Murray eats a lot of food. He prefers Merrick because it’s wet and gooey and comes in flavors with names like California Roll, Grammys’ Pot Pie and Thanksgiving Day Dinner. He eats really fast. He eats so fast, when he’s finished eating his face is usually covered in wet cat food.
Murray eats dry food as well. We used to feed all of our cats Iams. But when I found out that they torture animals I stopped supporting them immediately. Since we have two other cats that are nearing obesity, we now feed them Wellness Lite, which means Murray eats Wellness Lite as well.
Murray is small. We’re pretty sure he’s going to be tiny all his life. The morsels that make up Wellness Lite are about the size of a hard pea. Normal sized cats have no problem; they just take it in, chew it up (or gulp it down) and swallow. But Murray’s mouth is too small. He takes a piece or two into his mouth at a time and tries to chew it. And I’ll be honestly with you; I really don’t see how any of it is actually going down his throat and into his tummy. It’s just like watching Cookie Monster eat cookies. Cookie Monster doesn’t actually have an esophagus or any insides for that matter. He’s a Muppet. His mouth is actually sewn shut and so the cookies he so ravenously consumes fall around his face and onto the floor like a great big crumb waterfall. That’s the way it looks when Murray tries to eat the hard stuff. And that’s why our bowls always look like this:
When we first got Murray I used to actually smash up the dry food for him but he always went for the other bowl, the bowl with the larger morsels because, while he has a small mouth and tiny teeth, he’s still a cat with entirely too much dignity. Plus, Tobyjoe threatened to have me committed. So I stopped.
Living with Murray has made me realize more and more that I may have jumped into this motherhood thing a little too soon. Because I’m not sure I have the stomach, head, or heart for it.
I totally want to see a video of murray eating. :) :)
Bah. You’ll be great. ;)
(and yes! video!)
I also switched from Iams (and Eukanuba) to Wellness a few years ago when I heard what was going on with P&G. Unfortunately, now both dogs are on a prescription Science Diet but so far I haven’t heard anything too terrible about their parent company, Colgate.
Have you tried sprinkling a little water over Murray’s dry food? Our senior doggie has trouble chewing these days and the vet suggested just moistening it with water slightly before feeding it to him. It seems to help but I do think he prefers the crunchiness.
Murray might do this forever, whether he grows a bigger mouth or not. Jerome ate like this his whole life! He’d take a kibble or two, and sort of toss them out of the bowl with his tongue, catch them, then start to crunch. Bits of kibble were always at the bottom of the bowl, and all around it. Luckily, he was also a very tidy kitty, and would sweep all the remains into a nice little pile. :)
It could always be worse. Obi Wan Kenobi likes to wolf down a whole mouthful of chow at a time. Then barf it up… Then try to eat it again. (Nom nom nom)
Don’t worry. My full grown 3 year old cat eats like Murray. We used to worry that she didn’t get enough food… until she got fat and we had to start giving her the lite kind. What we do, is we put a few drops of water on the dry food and toss it around a bit. That way the food gets a bit of moistness on the outside so that she can get a grip on it. In addition to picking up a piece at a time in her mouth, sometimes she will actually use her paw to pick one up (I simply must get a video of this!) and put her paw to her mouth to eat it. Aside from describing my cat’s weird eating habits, my point is, he’s probably getting plenty of food.. he just is a weird eater.
we give randolph the wellness lite stuff too! he seems to love it. so much so that he raids the food basket at night.