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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Cat is nicking food from neighbour’s cats

11 replies

kemosabeimalone · 19/02/2020 16:02

And he’s getting enormous! We have a Bengal male he’s always been big in terms of length and build and struggles a bit with his weight if we don’t actively keep on it. He is the perfect size when he sticks to two small pouches of wet food and one bowl of dry a day but if he has treats he quickly goes over it and loses the hourglass shape that’s recommend and becomes more of a sausage! I’d been thinking he was becoming a bit porky over the last few weeks but found out the reason a few days ago. Neighbour told me he’s been going into his house and scoffing the special hypoallergenic food mean’t for his two cats. They have a cat flap but not one that works off a sensor. Any ideas how to sort this? - I could reduce his feed at home but worry this will encourage him to scrounge off other neighbours even more. I could also keep him in but that seems extreme and presumably he’d get less exercise then which would be self defeating? I could offer to get a special cat flap for neighbour but I wonder if our cat will just find food elsewhere? I’m sure this happens a lot and that there must be a simple solution I’m just not seeing? Any ideas?

OP posts:
HardAsSnails · 19/02/2020 16:12

I have a cat who used to do this when he was younger and I asked the neighbours to be firm with him. We now have our own visiting greedy cat so we've switched to a motion activated feeder which visiting greedy cat doesn't know how to use.

My feeling is that if you have an open cat flap you have to address the problem of greedy visiting cats yourself, which could be water pistol scaring off, or a microchip flap/feeder, or shutting the flap when food is down.

HardAsSnails · 19/02/2020 16:14

In terms of your own cat, there is not much you can do, maybe stick a post on local FB to ask people to feel free to send him on his way and assure them he is not hungry or starved.

Fluffycloudland77 · 19/02/2020 16:48

Our Bengal was on 4.5 pouches a day. Their an active breed.

kemosabeimalone · 19/02/2020 17:09

Hardassnails / Fluffycloud thank you! I really like the idea of posting a flyer around the neighbourhood - he only seems to go out round our block so his patch is quite small and it’s definitely do-able. I will definitely investigate the sensor feeder too as this sounds like a good thing for our neighbour to get.

OP posts:
kemosabeimalone · 20/02/2020 07:53

So funny - I took your advice and posted on a local forum about my cat’s pigginess on a local forum and within minutes got loads of replies from other cat owners saying ‘mine too!’ and ‘please don’t feed mine either!’ Seems like I’m not the only one! Grin

OP posts:
YetAnotherSpartacus · 20/02/2020 09:01

I'm imaging all these cats thinking 'which restaurant shall I eat at today?'

HardAsSnails · 20/02/2020 09:35

It's the cats' version of Come Dine With Me Grin

HardAsSnails · 20/02/2020 09:35

It's the cats' version of Come Dine With Me Grin

HardAsSnails · 20/02/2020 09:35

The cat's version of Come Dine With Me Grin

HardAsSnails · 20/02/2020 09:42

Don't know what happened there,

EerieSilence · 20/02/2020 14:02

We used to have a Six Dinner Sid coming to our house, desperately looking for good food. As it transpired, he has a lovely and loving home just two houses down the road.
He gets a little cuddle and no food now. The little cheeky bastard.

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