Your food dish is NOT empty

I swear, that's how it always is with ours. If there is a hole in the middle of the food, no matter what, they will fuss. You don't even have to add more food but simply shake the dish some to fill the hole and they're normally happier.

 

Hahaha my cats are the same way! If there isn't food in the center they refuse to even go near the bowl. I just refuse to fill it up. If they're hungry they'll eat!

 

Gah, this, too!! Whine for 15 minutes, begging for food, but as soon as it hits the dish, they turn their noses up? Grrrr!

 

You know what they say!

Dogs have owners, cats have staff and kids have rashes .

 

quote="Jessi, post: 5186, member: 5893"]

I swear, that's how it always is with ours. If there is a hole in the middle of the food, no matter what, they will fuss. You don't even have to add more food but simply shake the dish some to fill the hole and they're normally happier.[/quote]
Haha, it's the same here! But usually when I just shake a bowl (or take some food from the other bowl and put to the one my cat is sitting in front of) they look at me like "Oh..................... Seriously........?............ Are you SURE?............." and they eat two bits and go away..

 

Some of my cats have a bad habit of turning away from food that has been in the dish from the last meal. So I just put it back inside the tin, shake the tin and pour it out again. Then my cats think that they are getting fresh rations.

 

That's what I always do with my cats... At least, they'll get the fresh pellets as well

 

I'll sometimes add fresh food so they think they're getting new, too. It absolutely has to cover the hole completely, though, or they'll still turn up their noses.

 

My cat does the exact same thing. She is never interested in the food around the bowl and only eats the food in the middle. I wonder why this is? It reminds me of a children who eat vegetables in the same way hoping they'll get to have dessert. The cats probably just want more food.

 

Or maybe they just don't see it. Properly, maybe. Because it's easier to take food out of the middle part of the bowl. At least my cats seem not to see the food when it's not in the middle. They look like they don't see it.

 

I used to think this, but then our outside kitty doesn't have a bowl at all, and still doesn't eat to the edges. It's certainly possible that it's just an eye sight/vision thing, though.

Or they're spoiled and stubborn.

 

This is definitely it! I hate it. Both pictures you posted are true.
The young one doesn't really turn away from food but she'll cry if there's a hole.
Even the cat we have outside will do this and she doesn't even have a dish!

 

Eeeeem? So where's this hole? On a dirt? So there's a hole everywhere, inside and outside, LOL. That really amused me, it must have to do something with their sight then.

 

Lol! Yes, in the pile of food, she'll eat just the center, so there's a ring of food left on the ground or table. I should take a picture of that the next time I see her leave food behind that way.

 

I am laughing because this is so true! My cat will beg and trip me in the kitchen all the time. There are times that she won't have a whole missing in the dish and she is begging. I shake the food dish around and she looks up at me and walks away without taking a bite. She also has a habit of tripping me while I am making lunch if we have a late lunch. She is used to being fed her canned food while I am cooking dinner, so if it is only lunch time I have a heck of a time getting her to realize it is not time to eat! My male used to do the same thing to me and I actually fell and smacked my head off the counter trying to avoid stepping on him. The hospital staff didn't believe me and kept asking me "are you sure he didn't hit you, you can tell us" while looking at my honey.

 

Well the food's on the picnic table in a pile. She'll eat out of the center of it.
This leaves a ring of food, aka a hole in the center.

 

Both my cat and my relatives' Jack Russell terrier do this. I think the dog does it because when I mix wet and dry food for him, maybe the wet food isn't evenly mixed, so to him the good stuff is in the middle. I don't know what the cat's excuse is, but I move her food around as some kind of Jedi mind trick to fool her into eating it.

 

I feed my cats moist food. When their bowl looks like the one on the right, they want me to stir it up with my finger and add a treat. I made up a name for a lot of things my cats do including this. That name is 'Emotional blackmail'. They know that I love them, and they just want the attention.

 

Lol! That's exactly what it is! It's like the equivalent of puppy dog eyes, but in cat form.

 

Ha! That's hilarious, Jessi! I thought our one cat, Max, was the only one. I always wondered why he wouldn't eat the food that's there, but now I know it's just a cat thing. It's quite interesting their demeanour.