Haiku Would Not Eat

This has been a horrible week. I could not get Haiku to eat liver, even a little bit.  She would eat a little bit of dry treats, and the Special Kitty dry food that I feed to the outside cats, but she would not eat anything else.  She licked a little bit of gouda, but that could not sustain her.  I was so worried.  Because she is eating dry food, I have to think she does not have the infection of gums that Sake had.  I cooked a chicken breast one night. She slurped up the juices but ignored the tiny pieces of chopped up chicken in the dish. 

I thought she might have a hairball, and I had some gelatinous hairball remedy that is salmon flavored.  She did not object to my putting it on her paws, and cleaned it up and sniffed the tube, so I let her eat some from the tube. I did not want her to get sick, so I limited the amount. It was late at night, so the next morning, I made a trip to the grocery store, before I went to work, to get some salmon based foods, but she turned her nose up at those! This was really frustrating.

The next night, she lapped up the hairball remedy on her paws, and ate some more from the hairball remedy tube. She took some Gouda, but she does not eat little bitty bites of Gouda.  She only likes to lick it from a piece, so I cut it in small chunks, and hold it for her to lick. She ate some dry food.  

I finally got smart, and fed the outside cats the rest of the container of liver she did not like, and defrosted another. She ate that well, on Thursday morning and Thursday night, Friday morning and Friday night.  The crisis has past.  Almost. On Friday night, I went out, so when I got home, she wanted more liver, which she got, twice.  But she wanted me to go to bed with her at what would be a normal bedtime for me.  But because I was out, I am still winding down.  She finally decided to come sit on her chair in the computer room, next to me, so I can pet on her while I am on the computer.  Hopefully another crisis has passed. 

Food Mat

So, in case you haven't figures it out yet, I spoil my cats.  Haiku has taken to coming into the computer room, and crying, asking to be fed with food that is perfectly accessible in the kitchen.  It used to be she asked for food when her dish was empty, but now, she wants to be in the computer room with me, and have her food there.  Well, of course, Taki wants to eat in the computer room, too.  She sometimes stares and crowds Haiku to chase her off, but has gotten better about that, especially when I bring her food dishes into the computer room. 

Haiku sits on an office chair and eats, and is generally very neat. I tried putting Taki's dishes on her chair, but she just knocked them off, full, partially full, or empty. Taki is not a neat eater, and her dishes end upside down, or she does what Sake used to do:  take some moist food out of the dish, put it on the floor, and then eats some of it and leaves the rest.  At least, most of the time, Sake would eat off the plastic I keep under the food dishes in the kitchen.

Today, as I was out running errands, I was in Walmart and picked up a small mat on which to put pet dishes.  It is thicker that a place mat or towel, and has rubber or plastic rubbles on the bottom to give it some grip. It is machine washable.  I put it down, mid-afternoon, and Taki was interested in it, and moved it around, folded it over, and played with it. Okay, so it did not frighten her. This is good. At first. 

At suppertime, after Take ate in the kitchen and we adjourned to the computer room, I put Taki's dishes on the mat.  At first, she acted like she was afraid to get on the mat, so I moved her dishes to the edge of the mat. Later, she moved the mat so one dish was not even on it, the other was on the end opposite from her, and the mat covered her paws.  I repositioned everything, and she seems to have gotten the message. She has even eaten from the dishes on the mat.  I think we made some headway tonight.   We shall see. 

Sadly, Taki learns a lesson one day, and forgets it the next.  But that is okay, she is still a sweetheart. 

Feeding Haiku

Feeding Haiku has again become increasingly difficult.  She is supposed to be on a renal diet, and she will sometimes eat the renal dry food, but not the canned food. I have taken to mixing the renal diet dry food with other dry food she likes, including treats, and hairball care treats. Sometimes, she eats well, mostly she just picks at it.  I try to remember to keep it on the kitchen counter, because Taki will eat this food, but Taki rarely jumps on the kitchen counter (she can, though.)  Haiku does get on the kitchen counter. I have started feeding her liver  again, and sometimes she likes liver, sometimes she eats the dry food, sometimes does not.  I gave her liver tonight, and she ate some.  I made a tuna salad for me, and she wanted tuna, so I eventually gave her tuna. She does not like cat tuna.  Past history tells me that a 6 ounce can of tuna, stored in the refrigerator, loses its appeal after the next meal. So, although it is more expensive, I need to buy the three ounce cans of tuna.  Oh the trials and travails of having a picky eating cat. 

Haiku's Eating Habits

I have written about Haiku's poor eating habits, and the need to find an alternate kidney care food.  Some days, she eats that food, some days, not so much.  I have taken to feeding her on the kitchen counter, because feeding her on the floor, Taki stands there, staring, intimidating her to leave her food and then Taki eats it.  Taki can jump on the kitchen counter, but rarely does, at least when I am around. I do not know what happens when I am at work.

Tonight, I fed Haiku a couple of times.  I am trying to feed Haiku every time she asks to eat, and if she will not eat the kidney care food, I give her treats to eat.  Tonight, she ate in the kitchen a couple of times. My sense is that she cannot eat too much at once, and when she eats, it makes her very thirsty, because she sits at the water bowl a long time, sometimes drinking, sometimes just looking at the water.  I used to feed Haiku on her chair in the computer room, but have avoided doing that because Taki intimidates her to stop eating, and then eats her food.  Tonight, after feeding Haiku a couple of times on the counter, we were in the computer room, and Haiku began crying.  She did not get up with me when I went to the kitchen to get her dish, so I brought it to her, and she ate again, but this time on her chair.  Of course, when she was done, Taki came looking for the food dish, which I moved back to the kitchen.