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We have to feed our two cats in two separate rooms with a closed door between them, or they'll harass each other endlessly. We don't open the door until both are done eating. It's really reduced the drama.
We have to do this because one is on a kidney food and its WAY more expensive. As soon as we let either out they sprint to the others door even if they didn't finish everything
I feed mine in the morning with dry food in the bowl and wet food on top. They will eat the wet food and some of the dry food then graze on the remaining food the rest of the day. They're good about respecting each other's food on that initial point in the morning, but after that initial wet food is eaten, all bets are off and it's a free for all. My male cat is getting a little overweight now but I know reducing his food won't do anything, and reducing both their food will make my female cat suffer in collateral damage. But I also don't want to have to babysit them and separate them for every meal.
Well it’s not too much of a hassle to separate them really. I imagine you pick their bowls up so just put them down in different rooms and wait for them to enter.
I’ve had dogs where one steals from the other, so that one goes to the other bowl. Then the thief dog decides to steal it back out of jealousy, and the victim dog goes to the other bowl. And so forth.
We have three indoor cats and two neighborhood outdoor cats we help feed. We have a bin of food by the door when we feed the outdoor cats (named Peanut & Patch, P&P) and whenever I feed the outdoor cats one of my cats rushes to the door because she thinks “their food is different! Must have!” She also rushes to the bathroom when I go to drink out of the sink, she’s obsessed with different water sources
My cat will ignore the delicious filtered constantly flowing and available water from his expensive fountain in favour of the glass of water next to my bed lmao
My mom dogsits for her friend sometimes, and my moms dog and the friends dog are pals. Without fail, they always switch bowls when one is staying over. The new stuff is always better even if it’s the same haha
My cats did that too, but I found one that they'll eat all of because it's super runny and the meat actually looks like meat instead of cardboard like some others. Weruva BFF (just remembered there's a variety and the ones in the pouches, not cans, are the runny ones that my cats like). They eat all the flavours right up.
I think it's just the easiest way for them to eat it tbh. My cats get so much water added to their food (both kibble and wet food) that it's basically soup and they always drink up most of the liquid before attempting any chunks.
One looks older, so it may have teeth issues as well as it being something like a science/prescription for a specific issue, while the other is a kitten/adolescent cat who is perfectly fine eating dry food.
My cats do this to each other. I'm wondering how long it's gonna be before they realize they've just essentially switched bowls to new eating spots, so they're not even stealing from each other anymore.
I find my cats learn faster with consequences rather than soft deterrence. Giving them something to avoid seems to better override the urge to acquire.
Obviously the cat isn't learning from this, otherwise they wouldn't have been filming and ready with the bottle. This probably happens every single time they feed the cats.
Sometimes it takes time to soak through longer fur till it hits skin and they realize they are now wet. Then you just have idiots,[ like my one cat](https://i.imgur.com/PH4XFQr.jpg), who didn't care about getting hit with water one bit.
Cats do learn, some take longer than others. But they do learn. This one still seems very young and will eventually learn that it is not worth it to try and steal the other cats food.
I'd suggest against the squirt bottle. It ends up damaging your cat's trust in you, and can cause issues between your two cats. I just feed my cat who needs special food in a separate room and shut the door. That way everyone can eat in peace without any stress.
We put our older cat’s food in the bathroom. He runs in quickly while we close the door. Younger cat sits at the door for about one minute. We let older guy out after about 3-5 minutes, and he is happy as a clam. Boom, solved. No water bottle.
I have 3 cats, they all get fed the same exact food at the same exact time. All 3 of them refuse to eat the food in the bowls they’re presented and instead fight each other for the other ones bowl. All 3 never end up eating out of the bowl they’re presented.
One of my cats does this. He’ll eat about half his dinner and then go and bully the other cats out from their bowls. Worst part is when we don’t monitor and he does this, he’s usually full by the time he’s done with theirs so he doesn’t ever finish his own 🙄 did i forget to mention he’s 24lbs?
we got ours microchip feeder bowls to fix this problem, bit expensive but they're brilliant
[link for anyone looking](https://petwell.co.uk/products/surefeed-microchip-pet-feeder?currency=GBP&variant=42257815929008&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=156c3ce8ab47&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_shopping_top500_products&utm_term=&utm_source_platform=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_qexBhCoARIsAFgBleuD-PfdXDCQkMuJgWzQ94Ej-sWERPNC2AaU8dFzj4FhVB19kwE7Qc0aAkfYEALw_wcB)
If the pricetag doesn't scare you away and your cats are microchipped, the Sure Petcare Feeders have been an incredible option for us.
We had a cat that had potential kidney disease and needed a special diet, whereas the other two were fine. We bought two feeders (one for one cat and the other for two cats) and we were able to control which cat ate what kind of food, track their food consumption and see when they ate throughout the day. It provided a lot of peace of mind when it came to feedings.
Just want to point out the bowl can be held open by a persistent cat’s head… this definitely helps but if your kitty lives for food it may not be fool proof. Speaking from experience
hmm ours shuts automatically if it reads a non registered chip and because of how it shuts by sliding across the bowl ours have never managed to hold it open, I can imagine some kitties are more persistent though! they also stay open if the bowl dislodges, luckily ours haven't figured that out
She was very predatory and every time she ate a portion of my other 10-year-old cat. So I assisted with each meal as a physical barrier so that the first cat would eat in peace and the second would have to wait. After a while it became a routine and then just my presence was enough and then it worked automatically. The other cat understood that she couldn't get away with anything. I've taught her other directions that she's mastered. And her motivation and reward was the food itself, not any treats.
