Fool me once?

[RICHARD]

I feel pretty scummy right now.

I wonder if what I am doing is some kind of crime.

I try to feed The Katz as regularly as possible. He's a grazer, and his bowls are filled with food most of the time.

The problem is ants. I use dia-earth to keep his bowls and the house ant free.
THere are times that he gets out of his litter box and walks over to the food bowl and scratches about, he'll knock some kibble out and when Lake Edward
overflows the dia earth gets washed away, the food gets wet and I go back to getting tons of ants again.

What I have tried to do is feed him smaller portions, but he doesn't like it. He sits in front of the bowl and stares at it. I'll toss a small handful of food to freshen up the offering, but the amount starts to pile up and in a day or two I am back to a full bowl.

I am reduced to taking a package or box of food and pretending I open it.
I take the corner of the package and use it to move the food in the dish around.

Sometimes it works and when it does I feel really guilty for playing him for a sucker.


Am I right for feeling this way?

[catmandu]

NOT AT ALL RICHARD, MY DEAR MOTHER USED TO DO THE SAME THING WITH OUR CATS SO THEY WOULDNT GET TOO FUSSY, AND IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM, MOST OF THE TIME!!!!

I DO THAT AS WELL AND I GET AWAY WITH IT ABOUT HALF THE TIME, THEN THE FOOD GETS FRESHENED FOR THE PORCHIES!!!!
HEY HEY WERE THE PORCHIES
AND PEOPLE SAY WERE HANGING AROUND
BUT WERE REALLY HUNGRY
AND THE FOOD HERES THE BEST IN TOWN
WERE NOT TRYING TI BE FREELOADERS BUT AUNT JANICE IS COMING TONIGHT
AND WE ALL KNOW WE WILL HAVE FOOD IN OUR TUMMIES
AND THAT MAKES US FEEL ALL RIGHT, BECAUSE SOME ONE LOVES US TONIGHT.

[mamaducky]

You should be ashamed of yourself, you horrid, horrid man. Not only are you depriving darling Ed of his God-given right to exactly as much food as he wants exactly when and how he wants it (or-gasp-actually deceiving the poor boy), but you seem also to be willfully depriving deserving ants who, after all, are only trying to feed their families.

Honestly -- isn't it amazing what hoops we don't jump through for these darling furkids of ours? That said, it sounds like fun at your house -- please give Ed our sympathetic regards!

Hugs,
Diana and the 4-legged soap opera (Zorro, Einstein & Megan)

[Don Juan's mom]

You should be ashamed of yourself, you horrid, horrid man. Not only are you depriving darling Ed of his God-given right to exactly as much food as he wants exactly when and how he wants it (or-gasp-actually deceiving the poor boy), but you seem also to be willfully depriving deserving ants who, after all, are only trying to feed their families.

Yes, think about it! The ant queen is a hard-working single mom!

Liz

[Medusa]

Richard, I'm guilty of a similar deception myself. When I dole out treats to the Fur Posse, I give Creamsicle bits of her regular Cat Chow because she's allergic to treats. She doesn't know the difference and, at first, I felt crummy about it but she seems happy, so no harm, no foul. Relax. Besides, I'm never quite sure if you're kidding or not. I can never quite tell.

[RICHARD]

. Besides, I'm never quite sure if you're kidding or not. I can never quite tell.

I am not kidding, it's a short twinge. I think about someone offering me a fresh steak, then serving me one of those fake meat patties with the salty gravy.

I just feel bad doing it.

[Medusa]

I am not kidding, it's a short twinge. I think about someone offering me a fresh steak, then serving me one of those fake meat patties with the salty gravy.

I just feel bad doing it.

I know. I feel bad about Cgirl, too, once in a while, especially because she's a CH baby and she has some brain damage. But we do what we gotta. It's not like we're actually hurting them.

[Emeraldgreen]

LOL! I'm guilty of also trying to trick my cats. My cat Tiger has become so smart that if he sees me mixing his wet food for even one second, he knows that I must have put meds in it and he starts walking away before I've even put the plate on the floor!!! I swear I can here him saying "forget it!". My latest trick was to mix all the cats wet food in front of him even though his is the only one with meds in it. The other cats just ended up with 'whipped' wet food with all that un-necessary stirring. It worked for a little while until he caught on.
Tiger is now getting his meds in a transderman gel so the trickery has stopped for now.

I have two suggestions that might help.
What if you put a full bowl of kibbles inside a larger bowl that has water in it creating a 'moat' that the ants won't cross. If you put this double bowl set up farther away from his litter box, he will hopefully have the litterbox scratchies over and done with by the time he gets to the new location of his dry food. (or you could just move his dry food to a new location without the moat and it would probably work too. Being near the litterbox, things are liable to get knocked over while he's in scratching mode).

The other idea isn't nearly as fun as a moat but if you switch him over from being a free feeder to giving him his kibbles as meals he'll probably start to get excited about the smaller portions because he will have gone for a period of time with no crunchies. He might not be amused with this type of plan though!