Eating

Food Obsession 

There are a few ways we can help a cat who seems absolutely obsessed with food. However, we would like to mention that cats who always seem ravenously hungry or have a shift in their weight may have an underlying health issue, so always contact the APA! medical clinic about that possibility if you see a behavior change or change in weight. 

One thing that can help is to break your cat's feedings up into multiple smaller meals each day. A timed feeder can help with this by dosing out exact quantities of kibble at set intervals throughout the day. If your cat is bothering you while you eat, make sure to put their feeder outside of the kitchen or dining room and never feed your cat in those areas. You can also combine activity with feeding, which will make food time a bit more challenging for the cat. Add treats/food through the house, hiding pieces of kibble or treats in different shaped holders, and encourage your cat to find their treats.

Chewing on Cords 

Chewing on cords or cables is not only destructive, but cats who chew cords can receive electrical shock, burns, and the damaged wires may present a fire risk to our homes. Covering wires has become increasingly easy thanks to new products on the market meant just for this. CritterCordis is a plastic cord cover infused with a citrus scent that cats hate. Your cords hide safely inside and kitty has no desire to nosh on the citrus taste. Bitter Apple Spray is an option if you don’t mind spraying the item or area you want to deter your cat from. If you are crafty, you can save a few cents by encapsulating your cords in split wire loom. A 100 foot roll is around $10, making this an affordable option for those who have many cords to cover. 

If you have just one area you need to deter your cat from, be it a counter, plant, or an outlet full of delicious iCables, you might consider the SSSCat Training Aid, which emits a blast of spray when kitty gets near (we’ve gotten rave reviews for this product keeping cats out of Christmas trees). 

Other simple solutions you may have overlooked include tucking cords behind furniture, bundling cords with reusable velcro cord organizers so they aren’t dangling (which beg for a cat’s attention), and putting away as many cords as you can when not in use. 

Not to be overshadowed though, make sure your cat has an enriched home environment that keeps her busy enough not to want to chew on dangly cords. Give her ample appropriate play-things, rotated often to keep them interesting, interactive toys that make her think and work a little bit, and provide healthy items to chew on like cat grass. Most of the time, cats grow out of the cord-chewing phase by their second birthday, but a stimulating environment is always your best defense against a bored house cat with a penchant for chewing! 

Pica (Eating Strange Objects) 

There are cats that eat strange substances like cardboard, wool, plastic, rubber, paper and cotton. This is commonly referred to as "pica". Some cats chew and rip but don’t eat and some cats just lick these odd materials. This behavior mainly starts in the first year of life and may coincide with the time the kitten goes to a new home. 

Sometimes eating strange things (like telephone wires) is a cat’s way of getting attention. The cat chews on the wire, the anxious owner lifts it away from the wire, and the cat has got its owner’s attention. Therefore, if the cat looks at you while it is beginning to eat, turn your eyes away and walk out of the room. This takes nerve if you are worrying about the animal being electrocuted. If you do this every time the cat starts chewing at the substance, the behavior should stop – if it is an attention seeking behavior. 

However, some cats will eat strange items when their owners are not present. One theory is that eating strange things like wool or cotton may be a disorder of the cat’s natural hunting behavior which is to stalk, pounce, tear off feathers and skin, and eat. Not only does skin and feathers pass through the cat’s stomach, but the cat has an instinct to do the tearing and plucking before swallowing. Some pet cats get compulsive about this part of the predatory sequence – tearing off feathers and skin and swallowing it all. Since ordinary cat food gives no chance of tearing and ripping, the cat looks for this somewhere else. They will tear and rip and then eat wool, cotton, paper, cardboard, wicker baskets, etc. Some cats go out and steal soft toys, bring them home and tear them – imitating the whole hunting sequence with teddy-bear prey. The danger from eating wool and other materials is that they will get an internal blockage. It is important to put away plastic bags or items you know will be chewed to try and minimize chances of ingestion. 

Also, try and give the cat the chance to hunt! Many cats with pica are indoor cats, so get a fishing rod toy or just a piece of string, and try to give the cat 30 pounces on this every day. It is always worth checking whether the cat’s environment can be improved, since it may be that stress may play a part in triggering or maintaining this disorder. Stress can be caused by boredom, anxiety about cats outside, anxiety about cat companions, changes in routine, moving home etc. Never punish, as this will just add to the stress. Providing a calm environment and rewarding good behavior (ie. times when not indulging in pica) may be helpful. 

If you think there is something that triggers the cat to eat strange objects, start keeping a diary to see if it really is a stress-trigger or not, and then we can start to work through how to correct the issue that the cat is upset about.