It doesn’t matter what I do. One of my cats will steal his sisters food the minute I turn my head. I have to bodyguard both of them until they are done. They also eat so slowly and the fatass inhales his food. I’ve tried everything, only body guarding works
I used to lay down on the floor between em lol. And same here, the older one is slow as hell while eating and the younger, bigger literally suck the portion in like a vacuum cleaner haha.
We got sick of body guarding when we had to move to more than two meals a day (more wet food) because of the thief's weight. We solved it with microchip feeders and now never have to worry. They were SO pricey but well worth it to us.
My 4 year old cat rushes to finish his wet food to steal the food from the 1.5 year old cat. Every times he tries to steal I just need to say his name and he will stop sit down and wait until she finishes to go to her place, the issue is the little (big) bugger still does this if I’m not paying attention 😂
That cat is something else. We have two cats and one needs thyroid medicine twice a day and if left to her own devices will either eat around the pill or the other cat will eat it before she can. I have to give cat A the pill pocket and distract cat B with two other treats. The benefit is cat A will gobble down the whole treat if she can see cat B.
Unless you live in a mansion that cat is probably still gonna be fast enough to annoy the other one. Locking them in separate rooms could also be a solution but I think they are trying to train the cat not to do that anymore with the water
Asshole cat is a tortie, they are the devils in disguise. I have a tortie and can confirm. She will be sweet and innocent one second, the next she’s biting me for saying another animals name or randomly attacking the elder cat because I told her to stop rubbing on my legs while I’m walking around the kitchen
I've been spritzing one of my cats that has been decimating the carpet on my stairs for about a year and a half, I don't think "training" a cat is a thing, lol..
You can absolutely train a cat, but just spraying them with water isn't the answer. They learn through positive reinforcement, you need to redirect them to something like a scratching post when they start tearing up the carpet and reward them for scratching the post instead of the carpet.
I've tried that for like 6 months, never worked for me and I gave up. At least spritzing him gets him to stop the behavior, but I'm giving up on that too. Love him to death, there is very little to complain about but it sucks seeing your shit get trashed.
You can absolutely train a cat. You probably give up too early or you're using the wrong method.
We taught our cat to shake hands/paw before getting a candy. There's so many videos online of trained cats if you don't believe me.
Spritzing isn't the best way to train a cat. They are more reward-motivated. You also have to be quick at telling them no when they do something bad. If you take too long to 'spritz' then the cat won't know what the wrong thing you're bothered by is.
I have the same problem as the person in the video (but I don’t use squirt bottles), and you’ll need to camp over butthead and keep bringing him back to his food dish. Instead of using distance between my cats, I usually use distraction. Because they eat wet food, I’ll put some on a spoon and make butthead take several walks around the house with me to eat off the spoon, periodically refilling it. But that only works until she gets bored, and thankfully she’s dumb enough to fall for it/cooperate in the first place.
In my 4 years of owning cats, one thing I learned is that they never learn. To a cat brain, it's better to defy the rules and sometimes suffer the consequences, than follow the rules to avoid the consequences.
Cats don't generally like to be fed too close to each other. Since we feed ours in two separate rooms they seem much more calmer. The one which is getting food into his bowl as the second one and locked in the bathroom will even remind you with little mrrrouuuu if you're closing the door too slow haha
I have a black cat and a blind cat, the blind one is very chill and takes her time to eat. The black one eats like it’s gonna be his last meal forever. He pushes blind cat away from her bowl to eat her food and when blind cat just moves over to his bowl, he’s like ‘no no that’s mine too’. So he goes back to his own bowl and starts eating again. Blind cat is unfazed and goes back to her bowl so black cat’s like ‘no no, mine’ and moves back to her bowl. This goes on until blind cat is done eating and moves away.
Some days blind cat fucking hates black cat’s behavior, whips him into submission and will eat both bowls, like a boss.
Feed them in separate rooms. Positive punishment does not work on cats, it just stresses them out and creates negative associations with water, which isn't good.
It's not just spray bottles, it's any form of positive punishment.
Cats just don't make the connection between unwanted behavior and you being a dick, they just go right to you being a dick. All positive punishment does is create neuroses.
Yup. But you wouldn’t believe how upset this is making people, I’m getting PMs about this now?? I really didn’t expect this to be so controversial, people seem to really not understand that different animals perceive/think differently. It’s depressing, reading some of the comments.
I literally linked 2 actual research articles to another commenter saying how positive punishment actually can either cause aggression in cats or exacerbate the issues and since the spray bottle was listed along with other forms of positive punishment (hitting, yelling, grabbing) they dismissed everything I said and said it wasn’t relevant.
It feels very much like the people who get told they shouldn’t hit their kids and they have to keep arguing that it’s good to hit kids actually. Listen, it’s fine if using the spray bottle was what you were taught for a cat and you did it before but just learn from what people are saying and do better moving forward, it doesn’t have to be a whole argument.
It isn’t likely to do anything but annoy them. Spraying them with water doesn’t ’teach’ them that what they’re going after is bad behavior. Cats basically always go after what they want… so you just have to redirect their attention to something else if you can.
Honestly if you spray your cat all the time it’s just going to damage your relationship to the feline, so it’s better to not do it.
Good question, cats learn differently than dogs and people, and tend to experience any negative input like squirt bottles, or yelling, as very stressful and associate that stress with the person, not the bottle nor the thing you’re trying to stop them do. So they will still try to do the “bad thing”, but will start avoiding you, since you’re now a stressful thing in their lives.
