Hello. I’m Dr. Jane Matheys from The Cat Doctor Hotel and Veterinary Hospital in Boise, Idaho. I’m going to answer some questions today from the Facebook page of Pets Best Insurance.
First, we have Steena. She says, “My cat eats too fast and then throws up. How can I get him to slow down? Even buying a special slow-feed bowl didn’t work because he just eats around the protrusions.”
Some cats really do like their food. When I see this type of behavior, where the kitty is eating so fast and so much that they almost immediately vomit, oftentimes it seems to be those cats that as kittens or young cats were strays and outside. They don’t seem to get past this mentality of not knowing when their next meal is. They were out on the streets starving, probably didn’t eat for a number of days a time. Now, even though they’re in a nice home and the food is plentiful, they still have that mindset that they’re going to starve if they don’t eat as much as they can right now. There are other cats, however, who just really love to eat. It doesn’t help that we’ve made our pet food very nutritious and very tasty.
Steena has the right idea as far as, we do obviously want to slow down the eating so the cats can’t fill themselves and get so full that they vomit right away. What I like to have owners try is to feed the kitty from a cookie sheet or other flat tray. That spreads the dry little kibble pieces out so they have to pick up one or two at a time. They can’t shove their face in a bowl and try to take a big gulp.
Another thing that works really well is to try feeding the cat from an ice cube tray that you fasten down. Again, physically they just can’t eat so quickly because they’ve got to put their tongue down into each individual cube and get only a couple pieces at a time.
Typically, something like that is going to solve the problem for you. The other thing you want to think about is multiple small meals throughout the day, and when I say small, I’m talking about maybe an eighth of a cup or so of food. If you’re schedule doesn’t allow for that, you can purchase automatic self-feeders where you can program them to open up at certain times of the day. Then you can measure the amount that you put in each compartment at that time.
Finally, the last thing you can try is perhaps using what we call a food ball or a treat ball. You can get these from most of the pet stores. It’s just a little plastic ball with some small holes in it that will only allow a few pieces of food to fall out. You open it up, put the dry food inside, and close it back up. Again, he can only eat a few kibbles at a time. Usually the kitty has to either roll the ball or tip it so that he has to work to get his food released so not only are we hopefully solving the problem of him eating too much too quickly, you’re also going to give him the mental and physical stimulation that’s really important for our cats, especially if they’re indoor cats only.
If you have any other cat health questions, you can post them on the Facebook page of Pets Best Insurance.
Tags: cat, cat food, cat health, eating, pet health, pet insurance, pets best insurance, puke, throw up, veterinarian, vomit
Thank you for the tips! Great idea with the ice cube tray. I think my 4 kitten has the same mindset of not knowing when his next meal will be because his mother starved his two siblings to death…literally so he was malnourished the first month before we got him. Any ideas however to slow Tucker down with canned food? Or did you mean to put wet food in the ice cube tray?
I have a 10 yr old cat who has just recently started this gorge & puke routine. Our vet has suggested the slow feed bowls or to put a golf ball in her bowl. I know her well enough to know the golf ball would get flipped out of the bowl & treat balls would get “stolen” by the dog. The ice cube tray seems like a novel idea. Would it work for wet food as well as dry?
Ice cube trays might be a little deep for wet food – she may never be able to get it all out. But, cats are smart when it comes to their food! If you try it, let us know how it works.
My 7 year old cat just started doing this as well, and it usually has to do with making sure he gets all the food before the 3 other cats do. I separate him from the others and put him and his smaller amount of food in the bathroom. I will keep him in there for about 15-20 minutes. Plenty of time for the other cats to get their fair share of both wet and dry food. This has stopped the vomiting completely, and when he comes back out, he’ll eat only a small amount of dry food that’s left over, instead of rushing to eat the wet food, just so he can get to the dry food before the rest do.
my cat eats really fast and has been vomiting after eating, and after bit refuses to eat the food. but then if i change the food shes fine for a long while. then it will randomly start up again. would this be from eating too fast or could it be something else?