Taki is Teachable

With Sake being ill, and eating so sporadically and so finicky, I put out multiple choices for her at each meal.  I do not know what she might want, so I offer her from 3 to 5 selections that she has chosen in the past. She may eat well, or not.  When she does not, I try another selection and another selection.

Taki started off underweight, and she is still small of stature, but she has ballooned in her weight.  Most recently, well, over the last many months, she has really gained weight.  Because she has discovered all of Sake's uneaten food.  She does not go for the livers, and if the chicken gets too dry, she does not go for that, but she likes milk, canned patés, preferring turkey to chicken, while Sake prefers chicken, and Taki likes the Fancy Feast Chicken Florentine.
 
I am not home to police who eats what during the day, so I know Taki goes after the selections Sake eschews. Because, I see her do it when I am home during the day.

I have decided to do what I can to decrease her intake.  She and Haiku both like "treats" before their meal (dessert comes first?). I encourage this in Haiku, because she has been traditionally thin.  I attribute this to her early months when her nutrition was poor.  She generally eats okay, but has certain preferences, and she likes treats.

I have decided to try to decrease Taki's intake in small ways.  So, I have been giving her fewer treats than Haiku gets.  Well, this lead to Taki nosing Haiku away from Haiku's dish. Which was not fair to Haiku, and not my intent.  So, I have started putting Taki in "time out" while Haiku finishes her treats.  Then when Haiku is done, I let Taki eat the rest. And when she is let out of "time out." she races to the eating area, and eats Haiku's leftovers.  We have done that every day this week, except tonight.

Tonight, after Taki was done eating, she went to the side and sat, and watched Haiku eat.  When Haiku was done with her treats, she did not immediately go to the dish, but waited until I told her she could eat treats! 

I have decided that Taki is not dumb.  She is slow to learn, and I believe, very willful. She has to be willful to have survived her first few days of life. I will never forget the first morning I had her.  I had scabbed together a way to feed her the kitty formula I purchased, and fed her over night, but not well.  The bottle nipples were too stiff, and the eye drop too small.  But we managed.  Well, the next morning, I got up and was in the bathroom, and Taki dragged herself crying to where she heard noise.  She was hungry!  She is a survivor!
And, she can learn!