Scavenger cat

[Doggotired]

Hi!
We have had our cat nearly a year, he was a rescue who was dumped when he was about 10 weeks old, he is small so I think maybe he was the runt.
He is a complete scavenger, he gets fed enough, he is wormed regularly, he has been the vets and all is well with him but he behaves like he has never been fed. He can’t be around any kind of food without him taking it, he takes bread out of the toaster, he learnt to open the bread bin and eat the bread, the bin had to be moved into the conservatory as he will climb in and eat anything he can find.
We can’t let him out the house now as he will go into neighbours bins and eat anything! Last time he went out he was really sick for 2 days so I have no idea what he ate but it obviously wasn’t good for him! He can’t eat dry food as he has a sensitive stomach and can only eat royal canin sensitive food or else he has a dodgy stomach, we have tried many foods and this is literally all he can handle so the vet suggested he stays on it.
He really behaves like he’s starved but he really isn’t I promise!
When he sees food his pupils get big like he’s about to attack!
He was in a bad state when he was found so I think he probably wasn’t fed so I imagine it’s learned behavior to take food whenever he can, but is there anyway to stop it or he is just gonna forever be a greedy pain in the arse?
Thanks!

Could you feed him little and often throughout the day? If he has small snacks but at regular intervals it might calm him down a bit.
Mine grazes rather than eating big portions.

Is he neutered? At this point he’s an adolescent and being annoying but he might grow out of it. Try redirecting his focus, away from food and on playing. Or give him a treat when you eat?

Yeah he is neutered, he can’t be in the same room if you are eating as he would just take the food, it’s like he goes into a zone where he sees it and has to have it!
I feed him breakfast, lunch and tea, if he could tolerate dry food I think that would help but it just gives him such a bad stomach even the royal canin one. I think if he had food in his bowl all the time like dry food he wouldn’t be so bad :(

One of mine has a really sensitive stomach. She can't tolerate any Royal Canin at all. Even the sensitive ones. But she's fine on iams vitality. I suspect she's allergic to maize/ or some other cereal, that's not in the Iams.

It seems this is the only food that lets him have solid stools.....

If the vet has advised to just feed the Royal Canin and he's already on 3 meals a day I'm not sure there's much more you can do food wise. I tend to agree with Toilenstripes that if he's bothering you for food outside of meal times it might be worth trying to distract him with a favourite toy instead, to try to break the hyper focus on food. I think a year is quite a short time in a new home for a cat which hasn't had a great start in life so there's plenty of hope he will become more settled and less food obsessed in time. Kittens are definitely more prone to eating things they shouldn't than adult cats so hopefully it will get better.

Thank you! I will try that! He’s pretty chilled the most of the time except when it comes to food then it’s like he’s possessed.

Did your vet prescribe the food or isn't jist one you found through trial and error? My kittens are on True Instinct High Meat Content dry food along with their wet. It's very good. (We also took a few trys to get to this).

Your cat might find less need to scavenge if there is constant food available.

I would honestly switch his food.

Find a good, high quality dry food for him - there are hundreds out there so it's highly, highly unlikely that the only food he can tolerate is Royal Canin.

If you go on zooplus you can often order trial packs - try ordering several types and see if any of them suit him.

@Doggotired

Thank you! I will try that! He’s pretty chilled the most of the time except when it comes to food then it’s like he’s possessed.

Sounds quite like mine, except a bit more so.

Our cat (9 months) will scavenge regularly, including trying to lick up breadcrumbs from round the toaster. Turn your back for a minute with unoccupied food and he’s on it, and he’ll growl and chunter to warn you off trying to take it back, with his tail all puffed up like a toilet brush!

He also has sensitive digestion, so I wonder if this might not be part of it. At first we could only use the Canin sensitive stuff from the vets, but we’ve now got him onto Ferringa pure meat food from Zooplus - as long as we stick to meat and not fish (and stop him grabbing stuff he shouldn’t) then it keeps his little craps nice and firm!

Aside from that I can only say keep the food out of reach and good luck!

The thing is when I try him on any other type of food it literally goes straight through him and he has blood in his stools so the royal canin was prescribed at first and then I’ve just stuck with it since. It just seems cruel to keep putting him through trying new stuff when it seems to affect him so bad?

@Doggotired

The thing is when I try him on any other type of food it literally goes straight through him and he has blood in his stools so the royal canin was prescribed at first and then I’ve just stuck with it since. It just seems cruel to keep putting him through trying new stuff when it seems to affect him so bad?

Are you switching over properly? You need to do it really slowly - it should take a good week or two to swap foods.

What other brands have you tried other than Royal Canin?

Yeah was trying to switch really slowly like you are meant to but even a mouth full of something else made him have the runs, oh god I can’t even tell you, tried all natural ones, grain free, all the ones that are meant to be good for sensitive stomachs. I think he must have been fed something he really shouldn’t have when he was tiny and it’s just messed him up??? He stole a bread crust off my sons plate last night and he’s had about 5 runny stools today...