Bad food habits!

by Nicole
(Michigan)

Since we had my cat, he's always had scraps. He would eat human food over his own food any given day. He's about 7 years old now, but now he's worst than ever. He's constantly a nuisance when my family's trying to eat. He won't leave us alone and head butts us, jumps on the table, where we are, takes our food and run. Why is he so bad now, and what do we do?!

Answer by Kate
Hi
well i'm sorry to say the only thing you can do is to remove him from the room when you are eating. After 7 years this will a be an ingrained behaviour and trying to stop it will be near impossible I'm afraid.

My old cat was the same, once we had started giving her scraps she never looked back. after all if we had given them to her then there's nothing wrong in it as far as she is concerned and so as the years went on she would automatically expect our food as soon as we had it. So the only decision was to either give in to her or make sure she was not in the room when we ate. As we were concerned for her health and weight we did the latter.

Shouting at her, pushing her away, squirting her with water etc will not stop the behaviour as she won't understand why you are doing it they don't make the association. All it will achieve is for her to become a little afraid of you. So removing her from the room is the best option.

Believe me, I have been there too. Now with our two new kittens we have decided never to give them scraps, so as not to start the behaviour.

best wishes kate

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