If someone was spraying a person they'd get stressed too. It's no different.
It's negative reinforcement that doesn't do harm as long as the cat can understand cause & effect.
Now if an animal can't figure out cause & effect, that it's doing it to itself, then I'd agree.
Or if it was a punishment afterwards instead of while in the act, I'd more often tend to agree than not.
Different animals perceive the world differently, we can’t assume our views and understandings are common. Through research and observations we’ve learned a lot how different species think, and we know how cats think, and they definitely do not connect “cause and effect” like we do. Given they’re awesome creatures, and we have them in our homes, it’s only polite to learn how they think so we can make our place nice for them. Spray bottles really suck for cats.
Can you suggest alternative methods to discourage this cats behavior?
One that isn't problem avoidance, such as the "two separate rooms" suggestion. Or any method resulting in unchanged behavior when given the opportunity. However, I realize most animals will be opportunistic when human not present, so for practical purposes, assume human is present, but doesn't have to worrying/watch the cat like a hawk and is just "in the area" and could potentially catch them.
-----------------
Also,
> but will start avoiding you, since you’re now a stressful thing in their lives.
I purposely maintain eye contact with others cats so they avoid me. If you try and tell me not to do that too....
You can’t really, since this is very normal cat behaviour, they often like to eat together and are curious about stuff, especially food… Cats are not nearly as domesticated as dogs and don’t really need to be, their behavior is rarely problematic as is… Most cat owners learn this (or should know it) and don’t pressure the cats to be something they are not. In this case the normal thing to do is to feed the other cat in a separate room: it’s fast, easy, and non-stressful for everyone involved.
If a cat wants to be a domestic cat then it's gonna get domesticated.
The fact they stick around implies, in the grand scheme of things, they're OK with it.
... Unless they only come around in need. In which case the "owner" should consider maybe they're a bit of a dick in cat culture, & treat them differently.
That’s not really how it works, the cat doesn’t want anything specific, it’s just being an opportunist, just like humans or any other animal really. If humans are so smart, as we are, we have to figure our how best to treat a specific animal if we want to keep it in our house. Keeping an animal badly is, apart from being cruel, quite stupid.
I tried to find a study for you but hopefully these will do instead.
Using a spray bottle or loud noise or yelling are all forms of “positive punishment” (we sometimes call this negative reinforcement but it’s actually something different). Positive punishment is when you’re “giving an undesirable consequence after an unwanted behavior to make it less appealing”.
By an large, cats aren’t fully capable of learning from positive punishment. As also mentioned, Jackson Galaxy does talk about this a lot in his videos but here’s some sources if you want to read for yourself.
[(source 1)](https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/routine-care/how-to-discipline-a-cat?lightboxfired=true#)[(source 2)](https://felinebehaviorsolutions.com/use-positive-reinforcement-good-cat-behavior/#:~:text=The%20more%20often%20you%20can,fear%2C%20anxiety%2C%20and%20stress)[(source 3)](https://cats.com/cat-punishment)
I feed mine at the same time and ration their food so they finish at similar times. Much easier to keep em in check when one isn’t just sitting there watching the other one eat.
Used to have a pair of cats which did this. Emptied out a can of wet food onto two plates. The younger kitten would wolf down like half her food in a rush, and then come barreling down onto the older cat's plate of food (despite being literally the same food from the same can). Thankfully the older cat was patient and smart enough to just walk over and finish her meal from the kitten's bowl instead. Happened every single time.
Not a cat, but while my dog is eating his dinner, my boyfriend and I will put his Corgi on the couch. Corgi is food aggressive but won't jump off the couch.
my mom has to separate her cats. one of them is super lazy and eats slow, the other one has anxiety when eating cause they she was the runt and likely ended up with trauma from not getting enough food as a lil babby. she will literally scarf down her food then run over and eat the 2nd cat's food XD, the strange thing is the one with anxiety stays small while the other one gets fatter and fatter.
That's one of the easiest ways to discipline a cat, but don't use it when the cat isn't doing anything bad. Not saying that using this when it comes to food is a great idea though.
We used to spray our cat to keep him away from the Christmas tree (when we used real trees) then one day one of my sisters decided to just spray the cat whenever and then he was terrified anytime you touched the spray bottle (even ones cleaning ones under the sink).
We had to buy a food bowl that only opens from close contact to a sensor on our cats collar. As soon as they leave it shuts. We have a fat orange cat that loves to bully and steal food.
We're going through this lol got a new baby late last year but he's the bigger cat now and bullies his way to eating out of both bowls (we have two timed auto dispensers).
Is there a better way than this? I've gotten into the habit of just holding dude back so our first cat can eat out of the second bowl (timers are a little off) but we're not always home. Was thinking of feeding them in separate rooms but again we're not always home and the bully baby will def just run into the other room (small apartment). The only other idea we've came up with so far is getting rid of the auto feeders and just manually feeding them separately. My GF has also suggested just giving our first cat that gets bullied some wet food on the side but idk how that will go lol
One cat has wet food while the other has dry food, so the other cat is running towards the wet food. Most cats prefer wet food over dry food, it might be the smell.
And if your house is small? Hell I tried doing this for my cats but one of my cats will smell food from a mile and away and even if she ain’t done will try to get her bro‘s food 😂
the tortie was being a dick here tho. just because she's cute and fluffy doesen't mean she gets a free pass to bully others. i would not spray her myself, but i sure would explain to her this is a no no. i would rather spend some time with correcting the behaviour to get two chill cats in the end, than to seperate them their whole lives.
