Kitchen manners

[ireneadler101]

Hi all,

We adopted our first cat on Saturday. He has generally been very well behaved, and settled in well. However, he is driving us crazy in the kitchen with his constant miaowing for food in the kitchen, jumping on worktops and dining table and trying to grab food while it's cooking on the hob! We have resorted to shutting him out but he just sits outside miaowing and making me feel terrible!

Is this just normal cat behaviour which we have to get used to, or are there ways for us to train him not to do this? Any help appreciated!

[Ollivander84]

Can you time his food for when you're cooking?

[LineysBum]

That ^^ and also how often are you feeding your cat and how much? Cats are grazers. Little and often. And it seems like yours needs a bit of attention?

I do have a stern voice for mine, though, when they're just being greedy. They get NO and the pointy finger

[dailydance]

Has he been de-wormed?

[ireneadler101]

Yes he's been dewormed, unfortunately he is so hungry when we get home I think he'd be worse if we made him wait until we were eating. Plus preparing the food would be a nightmare!

Im feeding him 100g of tinned meat in jelly twice a day, morning and evening, along with a handful of biscuit each time. He hoovers it up straight away and the rescue centre have confirmed it is enough food. Ive bought him a puzzle feeder for the biscuit to try and make them last a bit longer!

I'm struggling to work out how to teach him that he wont get anything if he jumps up but aside from excluding him from the room, am out of ideas.

[Briette]

I feed my greedy tom half of his dinner while I'm cooking and the other half when we serve ours up. He's got a lot better and stopped the incessant meowing as he's gradually realised that he's never forgotten but if I'm slow with feeding or cooking something nice he'll try helping himself from the kitchen worktops so I just learnt to be more aggressively tidy. I also make a point of cuddling him whenever I pick him up and put him back on the floor because it pisses him off (some cats may not see this as discipline in the same way).