Whisker fatigue causes stress and overstimulates their senses. Using a flat bowl or plate will relieve this issue and allow your cat to eat all their food without stress.

You can also search for “whisker fatigue” bowls specifically made for cats.

More info

    • UhBell@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Not every cat responds the same, or at all, to stress on their whiskers. Just like people, cats have varrying tolerances to stimulus.

      Anecdotally, my cats would not finish their food in narrow bowls but do now that they eat from flat bowls.

    • pizza_rolls@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      So far the only actual study we have on this says it’s not a real thing. Sure, some cats have different preferences but it’s not like you are torturing your cat with normal bowls and need to run out and buy special ones.

      https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1098612X20930190

      If you’re feeding your cat an infinite supply of dry food without a feeding schedule you have bigger things to be concerned about than whisker fatigue.

      • ramplay@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        As an ad libitum cat feeder, 0 issues so far. They eat when they’re hungry

        • pizza_rolls@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          It’s well documented it veterinary literature, you can believe the studies or not 🤷‍♀️. It’s not like it kills your cat instantly, you just deal with diabetes kidney or urinary issues in the future. Not sure why someone would not try to prevent that.

    • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      This applies to pretty much every article about animals…it’s just humans putting human stuff on animals for the sake of humans. :/

      • IDatedSuccubi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It happens often in media, but real scientists don’t rely on what they think animals think, instead using objective data like brain activity scans, heartbeat rates etc, often presenting pure data without a conclusion on what they think the animal feels. Those studies will then come to media, where the interviewed scientists will give their thoughts on how they interpret the results, even if it’s obvious that the animal likes/dislikes something. These also exist in media.

        Edit: I also want to add that many things are straight up visibly harming the animal and you don’t even need any conclusions. For example if you house a hole-dwelling spider without enough substrate to dig, it will stop eating. This has been confirmed many times, by many owners. It doesn’t matter if it makes them uncomfortable or they feel pain from it, or they are cold, etc, because we know that they stop eating, and that’s a good enough signal that something’s bad.