Last month, I eagerly started reading the updates a friend posted on her Facebook page about introducing her two cats, formerly free-feeders, to automated feeding bowls. It wasn’t easy, she indicated, but she had a very good reason—one of her cats had just been switched to a prescription diet for kidney issues. It is important that this cat, and this cat only, eats the special food.
I asked my friend if she would allow me to excerpt her posts about her experiences with introducing her cats to the new system that would deliver the special food to the cat that needed it, and the other food to the other cat.
An active member of the arts community in Spokane, where she grew up, Rebecca Cook has worked as an actress, director, costumer, make-up artist, accountant, producer, and director in film and theater throughout the region. For the last several years, she has worked on feature films, commercial productions, and TV series, and founded her own small company, Thundering Kitten Productions. As a voice-over actress, she’s recorded many local commercials, well as brought to life over 120 audiobooks. Keeping to her theater roots, Rebecca has produced several original-works play festivals, and she is a living history actor at Spokane’s own Campbell House. She even enjoys rescuing feral cats from time to time and is currently servant to two precocious felines, Nahla and Roscoe!
Here is what Rebecca Cook wrote, by dates.
October 23
Nahla had a vet appointment this morning to follow up on her weird kidney readings. Well, today’s tests confirmed that she is having some kidney trouble, but it’s early, so we’re going to do all we can to treat it.
It starts with trying a new prescription food. Yes, for those keeping track, I’ll have two cats on two different prescription diets. Two cats who have been free-feeders their whole lives, eating out of the same dishes. I’ll be doing some research and figuring out the least painful way to transition them into a ‘new normal’ of feeding schedules and separate dishes.
This is new territory for me, so I’d welcome any tips or thoughts. It’s funny, because I know kidney failure is very common in older cats and Nahla is 15, but I’ve never dealt with it myself before. If Roscoe has taught me anything, though, it’s that we are resilient and we can survive a lot, so here we go! All good juju welcome.
October 27
I got the new cat dishes and cleaned out the space to fit in everything. They are washed and programmed now to remain open so the cats can get used to them. I’ve programmed the collar tags. Next, I’ll put the tags on the collars and change the food out to put Nahla’s new prescription in her bowl and activate both bowls for use tomorrow night. I’m trying to see if either cat seems to prefer one bowl over another. I think Nahla is going for the grey one. Roscoe goes for both. No real surprise there.
The process has taken a little longer than I’d thought, but taking our time to do it right is important. Keep your fingers crossed! I am feeling hopeful!
October 29
I’m starving my cats, just ask them …
I’ve had the new food dishes up for a couple of days. The cats were eating out of them just fine until last night. See, the bowls were just set to be open all the time, no opening or closing doors. I finally put the tags on the collars that initiate the opening. I thought I’d give the cats another night to get used to them. Part of the reason being that I had a terrible reaction to something I ate at lunch and I had a pretty miserable afternoon, so I just wasn’t up to properly introducing the doors on the bowls.
What I did not know is that, even if the door is “locked” open, if the tag comes near it, it resets the mechanism, so it starts being activated by the tag. I put the collars back on the cats before heading to bed. Just as we were all falling asleep, some loud crash happened. It must’ve been outside, but it really freaked us all out. Apparently, this made the cats hungry. After a while, as we were trying to come down from the adrenaline, the cats decided to try to eat. Wearing the new tags. I wasn’t watching, so I don’t know exactly how it went down, but they were both jumping and hissing and, well, totally freaked out. I truly had no idea the tags would set them off without me “unlocking” them. So, yeah, I freaked out for a second, too.
The rest of the night was a lot of trying to sleep, cats making complaints at all volume levels, Roscoe constantly herding Nahla to the food dish to make her fix it, Nahla giving him a big “Hell, no!” then running back into the bedroom to complain to me until the cycle started over. Needless to say, I did not get much rest.
Today, I’ve tried multiple ways to convince the cats that the bowls are safe. One attempt was putting treats in front of each bowl to entice them to go near it. Roscoe tried to be brave, but he jumped out of his skin when it opened as he grabbed the treat. He also learned that nothing happened when he grabbed the treats in front of Nahla’s bowl.
I’m not sure we’re going to get beyond the trauma, but we’re trying. I’m hoping hunger might inspire bravery, but if we don’t make some progress soon, I’ll have to feed them outside the bowls and start over, I guess. We’ll give these dishes a little more time, but there are others on the market if these don’t work out. Sigh.
Keep crossing your fingers we get Nahla on a proper diet soon!
(For those who missed my other posts on this journey, Roscoe is on a hypoallergenic diet because of his million health issues. Nahla was fine on that diet until she was diagnosed with early-stage kidney disease last week, so she has to be on a different prescription diet now. Whee!)
Photo by Rebecca Cook
October 30
For those who’ve missed the story thus far, Roscoe and Nahla are both on separate prescription diets, so they can no longer share food. For life-long free feeders, I found some auto bowls that are activated by the collar of only the appropriate cat, so they can eat whenever they want instead of switching them to a schedule and feeding them separately. I’ve let them get used to the dishes for a couple of days, just leaving the bowls open.
Night before last, I put the collars on them, not knowing it would automatically trigger the doors I thought I had locked open. This happened in the middle of the night without my supervision, thus creating trauma for the cats who hate electronic noises and who literally jump like popping corn!
After many attempts to get them to eat out of the bowls yesterday and today, I finally pulled the bowls out of the devices and just set them on the floor in front. Roscoe finally got super brave and approached. He tried to pull the dish away from the device, which didn’t work.
It took some patience—maybe my gentle talking him through it helped a little—but he finally ate. Nahla decided that if he could do it, so could she! I left the devices on so the doors did open and close, which still made the cats jumpy, but they were so hungry, that kept them brave. I’m hoping this is desensitizing them to the noise a bit.
I had to monitor them and constantly pull them away from the other’s dish and move them to their own, but they got the idea. This is very new, so patience is key. I think I’ll need to do this for a few days as they get used to the noises of the devices, but I continue to hope. Thanks for all the support! With luck, our journey may be helpful to others. Or, at the very least, it’s entertaining!
Photo by Rebecca Cook
The story will continue in our very next blog.
Here are links to the two blogs that introduced Rebecca and her cats to our readers:
https://www.fox28spokane.com/zombie-kittens-feral-cat-rescues-on-the-set-of-z-nation/
https://www.fox28spokane.com/catching-up-on-catios-and-feral-zombie-kittens/
NEXT WEEK Rebecca shares her “Automated Cat Dish Training Guide for Two Free-Feeding Cats On Prescription Diets (Or Learn From My Mistakes: How Not to be Trained By Your Furry Ninjas).”
Join us for an update on the situation!