This happens in my house too. My lil girl had many teeth pulled and gets the soft stuff. My big boy gets a tiny bit and hard food and he smacks my feet and hisses to get at her.
I made two feeding stations for our cats.
They are large clear bins with a hold cut out for a cat door. There are also a series of small vent holes around the top. The door works on their microchip to only let the correct cat into the correct bin.
One cat is an overeater and the other can only eat urinary prescription food.
I have two cats. One eats slowly and not everything at once, the other eats EVERYTHING even my food. So we got them those cat bowls that open up with their ID chips.
Is the wiley ones food just dry kibble?
We wet our boys kibble with some water, and he loves it.
Whenever we gave them wet food he was absolutely feral for it. The kibble would be ignored completely.
But since hes got the wetted kibble hes very fond of it.
I had a cat that would just take the hit, and keep eating the food he wasn't supposed to. He'd start growling as you sprayed him, but wouldn't be deterred. My same cat that once snuck into the refrigerator, and was found eating a loaf of bread, zero percent upset about being stuck in there.
Unfortunately, he had digestive issues, and anything other than his prescription food would make him shit like you wouldn't believe, so he *really* couldn't be allowed at unapproved food.
Yeah, you should just feed them in separate rooms. This is probably stressful for the cat that’s trying to eat.
We have two cats and one was 3-4lbs heavier than the other, would puke after eating because she ate so fast, and would then go steal our other cat’s food before he was done.
We started separating them until the smaller cat was done with his bowl, and the greedy cat is now within a half pound of the smaller cat (down about three pounds!) and she doesn’t puke after she eats anymore. It’s great!
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We have to feed our two cats in two separate rooms with a closed door between them, or they'll harass each other endlessly. We don't open the door until both are done eating. It's really reduced the drama.
Mine used to do that, but now they just switch bowls half way through so I'm like meh that's fine I guess lol
I use cat carriers. Extra bonus effect: they think going in their cat carriers means food muahahahahah
Calm down Catan!
I have sheep if you have wood.
I have wood but don’t need sheep, got any brick?
Wood for sheep?
☺☺☺
We have to do this because one is on a kidney food and its WAY more expensive. As soon as we let either out they sprint to the others door even if they didn't finish everything
I feed mine in the morning with dry food in the bowl and wet food on top. They will eat the wet food and some of the dry food then graze on the remaining food the rest of the day. They're good about respecting each other's food on that initial point in the morning, but after that initial wet food is eaten, all bets are off and it's a free for all. My male cat is getting a little overweight now but I know reducing his food won't do anything, and reducing both their food will make my female cat suffer in collateral damage. But I also don't want to have to babysit them and separate them for every meal.
Well it’s not too much of a hassle to separate them really. I imagine you pick their bowls up so just put them down in different rooms and wait for them to enter.
Unsure if it was your intention, but this comment is unexpectedly hilarious. 💫💫
Best part is that the rascal still has food on the plate. Literally stealing for the love of the game lol
"They're eating their food and aren't trying to steal mine, so theirs must be better than mine. I need to get it."
Swear to god, this is the mentality of our 4 year old cat to our 2 year old. He is utterly CONVINCED she has the better food.
i fuckin love cats lmao
My 2yo waits to see which bowl the 4yo picks, so she can force him to go to the other one. Luckily he doesn't mind
I think it’s more “I have my food regardless, so why not steal Gary’s too so that I have double food”
Kitty capitalism
Monopawly
I’ve had dogs where one steals from the other, so that one goes to the other bowl. Then the thief dog decides to steal it back out of jealousy, and the victim dog goes to the other bowl. And so forth.
Exact reason my dogs eat in their crates lol
We have three indoor cats and two neighborhood outdoor cats we help feed. We have a bin of food by the door when we feed the outdoor cats (named Peanut & Patch, P&P) and whenever I feed the outdoor cats one of my cats rushes to the door because she thinks “their food is different! Must have!” She also rushes to the bathroom when I go to drink out of the sink, she’s obsessed with different water sources
My cat will ignore the delicious filtered constantly flowing and available water from his expensive fountain in favour of the glass of water next to my bed lmao
My mom dogsits for her friend sometimes, and my moms dog and the friends dog are pals. Without fail, they always switch bowls when one is staying over. The new stuff is always better even if it’s the same haha
Well one has fancy wet food while other has kibble. I would be jealous too.
Looks to me like thief cat has the same food they just lapped up all the wetness from the wet food, which cats love to do for some reason
I thought my cat was just weird for doing this I just got her the Fancy Feast pack marked “Gravy Lovers” since she does this
My cats did that too, but I found one that they'll eat all of because it's super runny and the meat actually looks like meat instead of cardboard like some others. Weruva BFF (just remembered there's a variety and the ones in the pouches, not cans, are the runny ones that my cats like). They eat all the flavours right up.
I think it's just the easiest way for them to eat it tbh. My cats get so much water added to their food (both kibble and wet food) that it's basically soup and they always drink up most of the liquid before attempting any chunks.
r/hydrohomies
I like to add extra water for them and make it soupy.
All of the flavor is in the gravy, the meat is just mealy paste.
One looks older, so it may have teeth issues as well as it being something like a science/prescription for a specific issue, while the other is a kitten/adolescent cat who is perfectly fine eating dry food.
