Why does my sister's kitten act like a starving scavenger when he always has food in his dish?

Question

My older sister always has food in her kitten's dish (he's about 15 months old). However, the second he hears someone opening a bag of food he goes crazy. Just today I opened a can of tuna fish and he came out of the other room meowing like crazy. He sounded like he was crying, and he was clawing at the cabinets/my legs trying to get onto the counter. I placed two pinches of tuna on the floor, some for him and some for my sister's older cat, and the kitten ate his in a few seconds then finished the other cat's. My sister never feeds him table scraps but if you leave a bowl of cereal or a half eaten meal out for ten minutes, he'll find it and start eating it. However, he's not a big kitten, he's actually very thin. He's been like this for a while...I was wondering if it could have something to do with the weight loss food he's been eating. My sister's older cat is on a strict diet where he could only eat his weight loss food and nothing else. Since it was difficult to make sure the fat cat would stay away from the kitten's food, my sister has been feeding them both the weight loss food (the vet said it was okay for the kitten.) Otherwise, what else could be the cause of this kitten's strange, scavenger behavior??

Answer 1

Stolen food tastes better than what you were given.

Answer 2

I think the best answer to this would be to give the younger cat additional food while the older cat is in another room. The younger cat eats fast enough that the older one won't isolated long enough to be upset by it.

Answer 3

The cat IS starving.  A kitten needs a HIGH protein diet.

It knows it is not getting the nourishment it needs in the food it is given, thus it is desperate. If that cat doesn't get good food, you can count on a life long journey to the vet as he won't develop properly.  The one response you got about GOOD food should be taken seriously.  I think the vet must have said

that the food is OK for the kitten in that if he eats SOME of it, it won't hurt him (Like if there is food laying around and he nibbles on some) but NOT as HIS diet.  If that is NOT what your vet meant, get a different vet NOW before that poor thing

is so malnourished it develops serious illnesses.

Would you feed your BABY diet food? Of course not.

This IS a baby. A feline one.

  

Answer 4

The weight loss food for a growing kitten probably isn't the best thing, kind of like how teenagers taking weight supplements is horrible for them because they are still growing.

maybe you could try putting the adult cats food in another room and keep the door shut when that cat is eating so the kitten can't get in there and eat it? :)

Answer 5

because inside the soul of every cat is the undying evil that are demons.

a good exorcism will do the trick.

Answer 6

He is eating crappy food as is your sister's older cat who shouldn't be eating that c**p.He needs to eat more to get what he needs.Feed quality and he will eat less and you sisters cat will eat less an lose weight

Please learn about feline nutrtion





Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrediant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with grains and carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process.  Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

http://www.catinfo.org/#My_Cat_is_Doing_...

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all.    The best food for cats does not contain any grains at all.

Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies  whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. I would rather feed a middle grade canned food then the top of the line dry food.

Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

                               http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...

                               http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...

      http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Vetinarian diets  The reason your vet thinks so highly of the pet food they sell probably has more to do with money than nutrition. In vet school, the only classes offered on nutrition usually last a few weeks, and are taught by representatives from the pet food companies. Vet students may also receive free food for their own dogs and cats at home. They could get an Iams notebook, a Purina purse and some free pizza.  http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Answer 7

The kitten has worms.  Anytime an animal goes crazy and inhales it's food almost not even chewing ... it has worms!  It doesn't gain weight except in it's belly that is full of worms.  This makes me very sad because your little kitten has had worms for awhile now.  This has gone on for weeks and weeks and you did not take it to a vet?  Maybe you should consider giving up pets.