Hi
I know most cats and dogs esp in developing countries just eat left overs. Give them a fish and they go nuts
However my two cats been raised in Australia had kitten food from pet shops etc are so use to it that literally you give them a raw fish they sniff it and walk away.
Give them the cheap cat food they walk away.
Is it that pet companies put something in their kitten food early on to get them use to it..like cats version of msg or something?
Similar thing when kids here get used to eat western food, they don't like to eat rice and different asian food … So many variety and tasty asian food, people just need to try.
wtf?
Other people said about this too …
Keep your phone switched to 4G?
ditto wtf?
Are you saying meat and potatoes is addictive?
That's you said, not me. It's habit. If local kids only or most of the time eat certain type of food, most likely they eat that kind of food for the rest of their life. Same thing with cats. If cats only eat certain type of food, they'll stick with that kind of food.
Too many people have allergies here. One teacher told me that kids need to eat many varieties of food since they are kids, so less food intolerance.
I'd imagine most people on the city would have decent exposure to other cuisines. Lower socioeconomic areas may have less exposure. A friend who dated someone from one of these areas had never had a few very common Asian dishes as an example.
I think a more apt analogy would be unprocessed vs processed food. Processed food designed by food scientists with tweaked taste, sugar/salt, vitamins and designed to keep costs down.
@ihfree: I think in many suburbs even regional towns, there are Japanese, Thai, and Chinese restaurants that are quite common when I travelled to suburbs and regional towns. You can check these also through google maps for example.
I think most cats and dogs found here are bred. They are not semi-wild and can't look after themselves. For example, back in my old country, our hounds are kinda semi-wild (landrace) and in a similar form to Dingos, they will eat anything and don't have any diseases. But imported dogs need proper food and injections, those are the breeds we can find here in Australia. Same with the cats.
Same with kids.
Like all animals, they can be picky eaters when offered varieties and have slaves working for them.
However, I have discovered that cats will eat, when they believe they are desperate:
bread
We learnt that never leave a loaf of bread on the benchtop unattended. Our cat would tear open the plastic bag and munch on the toast.
Our cat would tear open the plastic bag and munch on the toast.
Your cat actually toasted the bread? Holy crap
They put crack in it to get the cats addicted. This is why it says "not for human consumption" on the tin.
Everything is synthetically mouse flavoured.
If you are in the zombie apocalypse only eat the fish cat food. Every other kind of meat is rejected leftovers.
It's called habit. When a cat get used to eat tinned food since early days, will the cat want to eat a mouse? I don't think so. Habit is habit. It's hard to change habit after you grow up. That's why need to introduce many different varieties of food since early days.
Why would animals be any different to humans?
What you are fed as children determines your taste and preference for life. If you are fed a limited number of things you will turn up your nose of other things later in life. If you are fed a wide variety of ethnic or other foods as a child you are more likely to find them to your taste later in life. And its exactly the same with animals. Bring them up on scraps, and they'll happily accept scraps when they are hungry for the rest of their lives.
We have pets. People in and from poorer countries see household animals differently because they don't have the wealth to waste on non-productive members of the household. They see them as a means of getting rid of food waste, and/or recycling it into future meals.
recycling it into future meals.
@_@
What you are fed as children determines your taste and preference for life. If you are fed a limited number of things you will turn up your nose of other things later in life.
Well that's a very broad statement, and in my experience, completely incorrect.
I was bought up in a traditional meat & 3 veg (with potato always being one of them), white bread, Oz household - and 50 years later, I can hardly remember the last time I had any of them. I can say the same of most of my similar age friends and family.
I think the cats are in on the scam too
I’ve always wondered what a Catscam was. Now i know.
Nice try big Pharma!
When I was growing up our cats were all fed the cheapest dog food from the supermarket, and lived long healthy lives.
They also never got vaccinated against the 1001 fatal diseases the vets scare you with, and didn't have their teeth professionally cleaned
Why the cheapest dog food and not the cheapest cat food?
I guess maybe because it was cheaper and easier? My parents used to buy these massive cans to feed the dogs and would spoon a bit off for the cats at the same time
cats and dogs esp in developing countries just eat left overs.
The dog you see in Mexico or Thailand on the street eating anything is nowhere near the same as my tiny cavoodle that sleeps in the bed and gets an upset tummy if you give him the wrong thing
gets an upset tummy if you give him the wrong thing
Like non-sparkling Evian or Perrier?
haha.
No more like if you give him a new treat he will just run like a river for a day
My cat won't eat canned food that has fish scales in it. Well he will eat it actually, but he'll pick the food out of his bowl and spread it out on the floor to pick out the scales. So I just don't buy fish. Only lamb and chicken and beef.
My cats will eat anything.
My dogs will eat anything not in a bowl. Bowls mean boring dog food.
Commercial cat food is a scam. Apart from being ultra processed, it consists of low cost plant derived protein that is not dietary appropriate. Cats are predatory and evolved to metabolise animal protein.
Plant protein will lower their metabolic health and life expectancy.
The prawns from District 9 loved cat food and were addicted to it.
Without knowing what the average relative lifespans are it is hard to do a comparison. Cats shouldn’t just have soft food as it doesn’t clean their teeth. The need access to regularly replaced good clean water but they get a fair bit of fluid from what they eat so only dry food probably isn’t a good idea either.
Mostly we try to feed our kitties high quality tin and dry food. However, we are currently travelling so I’ve told my cat sitting nephew to just give them whatever they will eat. I will sort out weaning them back to the quality stuff when we return.
My phantom negger at it again. I wonder if they will get bored.
Get a food motivated cat like mine and it will refuse almost nothing.
My last cat would go around the neighbourhood beating up other cats to steal their food. The only way I could stop it was to feed it up so it wasn't ever hungry (and before anyone says "keep your cat inside" bear in mind I also had a father with dementia at the time who would kick the cat out).
Give them the cheap cat food they walk away.
The cats knows that you will give in before they do.
Been cleaning in a non ventilated area?