Le Grand Changement de Nourriture (Plan A Partie 1)

~ iamthesunking

Although we are not Christians, Cat Daddy and I are praying for an Easter miracle: I have decided to bring forward Le Grand Changement since I am home to monitor the proceedings properly. Cat Daddy is, of course, home all the time, but this is a situation that requires the organised, responsible human, not the naughty one.

Plus, after reading the PDSA link properly (see previous post), I realise that it’s a two-week process from start to finish. Since we’re down to our last pack of Lily’s Kitchen, this gives us very little wriggle room should our mutual friend appear to cooperate throughout and then inexplicably change his mind on Day 14.

The PDSA tell us to place a normal serving of old food alongside a very small serving of new food, each in a separate bowl (see below). After the débâcle when I broke Catorze’s favourite one, I wasn’t going to confuse the daft sausage by introducing yet ANOTHER plate in the space of a few weeks, so I thought I might try, instead, to harness his dislike of the black saucer and use it to push him towards the new food.

Anyway, here are the two plates pictured at 7am on the first day:

Sammypuss bowl: Thrive (top) and Pill Pocket (bottom). Satan’s saucer: Lily’s Kitchen Marvellously Mature.

Catorze ate the pill quite early on, but barely touched either set of food until around 10pm, when he ate the lot. For his next two meals, however, he ate most of the Lily’s Kitchen and absolutely none of the Thrive. Apparently this kind of caper is normal for a new food trial, not that this helps us particularly.

Cat Daddy: “He’s confused by the two plates. We should put the two foods onto one plate.”

Me: “Not only did that not work last time, but we didn’t even realise it wasn’t working until weeks into it.”

Cat Daddy: “Well, if he doesn’t eat, he’ll die. Tough shit.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this.

Incidentally, I do have both a Plan B and a Plan C in mind should Plan A not work out, but I can see us running the whole alphabetic gauntlet and still getting nowhere.

28 thoughts on “Le Grand Changement de Nourriture (Plan A Partie 1)”

  1. Huh… Well this is a fascinating experiment. Apparently, le roi could see and smell the food on the diable plate all along but he pretended not to be able to until the good food was proffered on it and the new, questionable food on the new, beloved sammypuss bowl. Meanwhile, CD is at peace with the roi’s starvation but it’s really CM (Cat Mommy)’s fault because she broke le roi’s preferred bowl to begin with. On behalf of all le roi’s devoted followers, may I request a Cliff Notes version in case you move to Plan B, C, or further down the alphabet?

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    1. Oh yes, somehow it has all turned out to be my fault. Poor Catorze is genuinely flummoxed by two plates. 😐😐😐

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        1. I know. I fear this is exactly what’s happening. How has evolution created an animal that likes literally one food and nothing else?

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            1. I shall say this again: how did evolution give us animals who would rather starve than eat something 1% less tasty than their favourite?

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  4. Le Roi: “How daft are these fools to not realize that I shall NOT attempt to consume any ‘food’ that has not been tried by my Royal Taster? (Whom I have yet to prove is on staff.)I fear for my very life! C’est dur etre un roi!”

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          1. Seriously, there was a dog who stopped eating when his owners brought a new baby home. They realised after a while that he was worried the baby wasn’t visibly eating, so they put a bowl of dog food on the baby’s crib and one next to it, and the dog ate because he thought the baby was finally being fed.

            Also, when I first got KitKat, her bowls were in the hall. (Literally just out of sight from my bed, where I spend 100% of my time, but obviously far enough to be a problem.) She’d come to yell at me, go to her bowl, come back and yell some more. The internet at some point and somehow (dodgy memory so I can’t remember specifics) made me move her bowls into my bedroom where I could watch her eat. She’d go to her bowl, check over her shoulder that I was there, and start eating: she just wanted someone to protect her while she was vulnerable. (Years later, I don’t think she really cares anymore, which is nice because she obviously feels much safer, but her bowls are still on the cat tree in the bedroom.)

            Point being, as you’re well aware, cats are super weird. I was kind of semi joking, but also it’s a real suggestion: it really might be worth pretending to eat his food. If nothing else, he might decide to eat it to keep your sorry mitts off it. 😂

            Also have you considered feeding him from a wine glass? 🤣

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            1. He used to drink water from a wine glass until Cat Daddy kicked it over and smashed it! 🤣🤣🤣

              THE DOG WAS WORRIED THAT THE BABY WASN’T BEING FED? 😱😱😱

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            2. I remember! (One of those weird random factoids that has no reason to stick to my brain but does anyway, pushing aside all the actual important information I, you know, actually need. 😂)

              I didn’t know CD had broken it, though. And he’s giving you a hard time about the bowl?! *tuts in British*

              Yeah, I don’t know the details, it was just something that came up on my Reddit feed and the caption wasn’t as forthcoming as I’d like now it might help His Maj. Just that I guess this particular dog wasn’t aware that human babies breastfeed/drink formula for a while before they’re weaned like puppies do? And it was basically going on a hunger strike to get the parents to do their job? 😬 So kudos to whoever thought “that dog might not be eating because it doesn’t see the baby eating” and kudos to the parents for taking that advice and running with it. The dog eats just fine when it thinks the baby’s being fed too, from what I can tell. 🤷‍♀️

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            3. What a strange dog! That’s just BEYOND weird! It does sound, however, as if the dog cared about the baby and sort of went on hunger strike in a show of solidarity. Whereas cats couldn’t give a hoot about us. 🤣🤣🤣

              Yes, Cat Daddy broke the wine glass. However, we didn’t have to endure any issues with the replacement – no Grand Changement de Verre – so he got away with it! 🙄

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            4. SOME cats, maybe. /side eyes Catorze/ But KitKat’s full name includes “Nurse” so I think you just drew the short straw there. xD

              Hmph. Tell Cat Dad that he hasn’t got away with it, after all. The internet is judging him. The internet is judging him HARD.

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  6. Try putting whatever is in the white bowl into the black one and vice versa and see if it is the food or the plates that he objects to. Good luck. (If there was another chat in the household he might eat just to keep it from them,,, but that would definitely be borrowing troublle. )

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    1. He deffo likes the white bowl, I know that. It took a few days but he got used to it. So it is the food. 🙄

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