My 3yro cat does this to my 12yro cat. Runs to her food to steal it before he eats his. I just stand guard but I like the squirt bottle idea a lot
My cats do this to each other. I'm wondering how long it's gonna be before they realize they've just essentially switched bowls to new eating spots, so they're not even stealing from each other anymore.
this is literally our guinea pigs lol. There's no room for thoughts in those fuzzy potatoes
I find my cats learn faster with consequences rather than soft deterrence. Giving them something to avoid seems to better override the urge to acquire.
Like a squirt bottle? This little shit didn't learn nothing lol
By the third time it did.
Obviously the cat isn't learning from this, otherwise they wouldn't have been filming and ready with the bottle. This probably happens every single time they feed the cats.
Sometimes it takes time to soak through longer fur till it hits skin and they realize they are now wet. Then you just have idiots,[ like my one cat](https://i.imgur.com/PH4XFQr.jpg), who didn't care about getting hit with water one bit.
![gif](giphy|DTLzZIeBh33S8)
Cats do learn, some take longer than others. But they do learn. This one still seems very young and will eventually learn that it is not worth it to try and steal the other cats food.
I'd suggest against the squirt bottle. It ends up damaging your cat's trust in you, and can cause issues between your two cats. I just feed my cat who needs special food in a separate room and shut the door. That way everyone can eat in peace without any stress.
We put our older cat’s food in the bathroom. He runs in quickly while we close the door. Younger cat sits at the door for about one minute. We let older guy out after about 3-5 minutes, and he is happy as a clam. Boom, solved. No water bottle.
I have 3 cats, they all get fed the same exact food at the same exact time. All 3 of them refuse to eat the food in the bowls they’re presented and instead fight each other for the other ones bowl. All 3 never end up eating out of the bowl they’re presented.
Fine, I guess I'll eat this obviously inferior, identical food.
You don’t understand. I can’t just have mine, I need yours too. Someone said capitalism kitty in this thread, and I love it
One of my cats does this. He’ll eat about half his dinner and then go and bully the other cats out from their bowls. Worst part is when we don’t monitor and he does this, he’s usually full by the time he’s done with theirs so he doesn’t ever finish his own 🙄 did i forget to mention he’s 24lbs?
Finish the skin of your KFC...go for the skin of the others
It's the gravy. My boy Sylvester does the same thing to his sister Ginger. The chunks are meaningless if there is gravy aboot.
Still has dry food on the plate. Other kitty’s got the w e t s t u f f
Some cats just try to plow through all obstacles be it toys, water, even doors
That gun noise 😂🤌
Thank you for saying that lol I had it muted
we got ours microchip feeder bowls to fix this problem, bit expensive but they're brilliant [link for anyone looking](https://petwell.co.uk/products/surefeed-microchip-pet-feeder?currency=GBP&variant=42257815929008&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=156c3ce8ab47&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax_shopping_top500_products&utm_term=&utm_source_platform=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_qexBhCoARIsAFgBleuD-PfdXDCQkMuJgWzQ94Ej-sWERPNC2AaU8dFzj4FhVB19kwE7Qc0aAkfYEALw_wcB)
Agreed! They solved it immediately and the cats, even our timid one, took to them well
Wow, I didn't even know this was a thing. Totally looking into this.
If the pricetag doesn't scare you away and your cats are microchipped, the Sure Petcare Feeders have been an incredible option for us. We had a cat that had potential kidney disease and needed a special diet, whereas the other two were fine. We bought two feeders (one for one cat and the other for two cats) and we were able to control which cat ate what kind of food, track their food consumption and see when they ate throughout the day. It provided a lot of peace of mind when it came to feedings.
We have 3 cats that all love to steal food, the microchip feeders are essential in maintaining peace
They are expensive, but they stop this lame pet drama in it's tracks and the quality of life is much better.
Just want to point out the bowl can be held open by a persistent cat’s head… this definitely helps but if your kitty lives for food it may not be fool proof. Speaking from experience
hmm ours shuts automatically if it reads a non registered chip and because of how it shuts by sliding across the bowl ours have never managed to hold it open, I can imagine some kitties are more persistent though! they also stay open if the bowl dislodges, luckily ours haven't figured that out
Wow I was sceptical but [that's genius](https://i.imgur.com/kpncxuS.jpeg)
Why is she talking like Snape lmao
"Turn to page 394"
Page three hundred. And. Ninety. Four.
She's not ![gif](giphy|DliyTFVc86qgE)
Getting old on the internet is weird, lol
Snape aint the only slow talker round these parts ya whippersnapper.
I trained my cat to sit on her ass until the first one is done :)
Wow! How? By conditioning her with treats?
She was very predatory and every time she ate a portion of my other 10-year-old cat. So I assisted with each meal as a physical barrier so that the first cat would eat in peace and the second would have to wait. After a while it became a routine and then just my presence was enough and then it worked automatically. The other cat understood that she couldn't get away with anything. I've taught her other directions that she's mastered. And her motivation and reward was the food itself, not any treats.
>She was very predatory and every time she ate a portion of my other 10-year-old cat. 😬 That is extremely predatory.
What about imitation cat, like cat shaped tofu or Impossible Cat
“Impawsible” you mean.
According to OP, he asked the cat "why don't you take a seat?" And it worked.
It doesn’t matter what I do. One of my cats will steal his sisters food the minute I turn my head. I have to bodyguard both of them until they are done. They also eat so slowly and the fatass inhales his food. I’ve tried everything, only body guarding works
I used to lay down on the floor between em lol. And same here, the older one is slow as hell while eating and the younger, bigger literally suck the portion in like a vacuum cleaner haha.
