thereās a reason your cat complains about half-full bowl
I am a bit tired of seeing posts on Tumblr making fun of cats who act hungry even when their bowl is almost full. Those are funny and good-natured posts, but every cat guardian should realize that cats, just like people, donāt generally do anything unless they have to (or have a good reason to).
One of the reasons might be that itās justā¦..hard to get all the food out? Especially if the sides of the bowl are near vertical. Like, think about how would you get food from theĀ ācornersā of a bowl with steep sides if you had to do it with your mouth? Like, your chin isā¦.in the wayā¦ And the smaller the bowl is, the more food ends up in those ācornersā. Yesterday I watched a cat trying to eat food beyond the center of the bowl for like 5 minutes, and failing miserably (albeit hilariously).
But thereās something else I want to talk about.
Another reason your cat might not be getting all the food from the bowl is something thatās usually calledĀ āwhisker fatigueā orĀ āwhisker stressā. Hereās a quote from PetMD:
You can think of whisker fatigue as an information overload that stresses out your cat. Because whisker hairs are so sensitive, every time your cat comes into contact with an object or detects movement, even a small change in air current or a slight brush against her face, messages are transmitted from those sensory organs at the base of her whiskers to her brain[..]. That barrage of āmessagesā could stress out your cat, eventually causing what some people call whisker fatigue.
So basically if your catās whiskers have to be constantly touching the bowl for her to get all the food out, it might be a little like looking at your uncleās internet explorer: pop-ups everywhere!
This also might be a reason why your cat takes food out of the bowl and drops it on the floor to eat.
Not all cats experience this, but some cats are definitely helped by giving them a flat dish.Ā
Thereās a cat, Julie, at the shelter where I work, who would literally show signs of pain when getting her kibble from a regular bowl. If she ate at all, she would eat very slowly, sometimes taking every kibble out of the bowl with her paw, and then eating it from the floor. It stopped completely when I switched her to a flat bowl. My own cat used to take her wet food out of the bowl, throw on the floor, and then eat from the floor, which of course resulted in huge mess (wet foodā¦on the floorā¦). Again, she stopped when I got her a flat dish.
There are special dishes sold on amazon (search for āflat cat bowlā or āwhisker stress bowlā), but it can also be, like, a plate.Ā
EveryĀ āweird" cat behavior has a reason.Ā
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