food of course. And can’t you find whole chickens with hearts in their giblet package? Or does the recipe require more than one heart per chicken?) I’ve never met a cat who didn’t like some kind of chips - whether tortilla or corn depends on the cat, but I suspect it might actually be the oil & salt they’re going after. I used to think my cats loved sweet potatoes because if I left the skins out they’d drag them off the counter and I’d find a kitchen of kitties devouring the sweet potato skin as if it were a gazelle or something… But then I tried to give them a piece once that was unbuttered & unsalted and they walked away from it.
Another thing that’s usually a good cat repellent is mint. I have used this successfully on 6 cats out of 7, then I managed to acquire a weirdo cat who loves it. She goes nuts over mint ice cream (even more than other dairy) and tries to get inside my mouth if I just brushed my teeth. The other cats actually give her “you’re crazy, man” looks.
My cat adores broccoli. We found this out after my daughter found a youtube video of a cat eating broccoli. Then again, we either refer to her as the room mate or our 3rd dog. She is the least cat like cat I’ve ever seen. She also likes pasta.
Then again, the dogs like her poop, so in that regard, she is firmly in the cat territory.
FWIW, I think people that force their dogs/cats to be vegetarians should be smacked in the head with frozen turkeys. Pointy teeth? MEAT.
Obviously, she misheard you – thought you were saying “cornivore.”
I need more heart than one per chicken, although I suppose they’re probably playing it safe, as taurine is the big thing they need. Also, cutting up a whole chicken sucks ass and is Even Grosser than grinding thighs.
Stokie was on a prescription diet just for kitties with Bad Poop - it worked in the beginning, sort of, but lost its efficacy. Maybe this will too, but frankly the improvement in the poop of all three kitties is pretty wonderful. And at least this way I know damned well what’s in their food - I’m sure the expensive fancy-ass canned foods are all well and good, but I know there’s no melamine in their food now. Maybe I’ll give it up and start buying pre-prepared, but as it is now I’m okay with it and the cats couldn’t be happier and healthier.
ETA - I apologize, I obviously forgot the musical interlude.
Ya gotta have heart! All you need is heart!
It might be easier to by some B.A.R.F. for your cat, since that’s basically what you’re making yourself.
(Yes, that’s really what it’s called. No, I’m not making this up.)
Originally Posted by tdn
Is this the commercial that talks about the Flavors of Tuscany? Because there is far more wrong with that than just the vegetables. Namely, there is a cat food that has the Flavors of Tuscany.
Only Topo Giggio.
Or AT Topo Giggio’s. Which, by the way, I recommend to humans far more frequently than I do to cats. Even cats I like.
Hi everyone, new to the board. And obviously not yet aware of how to double quote. Give me time.
Cats are carnivores. Sure, they can make energy out of carbohydrates, e.g. potatoes, but if they don’t get meat they will get deficiencies in a few days. As mentionned previously, they will get taurine deficiencies because they can’t synthetize it and they won’t find it in vegetables.
I may have related this one before, sorry if I am repeating myself -
how’s this for a weird cat - my roommate’s cat will eat only processed cat food and plants. Any plant I have brought in the house will be eaten and puked up. Any time I turn my back on a salad or raw vegetable I put on the kitchen table, he is up there trying to eat it or at least giving it a good sniffing over. However, I can put meat down on the same table and he doesn’t care. I have offered him tuna, chicken, beef (both raw and cooked) in the same way I will offer him a cat treat and he is simply not interested. He just doesn’t seem to be interested in meat (ONCE I got him to drink the water out of the bottom of a tuna can, but I suspect he was doing that simply to block out/piss off my other roommate’s cat, who is gonzo about meat and ‘tuna water’). He is a great mouser, but all he does is a modified catch and release where he catches the mouse, runs up two flights of stairs to my roommates bedroom, and lets him go in my roommate’s bed. He was rescued as as a tiny, apparently malnourished kitten who hung out behind the bar my roommate worked at for about a week before my roomate decided he would freeze/starve and took him home, so I think he had experience eating stuff other than cat food… just bizarre, imho. Another weird thing is that, despite the trauma of going to the vet numerous times in his life, any time you bring out his cat carrier, he runs over and climbs inside. Never seen a cat treat a cat carrier as anything other than a tool of Satan before. All in all, a rather weird cat.
Cookie Monster ate half a cookie the other day - it took her nine years to grow into her name. And in the past, she’s eaten a grape and some chocolate.
Think she’s got an eating disorder.
Those premade raw food diets are EXPENSIVE. Plus, I kind of like knowing what goes in the stuff. It’s the same grade of food as I eat. They do NOT get organic. 
My cat is the exact same way - kibble and vegetables, nothing else.
They like to bat the foil balls around, but if you lay a flat piece of foil over a chair cushion, for instance, they won’t stay on it. (so they say-haven’t tried it myself)
As to the raw diet, the next best alternative IMHO is Innova EVO. It’s kibble, but only 7% carbohydrates. It was my next-least-expensive option to feeding both an IBD cat and a diabetic cat. The IBD cat was finally able to solidify her stool and gain some weight, and the diabetic cat went into remission.
It sounds expensive on a by-the-pound comparison to traditional kibble, but it’s extremely calorie dense. (600 calories per cup) Adult indoor moderately active cats consume about 200 calories a day (at least mine do), so it’s just 1/3 of a cup a day TOTAL that they get. None of them are fat, and it’s just about $30 a month to feed them (3 cats). Cheaper than the cheapest filler-filled canned food. I meal-feed them 1/6 of a cup twice a day. I tell everyone I have a chance to about this food, it’s really close to the top of the list of the best you can buy.