So back story, my cat is around 5 years old. After I adopted her at 5 months, I free fed her dry cat kibble for the most part. She didn’t devour her food, in fact, she never used to eat the whole thing in one sitting. But she did eat a lot. So she started to get fat. She also never had an interest in human food. I could leave it out.
My sister uses a timed feeder for her cat and thought that would be a great idea, so I bought one.
I no longer had to get up early to feed her and she got portioned meals. It was a win-win. She did start to get anxious and a little obsessive with her food and would sit by her feeder an hour before and stare at it until it would go off.
A move later, we had a window above the counter and a lot of wildlife so she took an interest in climbing on the counter and looking outside. She also started to take an interest in human food. One night, the family I lived with, ordered Burger King. A chicken nugget fell on the ground and it was all over. She became obsessed with human food. Jumps on the counter, especially around dinner time and no one is watching her. I’ve had to be meticulous with cleaning the counter as soon as we’re done.
Two more moves later and I’m in the house I’m in now and I’ve realized I should probably be giving her more than dry food, water and the occasional treat. So I started giving her wet food during dinner time.
This was probably the worst in her obsession with food. She cries the minute it gets close to two hours BEFORE her feeding time to hours after I give it to her. She’s obsessive with ANY food. She tries to get as close as possible to our food WHILE we’re eating it and sweeps the kitchen like a vacuum as well as getting on the counters, in the sink. She’ll try to lick the soapy water if it even so much as smells like food.
I moved states so I’m about to find a place to schedule her an appointment because it’s gotten so bad, I’m wondering if she might have underlying issues.
I try to keep the counters as clean from food as possible but I work two full time jobs and so does my boyfriend.
Does anyone else have any ideas or experiences like this and can recommend what to do?