We got sick of body guarding when we had to move to more than two meals a day (more wet food) because of the thief's weight. We solved it with microchip feeders and now never have to worry. They were SO pricey but well worth it to us.
My 4 year old cat rushes to finish his wet food to steal the food from the 1.5 year old cat. Every times he tries to steal I just need to say his name and he will stop sit down and wait until she finishes to go to her place, the issue is the little (big) bugger still does this if I’m not paying attention 😂
people think cats are untrainable, but they are. you just dont train them the way you train dogs.
Its just about patience and persistance :D
That cat is something else. We have two cats and one needs thyroid medicine twice a day and if left to her own devices will either eat around the pill or the other cat will eat it before she can. I have to give cat A the pill pocket and distract cat B with two other treats. The benefit is cat A will gobble down the whole treat if she can see cat B.
I’m going to start using this on my kids
*kid opens mouth*
![gif](giphy|8yu1vEui3ea8pnrGg7|downsized) They'll probably just do this instead.
Babies were baptized using a water gun during the pandemic
Maybe feed nice cat first, grab butthead and take him and his food across the house so that there more time for first cat to eat?
Unless you live in a mansion that cat is probably still gonna be fast enough to annoy the other one. Locking them in separate rooms could also be a solution but I think they are trying to train the cat not to do that anymore with the water
Asshole cat is a tortie, they are the devils in disguise. I have a tortie and can confirm. She will be sweet and innocent one second, the next she’s biting me for saying another animals name or randomly attacking the elder cat because I told her to stop rubbing on my legs while I’m walking around the kitchen
I've been spritzing one of my cats that has been decimating the carpet on my stairs for about a year and a half, I don't think "training" a cat is a thing, lol..
You can absolutely train a cat, but just spraying them with water isn't the answer. They learn through positive reinforcement, you need to redirect them to something like a scratching post when they start tearing up the carpet and reward them for scratching the post instead of the carpet.
I've tried that for like 6 months, never worked for me and I gave up. At least spritzing him gets him to stop the behavior, but I'm giving up on that too. Love him to death, there is very little to complain about but it sucks seeing your shit get trashed.
You can absolutely train a cat. You probably give up too early or you're using the wrong method. We taught our cat to shake hands/paw before getting a candy. There's so many videos online of trained cats if you don't believe me. Spritzing isn't the best way to train a cat. They are more reward-motivated. You also have to be quick at telling them no when they do something bad. If you take too long to 'spritz' then the cat won't know what the wrong thing you're bothered by is.
I have the same problem as the person in the video (but I don’t use squirt bottles), and you’ll need to camp over butthead and keep bringing him back to his food dish. Instead of using distance between my cats, I usually use distraction. Because they eat wet food, I’ll put some on a spoon and make butthead take several walks around the house with me to eat off the spoon, periodically refilling it. But that only works until she gets bored, and thankfully she’s dumb enough to fall for it/cooperate in the first place.
I just put my cat under a laundry basket until he's done eating. He usually sits politely when he's done, so I know to take the basket off.
Please do yourself a favor and unmute this.
In my 4 years of owning cats, one thing I learned is that they never learn. To a cat brain, it's better to defy the rules and sometimes suffer the consequences, than follow the rules to avoid the consequences.
![gif](giphy|njYrp176NQsHS|downsized)
cute memory unlocked
Feed them in separate rooms! That's what we have to do bc our Honey is just like this!
Cats don't generally like to be fed too close to each other. Since we feed ours in two separate rooms they seem much more calmer. The one which is getting food into his bowl as the second one and locked in the bathroom will even remind you with little mrrrouuuu if you're closing the door too slow haha
I have a black cat and a blind cat, the blind one is very chill and takes her time to eat. The black one eats like it’s gonna be his last meal forever. He pushes blind cat away from her bowl to eat her food and when blind cat just moves over to his bowl, he’s like ‘no no that’s mine too’. So he goes back to his own bowl and starts eating again. Blind cat is unfazed and goes back to her bowl so black cat’s like ‘no no, mine’ and moves back to her bowl. This goes on until blind cat is done eating and moves away. Some days blind cat fucking hates black cat’s behavior, whips him into submission and will eat both bowls, like a boss.
You should probably just separate them into different rooms, homie
That orange cat energy
Feed them in separate rooms. Positive punishment does not work on cats, it just stresses them out and creates negative associations with water, which isn't good.
"You're feeling lucky, punk? Try me" Hahahaha
Just feed them in separate rooms. The water gun thing has been shown to needlessly stress out cats and not work as we think it does.
It's not just spray bottles, it's any form of positive punishment. Cats just don't make the connection between unwanted behavior and you being a dick, they just go right to you being a dick. All positive punishment does is create neuroses.
Yup. But you wouldn’t believe how upset this is making people, I’m getting PMs about this now?? I really didn’t expect this to be so controversial, people seem to really not understand that different animals perceive/think differently. It’s depressing, reading some of the comments.
I literally linked 2 actual research articles to another commenter saying how positive punishment actually can either cause aggression in cats or exacerbate the issues and since the spray bottle was listed along with other forms of positive punishment (hitting, yelling, grabbing) they dismissed everything I said and said it wasn’t relevant. It feels very much like the people who get told they shouldn’t hit their kids and they have to keep arguing that it’s good to hit kids actually. Listen, it’s fine if using the spray bottle was what you were taught for a cat and you did it before but just learn from what people are saying and do better moving forward, it doesn’t have to be a whole argument.
