Cats & milk (& naughty friends)

[Katymac]

My friend let my cat lick the leftover milk out of her cereal bowl -we don't do cats eating off people plates in this house & neither do we do cats being fed from the table/after we have finished; they eat cat food out of cat bowls.....but I digress

Now the cat yowls round the fridge and pesters everyone eating/drinking milk

Am I right in my memory that cat's can't have milk & it's bad for them or is that a misremembering or wrong?

He is quite clever & I can't see him wanting something bad for him......I mean I never eat things I shouldn't

[thecatneuterer]

It's not great. It can give them diarrhoea. You can buy milk for cats though that has the problem element (lactose?) removed. Having said that I generally let mine lick yoghurt from my bowel and it doesn't seem to do them any harm.

[Katymac]

He's like an addict, climbing up legs, watching the spoon with his eyes

[MrsHathaway]

generally let mine lick yoghurt from my bowel and it doesn't seem to do them any harm

I wouldn't let anyone slurp my bowel.

The expert has spoken but I have been lectured to at length told that "cat milk" is an expensive con and that cow milk can be actively harmful so we don't intend to offer it.

Fwiw though I think the bit where they broke your rule about people plates is more annoying. It might help to break them of that habit by transferring whatever it is (the end of your tuna salad or roast dinner more appropriate than Coco Pops ) to their plate if you give in to wheedling?

[thecatneuterer]

Ha ha. No I wouldn't recommend letting a cat lick anything from my bowel . My bowl is fine though ...

[BeautifulBatman]

Lactose free milk is fine. It's what we use for us so the cats can have some too from my bowl when I've finished

[Fluffycloudland77]

Yoghurt has less lactose than milk so it's not as bad.

[tokyobananas]

Yep, yoghurt and hard cheese are very low in lactose, as lactose is mostly in the watery part of milk. This is also an interesting fact to tell lactose-intolerant people as quite often the lactose-intolerant can handle yoghurt and some cheeses, eg parmesan, much better than they can milk.

However, on the cat topic - I don't actively give the cats milk, but it's not unheard of that they nab a drop from a cereal bowl or the like, and it hasn't ever been a problem. I expect giving them bowlfuls might have a bad effect, or if you have a particularly sensitively stomached one.