I’ve talked about Bernie, my elderly cat before. She’s been my beastie for 20 years now, and age has caught up with her. For the past few years she’s been on thyroid meds to keep her weight up - her skinniest has been just over 4 lbs.
She’s now maintaining between 5lbs 6oz to 6lbs, but it takes effort.
We also had problems after we lost Cleo this past May. They were frienemies for 15 years. After Cleo died, Bern went into a funk and wouldn’t eat much of anything.
A visit to the vet, a doubling of her meds, and a directive to let her have whatever she wants has led to this.
Sorry, shot with a camera phone. But you get the idea.
At least she sat up to eat today. Yesterday she had her ‘snack’ while still curled up on the couch.
I spoil my hamster like it were my kid. We bought not only one, but two hamster play pens, put them together and created a huge hamster land. She still tries to break out. She’s figured out how to pull herself up and over. She has so many toys it’s crazy. And we’re always giving her fresh fruit, nuts, yogurt, etc. She wants for nothing… and she’s a rodent.
I totally sneak the cats bits of lamb chops. My mom tends to get upset because they’re expensive, but I’m limited here. Cats can’t have a lot of stuff meat typically gets cooked with, so I don’t know if the chicken is going to be tasty or deadly poisonous. My mom’s lamb chops, on the other hand, are just meat spiced with pepper. So I give bits to the cats.
Even though I rarely give the cats wet food, they come begging every time they hear a can opener. Sometimes if they’re good I’ll squoosh tuna water into their food bowls for them to eat. They love it!
Every day Grace, the heart failure dog, gets a breakfast of 3 eggs scrambled with sour cream and microwaved. After they come out of the microwave I put in about 1/4 c of minced chicken livers. Dinner for her is one or two chicken thighs and drumsticks cooked on the George Foreman grill, deboned and shredded. I was boiling the chicken and rice, but she started turning her nose up at it.
StG
The pugs get cereal for breakfast every morning - supposedly because they need the fiber, but I’m not sure it makes a difference. But they love it so much that they get it anyway.
They also get a LOT of people food, mostly because Mr. Athena is a sucker who gives in to Pug Mind Control to the point that he’s taken to locking himself in his office when he wants to eat in peace. I have stronger mind defenses, they know not to try their Pug Mind Tricks on me.
They do, on occasion, gang up with Mr. Athena to punish me, though. He feeds them eggs and beans then they come up and sit under my desk. I swear, I nearly pass out from the fumes at times…
My son’s cat,Minerva is so picky on what she will eat. She wants to sniff everything, but only eats dry cat food, crunchy treats, our homemade beef jerky or raw tuna. We make sure we save her a small pile of diced tuna whenever we have it (which isn’t often).
My cat, Hai (the smaller one on the right) on the other hand, is still learning manners. She tries to banzai onto dinner plates. I give her small samples of things I think she might like…on a saucer near the food bowls. I don’t mind giving her bits of meat, but I want her to equate food with where she eats and not stealing it from people.
And, because I know and endorse the rule, here’s two morepics.
Every Sunday I make up a big batch of “dog food.” Ground turkey, brown rice, mixed vegetables are lovingly prepared so that two small dogs can scorff it up without so much as tasting a mouthful.
Not me, but my mom would sometimes feed their cat prime deli-cut roast beef that costs like $8/pound. It sort of ticked me off actually, since I can’t even afford to eat that stuff.
We’ve all been feeding the Doberman off our plates, to the point that she’s got diarrhea something awful, so that’s recently been cut way back. But she still rests her head on our laps or even on the table while we eat.
Another thing I’m trying to cut back is the baby talk. I’m starting to really embarrass myself and I don’t want her to start thinking her name is Wih-wuff. (It’s Lilith!)
My husband brings her with him when he comes to pick me up for lunch every day. She always has her head out the back window of the truck, so I give her a kiss before I get in. If I’m lucky it’s a fairly dry one.
The cats have us all leaping to the door to let them in or out of the patio, about a hundred times a day, and they don’t want to go together…no, they go one at a time!
I’m currently changing their cat food because they didn’t like the old one, so at the moment I’m mixing the old and new brands of wet food. They have trained me to feed them four times a day.
Of course, they get kisses too.
<yanking your chain>
You make your poor baby eat off a cold spoon? Shame on you. She’d probably eat more if you let her lick the food off your fingers.
</yanking your chain>
TheKid has done that, but Bernie nibbles a little too hard.
Today was a sad beastie day. Over the past year Bern decided bathing is for the birds, and with her super fine, kinked, old kitty fur it mats. Badly. Today, while trying to cut a mat out, I snicked her. Ran to the vet, luckily they were able to superglue it closed, but the guilt is horrendous.
We did luck out, though, as the groomer had an opening. Picture a (as of today) 5 lb 2 oz cat with fur on her head, back, and tail only. I told her she has a greyhound ass. I was glared at.
She finally started talking to me an hour or so ago.
My sister has two doxies (weenie dogs). One was terribly abused before my sister adopted her, and the dog remains very skittish to this day. Her loyalty is 100% to my sister, my bil scares her. The only way Molly will have dinner is if it’s on the couch and my sister is sitting alongside of her. My bil has to be in another room. Breakfast for Bella and Molly is always a fried egg, a bit of bacon, cantelope or banana, and peanut butter toast.
My sweet littleJuno used to live in a cage that was 5’ tall, 4’ wide and had 3 floors. He got bread, yogurt, and fruit or veggie flavored dog chews.
We didn’t give him much in the way of human food, besides the typical fruit veggies but he absolutely loved bread and yogurt. Our vet said the yogurt was ok. We never told her about the bread.
It’s kind of hard to spoil a bunny with food. They’re such sensitive animals.
I miss my bunny. 
The tap water in my apartment is horrendous, so Go-Go gets bottled water.
I spoil Keyser Soze by not punishing him when he deserves to be.
I am also getting adept at washing Siamese cats. She stands in the water and purrs.
I guess by comparison I don’t spoil my pets all that much.
Sydney the Bulldog and Mala the Mastiff both have their favorite toys and secondary toys. The secondary ones get rotated out on a fairly regular basis. They also get a new marrow bone every couple of weeks or so.
Being a bulldog, Syd requires daily cleaning of her folds and ears. After she suffers this indignity, both she and Mala get a bite sized piece of steak instead of a cookie as the reward for Sydney being compliant and Mala keeping her giant nose out of things until the procedures are finished.
Zaney the cat got put on wet urinary s/o food a few months ago. She hasn’t had any repeat of her kidney problems (knock wood). Still, any time I open a packet of tuna she’s accorded thumb tip sized portion in tribute to her catly greatness.