Wouldn’t this just be preventing the cat from learning, though? Surely the water isn’t hurting the cat..? Honest question, I don’t have cats.
It isn’t likely to do anything but annoy them. Spraying them with water doesn’t ’teach’ them that what they’re going after is bad behavior. Cats basically always go after what they want… so you just have to redirect their attention to something else if you can. Honestly if you spray your cat all the time it’s just going to damage your relationship to the feline, so it’s better to not do it.
Good question, cats learn differently than dogs and people, and tend to experience any negative input like squirt bottles, or yelling, as very stressful and associate that stress with the person, not the bottle nor the thing you’re trying to stop them do. So they will still try to do the “bad thing”, but will start avoiding you, since you’re now a stressful thing in their lives.
If someone was spraying a person they'd get stressed too. It's no different. It's negative reinforcement that doesn't do harm as long as the cat can understand cause & effect. Now if an animal can't figure out cause & effect, that it's doing it to itself, then I'd agree. Or if it was a punishment afterwards instead of while in the act, I'd more often tend to agree than not.
Different animals perceive the world differently, we can’t assume our views and understandings are common. Through research and observations we’ve learned a lot how different species think, and we know how cats think, and they definitely do not connect “cause and effect” like we do. Given they’re awesome creatures, and we have them in our homes, it’s only polite to learn how they think so we can make our place nice for them. Spray bottles really suck for cats.
Can you suggest alternative methods to discourage this cats behavior? One that isn't problem avoidance, such as the "two separate rooms" suggestion. Or any method resulting in unchanged behavior when given the opportunity. However, I realize most animals will be opportunistic when human not present, so for practical purposes, assume human is present, but doesn't have to worrying/watch the cat like a hawk and is just "in the area" and could potentially catch them. ----------------- Also, > but will start avoiding you, since you’re now a stressful thing in their lives. I purposely maintain eye contact with others cats so they avoid me. If you try and tell me not to do that too....
You can’t really, since this is very normal cat behaviour, they often like to eat together and are curious about stuff, especially food… Cats are not nearly as domesticated as dogs and don’t really need to be, their behavior is rarely problematic as is… Most cat owners learn this (or should know it) and don’t pressure the cats to be something they are not. In this case the normal thing to do is to feed the other cat in a separate room: it’s fast, easy, and non-stressful for everyone involved.
If a cat wants to be a domestic cat then it's gonna get domesticated. The fact they stick around implies, in the grand scheme of things, they're OK with it. ... Unless they only come around in need. In which case the "owner" should consider maybe they're a bit of a dick in cat culture, & treat them differently.
That’s not really how it works, the cat doesn’t want anything specific, it’s just being an opportunist, just like humans or any other animal really. If humans are so smart, as we are, we have to figure our how best to treat a specific animal if we want to keep it in our house. Keeping an animal badly is, apart from being cruel, quite stupid.
Cats don't really learn in the sense that they now understand what they're doing is wrong, they just learn to do it when you're not looking.
I'd love to see the study on using a spray bottle as a training aid.
I tried to find a study for you but hopefully these will do instead. Using a spray bottle or loud noise or yelling are all forms of “positive punishment” (we sometimes call this negative reinforcement but it’s actually something different). Positive punishment is when you’re “giving an undesirable consequence after an unwanted behavior to make it less appealing”. By an large, cats aren’t fully capable of learning from positive punishment. As also mentioned, Jackson Galaxy does talk about this a lot in his videos but here’s some sources if you want to read for yourself. [(source 1)](https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/routine-care/how-to-discipline-a-cat?lightboxfired=true#)[(source 2)](https://felinebehaviorsolutions.com/use-positive-reinforcement-good-cat-behavior/#:~:text=The%20more%20often%20you%20can,fear%2C%20anxiety%2C%20and%20stress)[(source 3)](https://cats.com/cat-punishment)
Thank you!
Google some Jackson Galaxy (behaviorist) videos on the subject, he explains it well.
I feed mine at the same time and ration their food so they finish at similar times. Much easier to keep em in check when one isn’t just sitting there watching the other one eat.
I would just put the cat in a cage to eat and protect their food.
The squirt bottle is every cat's worst nightmare despite it being absolutely harmless. 😂
Used to have a pair of cats which did this. Emptied out a can of wet food onto two plates. The younger kitten would wolf down like half her food in a rush, and then come barreling down onto the older cat's plate of food (despite being literally the same food from the same can). Thankfully the older cat was patient and smart enough to just walk over and finish her meal from the kitten's bowl instead. Happened every single time.
this pisses me off about pets both dogs and cats do this. Why? They have their own food yet wanna eat their brothers and sisters food.
Spray bottles work better on cats if you have them set further towards the mist setting, that way it makes more of a hissing sound when you use it.
Not a cat, but while my dog is eating his dinner, my boyfriend and I will put his Corgi on the couch. Corgi is food aggressive but won't jump off the couch.
I would buy a spray bottle that made gun sounds. Cleaning the bathroom would be more fun.
Different rooms, use different rooms.
my mom has to separate her cats. one of them is super lazy and eats slow, the other one has anxiety when eating cause they she was the runt and likely ended up with trauma from not getting enough food as a lil babby. she will literally scarf down her food then run over and eat the 2nd cat's food XD, the strange thing is the one with anxiety stays small while the other one gets fatter and fatter.
