My cat wants food she can kill herself. That and cheese. I have no idea why she is so interested in cheese. Also, we tend to not eat tuna to avoid her pestering.
I can be on a different continent opening a can of tuna, yet my cat will still be next to me in a jiffy with his “you gonna finish that” look
That thing is BLOOD!
The fourth is catnip. Always the 'nip.
Once my mom asked me to clear out a planter box that had become overgrown because she wanted to plant tomatoes. I pulled up this 3ft tall stalk plant with little purplish flowers, and as soon as I shoved it in the trash bag, the cat came running from the other side of the house and dove face first in the bag. After a minute or so, it was backing out of the bag with the stalk between his teeth dragging it out of the bag and once it was out of the bag started nibbling on it and rolling around on the plant. Looked up what the plant was and apparently I had just pulled up his catnip grow operation. When he came down, he was mad at me for a few days.
They prefer to have the water away from food bowls, is a sanitary instinct for predators
You’ve heard of ennui, but have you met felennui?
oh no is it contagious?
I’m parachuting in with a cardboard box ftw. Kitty will love me after learning about this.
Raw and wrigglin’!
For my little Chloe, it’s deli meat. I don’t know how she does it, but she always knows. I could go to the kitchen 10 times, and she wouldn’t react, but if I quietly make a sandwich and bring it to the living room to eat while watching TV, she’s right there, purring for her share. You can’t sneak it past her, she always knows.
All cats have a +15 on perception.
and Detect Food as a cantrip
For me this 4th thing is “tub”. It’s when my cat asks me to fill the bathtub with a small puddle of water so he can stand on the dry side and drink from the puddle. He’s 18 years old but he can still climb in and out of the tub and I think that’s pretty cool.
It looks like a human looking into the fridge full of food but finding nothing to eat
Me, every day.
That fourth thing is hunger. It only comes when the cat is fed on a schedule, as opposed to free-fed with multiple piles of food out all day. Feed in a schedule and you’ll suddenly see (healthy, right-weight) interested felines licking empty bowls.
You’ll also never sleep in again. That worked for me though. That little asshole kept me from being late to work on many occasions when I forgot to charge my phone.
Don’t put cats food dishes near their water dishes, it isn’t a mystery
You forgot Churu exist.
Treats:
I have the only cat in the world who could take or leave Churu.
Out of our 4, two are obsessed with it and 2 just don’t care. I think it’s the smell.
you are not alone! i ended up mixing them in with wet food just to get rid of them. (the churus, not the cats)
Mine too. Sniffed it and wandered off. Tried 2 flavours.
Dreamies work though
Split water and food bowls by a good amount of space. Opposite sides of the room, or different rooms altogether. And more than 1 water bowl. Apparently these tricks are useful.
Yeah I only learned a couple of years ago that cats hate having their water anywhere near food. Moving bowls into different rooms made a huge difference to their water consumption.
i wonder why that is
I’d suspect it’s a water safety thing, not wanting to drink stagnant water right next to their “kill”. The cats I’ve had have always preferred drinking running water in the bath
This is but a hypothesis, though
My mom was a florist with a greenhouse attached to the house. Cats loved roaming the greenhouse to find mice of course, but by far their favorite was all the glasses of water my mom used to cut flowers with, we joked that one particular tuxedo cat had a refined palette and would only sip on rose water.
When those cats were thirsty, they didn’t check the water by the dog food or one in their cat tree for a sip, they’d go right to the table and counter top and sniff around at every glass they could find till something seemed just right for them.
Me and my sisters pretty much had to go around the house collecting glasses every day we got home from school cause my mother couldn’t be bothered to clean up after herself.
There is also a trick I used to do - fill the food bowl with water (wetfood only). The cat plucked it out of the water and then drank the water. They take in most of their water from drinking blood / when eating. Also important to feed them internal organs - chicken hearts, livers, etc.