Feeds cat 4-8 times a day

Human2139

My mother has one cat. Sometimes she thinks there are more that pop by. But when prompted, she catches herself and realizes there is only one cat. Regardless of the number of cats that she perceives, she overfeed them. She sets out 4-8 bowls filled with wet food per day. This creates a bad situation as most of it rots, or dries out. This creates an unbearable odor, that my parents have become used to. We'd love to get her down to feeding her cat once a day.

So far, we have canceled the bulk of her Chewy orders, had her write out a sign that reads "Only one bowl of food at a time", hid all the bowls but one, and tried an automatic feeder. All attempts have failed for a variety of reasons.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a way to coax her out of this routine?

SDianeL

welcome. Sorry about your Mom. Unfortunately there is no way to stop behaviors because you can’t reason with her. As we say, her reasoner is broken. Her short term memory is gone. You can only control the environment. Hide all the food. Put it in a cabinet above her head. Most people with dementia don’t look up. If she does, then lock the cabinet. Can your Dad or someone else feed the cat? Read the book “The 36 Hour Day” and have your Dad read it too. It will help you help her. Also search online for dementia caregiving videos. Tam Cummings and Teepa Snow have good ones.

harshedbuzz

@Human2139

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but please you found this place. This is a super common situation; many PWD become fixated on feeding their pets and often to the animals' detriment. In some cases it's because they don't recall feeding the pet already and in others it can be a way to buy affection especially if the animal has become wary of the PWD's behaviors. A friend's mom started to "discipline" her cats by shooing them away and yelling at them in German which made them avoid her, so she took to feeding the one who was motivated by food from her plate which made the cat sick.

In extreme cases, the pet needs to be rehomed for their own wellbeing. In at least one instance here, a PWD was the one placed because of their reactions to being redirected or distracted from this and other dangerous behaviors.

Your dad, as live-in caregiver, needs to take a more proactive approach to this behavior. Is there some reason he's allowed this to continue? Is his cognition compromised? The stress of caregiving or his own early cognitive impairment can sometimes result in a caregiver not being as proactive as they should be. Or is your mom's reaction to being restricted in any way such that he avoids taking charge when he should?

The food needs to be locked where mom can't get to it and plates that have been out 2 hours need to be picked up and discarded for the safety of the cat. Since it sounds as though she really loves the cat, perhaps a fiblet about the vet saying kitty needs a special food/feeding schedule could help explain changes to her. Many vets would be OK with multiple smaller feeding through the day. Could your dad tie the cat's meals to their own meals? If part of the odor is dad being too busy to deal with clean up, I'd suggest switching to paper plates for the cat that can just be tossed. When my DS was a baby and I lived in an old house sans dishwasher, I fed my cats' their canned food off paper dessert plates.

Good luck.
HB

psg712

Oh wow this brings back memories. When my mom lived alone in her own place, she fed her cat many times per day. He was about 28 pounds by the time we moved her to AL. Kitty moved with her, but we kept a minimum amount of cat food in her room. At first she was panicked by this and kept calling me to say he was almost out of food. She eventually adjusted and fed him more reasonable amounts.

As her dementia progressed, she started forgetting to feed the cat at all. I was there often enough to help out with this, but the day I came in to find kitty pawing at a dry water bowl and mewing hoarsely while she sat oblivious to his distress was heartbreaking. I'm not a cat lover, but this was pitiful. So I got automatic food and water dispensers. She messed with the food dispenser a couple of times but never the water dispenser. After a while she didn't even notice them.

From once being obsessed with the cat's every move, she got to a point of completely ignoring him. We rehomed him when she moved from AL to memory care. She has not mentioned him at all. Out of sight, out of mind. And the person who gave him a home reports that he is active, friendly with her other cats, and is now at a healthy weight. I'm happy for him. And I don't miss changing his litter!