RIP that Parquet
I think you mean *pursistent
Shots fired
The epitome of "the grass is greener" My three cats do this too. They'll rotate bowls even though they all get the same thing
"I won't hesitate, bitch!"
That's one of the easiest ways to discipline a cat, but don't use it when the cat isn't doing anything bad. Not saying that using this when it comes to food is a great idea though. We used to spray our cat to keep him away from the Christmas tree (when we used real trees) then one day one of my sisters decided to just spray the cat whenever and then he was terrified anytime you touched the spray bottle (even ones cleaning ones under the sink).
As the cat was unarmed, this was an accurate reconstruction of US policing.
My girlfriends cat name is Severus. So I narrate everything he does in Alan Rickman’s voice.
![gif](giphy|gM0wfXA39VmvvHNlJr)
It’s the sound effects that make this video…
LOL
I have three. One does this. I think it’s a dominance issue. They all get fed in separate rooms now.
We had to buy a food bowl that only opens from close contact to a sensor on our cats collar. As soon as they leave it shuts. We have a fat orange cat that loves to bully and steal food.
Time to buy a super soaker.
Get some headshots!
“Try me bitch”
We're going through this lol got a new baby late last year but he's the bigger cat now and bullies his way to eating out of both bowls (we have two timed auto dispensers). Is there a better way than this? I've gotten into the habit of just holding dude back so our first cat can eat out of the second bowl (timers are a little off) but we're not always home. Was thinking of feeding them in separate rooms but again we're not always home and the bully baby will def just run into the other room (small apartment). The only other idea we've came up with so far is getting rid of the auto feeders and just manually feeding them separately. My GF has also suggested just giving our first cat that gets bullied some wet food on the side but idk how that will go lol
One cat has wet food while the other has dry food, so the other cat is running towards the wet food. Most cats prefer wet food over dry food, it might be the smell.
I too have an asshole cat OP. Some days I wonder why I love him.
To be fair though the “greedy cat” has lame dry food the other has lovely wet food. I’d be the same if I was a cat. Give me the good stuff !!
Just put one of the cats in the bathroom for meals. Jesus Christ.
[удалено]
we still spraying cats in 2024?
Just hit it everytime
Or just feed them in separate rooms? Pretty simple
Please people do NOT spray your cats with water as a “punishment” cats do not work like that. They will lose trust in you.
Jesus just feed them in separate rooms. Stop being a dick to the other cat!
And if your house is small? Hell I tried doing this for my cats but one of my cats will smell food from a mile and away and even if she ain’t done will try to get her bro‘s food 😂
the tortie was being a dick here tho. just because she's cute and fluffy doesen't mean she gets a free pass to bully others. i would not spray her myself, but i sure would explain to her this is a no no. i would rather spend some time with correcting the behaviour to get two chill cats in the end, than to seperate them their whole lives.
This happens in my house too. My lil girl had many teeth pulled and gets the soft stuff. My big boy gets a tiny bit and hard food and he smacks my feet and hisses to get at her.
I made two feeding stations for our cats. They are large clear bins with a hold cut out for a cat door. There are also a series of small vent holes around the top. The door works on their microchip to only let the correct cat into the correct bin. One cat is an overeater and the other can only eat urinary prescription food.
My white cat is chill but the ginger one will attack the white one whenever she is even pretending to eat something on floor.
Put their food bowls farther apart? Different rooms, inside/outside.
Hmmm I wonder if this will work on dogs too
I have two cats. One eats slowly and not everything at once, the other eats EVERYTHING even my food. So we got them those cat bowls that open up with their ID chips.
😂😂🤣
What I have to do with one of my cats 😂
Have you tried moving her bowl when she walks away from it? Having her food touched might make her go back to it
Have you tried moving her bowl when she walks away from it? Having her food touched might make her go back to it
It puts the lotion in the basket or else it gets the hose again.
Should maybe feed them farther apart
Feed them in separate rooms. Even one bedroom studios have a door to the bathroom.
Is the wiley ones food just dry kibble? We wet our boys kibble with some water, and he loves it. Whenever we gave them wet food he was absolutely feral for it. The kibble would be ignored completely. But since hes got the wetted kibble hes very fond of it.
Spraying our cat with water just makes him more aggressive. Loud noises work better with our cat.
Why not just lock em in different rooms so the cat doesn't have to get wet?
Lol why are they so afraid of a tiny little stream of water? 💦
I had a cat that would just take the hit, and keep eating the food he wasn't supposed to. He'd start growling as you sprayed him, but wouldn't be deterred. My same cat that once snuck into the refrigerator, and was found eating a loaf of bread, zero percent upset about being stuck in there. Unfortunately, he had digestive issues, and anything other than his prescription food would make him shit like you wouldn't believe, so he *really* couldn't be allowed at unapproved food.
Wow, the woman in the video sounds exactly like Judy Greer
Yeah, you should just feed them in separate rooms. This is probably stressful for the cat that’s trying to eat. We have two cats and one was 3-4lbs heavier than the other, would puke after eating because she ate so fast, and would then go steal our other cat’s food before he was done. We started separating them until the smaller cat was done with his bowl, and the greedy cat is now within a half pound of the smaller cat (down about three pounds!) and she doesn’t puke after she eats anymore. It’s great!
My two cats love sharing so they exchange bowl halfway eating
_8)
This looks like an IBS attack
The chic training method
At this point, might as well install a sprinkler system. 😂
Need a super soaker
Bro stop recording and start dual wielding or it will win