What To Do If My Cat won’t Eat?

If you think kids are picky eaters then you haven’t seen a cat who doesn’t like their food and refuses to eat no matter how many times you offer the food to them. If your cat won’t eat you better find out why and fast because cats can and will starve themselves to death No Joke.

Why Won’t You Eat

There are as many reasons as you can think of as to why a cat won’t eat. I’ll start off with the more serious ones that you would want to take your cat to the veterinarian for which are and not limited to:

• upper respiratory infection
• cancer
• kidney failure
• infections or other problems with the intestinal tract

Now with that being said and before you go panicking and rush off the veterinarian these are the worst-case scenarios and I did want to get the scare out of the way first remember I did say “there are as many reasons as you can think of” as to why a cat won’t eat and it’s not just because they are being stubborn.

This will put a whole new light on the word finicky eater!

The Reasons Why Could Be As Simple As

• The shape of the food: round vs square
• The color: blue vs red
• The smell: fish vs beef
• Too dry
• Too wet
• Where in the house the dish sits
• Dish Type: plastic vs glass
• The color or shape of the bowl
• Flavors: fish vs chicken
• The brand of the food

It could be a number of things for the loss of appetite and when people say that cats are just being finicky eaters they are not kidding.

I know with my two cats with their wet food which is Friskies fish-flavored my female cat Dipstick wants her food in a white ceramic bowl pushed under the bed on the carpet in my bedroom whereas my male cat Matthew doesn’t care where, when, or how as long as his is placed first. If I put his food down second he won’t touch it it’s crazy, right? If you think that’s bad my brother has it worse.

His cat Nibbler shows her dissatisfaction by placing hair ties in the food dish. And if the water isn’t refreshed every day she’ll find a pair of my brother’s socks and throw them into the water dish.

One more thing why cats won’t eat is because of depression. I had three cats at one time the other was Keyba and since I live out in the country he went out to hunt and ended up not coming home.

For the first few days after he didn’t come home both of my cats wouldn’t eat no matter what I offered them. They both would lay on my bed and whenever there was a noise outside they would get up and look towards the cat door waiting for Keyba to come walking through it.

They would hardly touch any of their food. Dipstick would smell it but wouldn’t eat and Matthew only ate a bite or two. This lasted for about 3 days Dipstick started to eat some of the dry food and Matthew followed suit. Being depressed from the loss of their buddy is what caused them to not want to eat.

Why Is It So Important To Find Out Why

If your cat won’t eat anything you need to find out why because if a cat doesn’t eat in 2 to 4 days it could start to go into liver failure. However, some cats can last up to two weeks without eating but are so weak that they may not recover fully and their organs may be damaged from it. They may never be the same even if they do recover.

Cats use a lot of energy, when they stop eating the body will fall back on its fat reserves. The protein in a cat’s body is used up very quickly and the liver will start to shut down.

Cats will literately starve themselves to death if they don’t like the food, bowl, area it’s placed, etc. So your first step is to find out why they stopped eating in the first place.

For starters did anything change recently like you moved, had a new family member or friend move into the house, decorated for the holidays, got new furniture?

If that’s the case keep a close eye on your cat food bowl and keep some in it, hopefully, they will be eating at night when it’s quieter, since cats are nocturnal (night time) animals by nature and that’s when they do a lot of there hunting (seeking food).

Other things you may want to try is a different place in the house for their food bowl, maybe a different type of food.

Maybe your cat prefers fish flavor over beef or chicken.

The star shape food over the round pieces.

Warm food over cold. You’ll have to learn that when you warm up cat food it stinks. Maybe that’s why cats love it that way better.

Those are the first things I would try to do keep in mind also that if your cat is recovering from surgery or sickness like a cold they won’t want to eat.

It’s also a good idea to have at least two types of cat food your cat will eat so if you have to fall back on one when your cat stops eating you will already know which brand to buy.

And while you are trying to find the type of foods your cat will eat and won’t eat take the food they don’t like to your local animal shelter. They always need food and you’ll be helping out other animals in need. You never know you may fall in love with one there and give it a forever home.

When To Seek Out A Veterinarian

Now if you have tried different foods, bowls, places in the house, etc… and nothing in the house has changed, moved, or had a lot of people over and your cat still hasn’t eaten in 3 days you may want to go see or call your veterinarian.

You will want to take your furry friend to see a veterinarian if they have running eyes, vomiting, drooling, very bad breath from the mouth, or blood coming from the nose or mouth because these are signs something is going on and cats don’t bounce back as fast as other animals do when they start to go downhill.

The Flip Side Of The Coin

So what if your cat is the complete opposite, eating everything or seems to always be hungry that may be a sign of an overactive thyroid gland better known as hyperthyroidism.

A good rule of thumb for the amount of food is 1 cup of dry food per day for every 10 lb of weight. However, every brand has its own measurements of the amount of food to give your cat.

Hopefully, you and your furry friends will find the right balance of type of food, where to put it, and in what type of bowl that makes them happy. I almost forgot to tell you, the time of day or night they want to eat also plays into their finicky eating.

Since I don’t have to worry about my cat’s overeating I have an automatic feeder for their dry food that they can eat whenever they want.

I noticed that at night is when Dipstick eats the most and Matthew prefers the daytime however they both prefer their wet food right before nightfall and my brother’s cat eats more dry food around one in the afternoon, but she doesn’t like wet food at all. Silly kitties.

Nibbler, my brother’s cat is the star of this blog. She is the one featured in all of the pictures.

Maybe it’s not your cat but your dog that is having trouble with diarrhea or constipation then check out this post on what to do when your dog has diarrhea or constipation

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