Rescue cat constantly pestering for food

[longestlurkerever]

We've had our rescue cat about 4 months. He was previously a stray, rescued by the vet and put up for adoption. He's always been very food orietnted - runs inti the room behind you and guzzles it down, sometimes jumps on to the table etc but since we went on holiday for ten days he's been acting a bit oddly. A neighbour was feeding him while we were away. First of all he seemed off his food altogether when we got back. Lidl seemed to have stopped doing his usual food so after trying a couple of different types we hot on sainsburys own which he seems to like fine but he's back to guzzling it, jumping up on the table, trying to eat our food and generally miaowing really loudly for food almost constantly. He otherwise seems well - very cuddly, but his pestering is quite hard to ignore. Any ideas?

What’s his weight like?

How much are you feeding him and does he go outside?

My cat can be like this. I have an interactive cat feeder for the biscuits which slows down the guzzling. One like this

https://www.pawsomecouture.com/products/round-slow-feeder-pet-bowl?variant=41390682472639&currency=GBP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlKWTo5SCgQMVBbLtCh0PfAUSEAQYCCABEgKNpvD_BwE

I would also remove the cat from the room when you are eating.

May have a thyroid disorder which will easily be treated by drugs
may just be a bit of a greedy guts I have a puss who is like that
get puss insured for the future I use pet plan who are the most expensive but by far the best insurer
I have used it before and always paid less in premiums than I eventually got back
remember vets can offer treatment that is amazing now

He's small for a (now neutered) tom cat I think. But not thin. Quite stocky. He has 2 pouches a day and dried food that he never finishes

He does go outside yes, though we kept him indoors for 6 weeks at first.

Our cat was/is very similar @longestlurkerever. She too was a stray and she's very food-orientated. The way we deal with it is to be very reliable with her feeding - she gets her breakfast, tea and bedtime snack at the same time every day. We found a brand of food she likes and we've stuck with it.

A cat that has known real hunger doesn't often forget and that insecurity can make them really anxious and annoying, but if you understand that insecurity and do what you can to reassure your cat that you won't forget to feed him it should gradually improve a bit. I say 'a bit', because we've had our cat for 3.5 years and she still eats everything in her bowl straight away, she still pesters sometimes (although not all the time), we still have to be really careful to never leave food out on counter tops or leave cupboard doors open, because she will eat almost anything if it's accessible. In the past, she's ripped open packaging to get into bread rolls, stolen leftover broccoli from a pan on the stove, and when she got hold of a bag of snacks one night she ate so many she made herself ill. So you have to adapt as an owner, get inside your cat's head, and act accordingly!

Pic of kitty. I haven't weighed him though.

Two pouches and dried food isn't a lot. Does he have access to drinking water.
Is the water somewhere separate to the food?

My cats tend to prefer drinking water outside, and for some weird reason seem to have a preference to drinking rainwater or water from a watering can.

Has he been dewormed?

Two pouches and dried food isn't a lot

That sounds fine to me, particularly if he's quite small. We were warned not to overfeed our greedy cat and the vet tells us off if she goes over 5kg. She gets 2x 70g tins of food + a handful of weight control biscuits at bedtime. Any more than that and she starts to get fat - and she's an active indoor/outdoor cat.

My cats have 2 pouches a day and free access to dry food and they not mithering me all day for food. Plus they're bloody massive cats, proper mutants.

Maybe he should have more? I didn't want to overfeed him. He does have water and it's a bit separate, he doesn't seem to drink it that often if I'm honest but he doesn't totally ignore it. I think maybe cheezencrackers is right and he's got a bit unsettled /out of routine. Bit of a mystery why he became so temporarily fussy though. He'd had different sorts of food before and didn't seem to notice.

They do get upset at being left! Mine will punish me for going away

I assume if he was truly starving he'd finish the dry food?

@cheezncrackers , yes, what I meant was it's not excessive. It also depends on how much of the dry food gets eaten, and how big the pouches are.

He's a fine looking feline.

They get fussy. Sometimes they'll decide that they no longer like their food.
They drink quite a lot sometimes.

He might be mithering for attention not food.

If he's eating some but not all the dried food then he's a greedy chancer not actually hungry!

Might be worth getting vets opinion- mine was the same. Wasn't skinny by any stretch but turned out he had a thyroid problem.

I've noticed his eyes look a bit sore so have called the vet, even though it's hard to see the link. They're going to see him tomorrow

He is a handsome fella.

Perhaps he just prefers the pouches. On the boxes it states 3 pouches a day for an average cat. He might be hungry still if he's not eating the dried food. My cats don't like dried food but even my little female cat eats 3 pouches a day and large male eats 4 pouches. Neither cats are overweight.

Thanks good to know. He eats more than any of the neighbours ' cats we've been feeding over the summer which is what made me think it was the upper end of normal. I'll get him checked though about his eyes

I've got one of these rescues. She was starved the first year of her life and she's never forgotten it, despite the fact she is now a plushy, sleek, slightly fat 12 year old.
The best advice I can give is stick to wet food (fewer calories per gram) and give smaller meals more frequently. This makes them feel like they're getting fed more (plus I think the actual process of being fed is reassuring to them). I can't lie though, she still nags for food and probably always will. My other cat, who has never gone hungry a day in her life, is nowhere near as fixated.

Mine mithered me for food coming into winter every year. I think it was just a natural instinct to fatten up for the cold weather because they don’t know there’s reliable food and warmth.

Keep the water well away from the food, like on the far side of the room. In nature water beside a kill would be more likely to be polluted.