Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Mud room

Feeding six cats at a sitting can sometimes be a challenge, especially when three of them are adolescents just learning table manners,and one is very shy and easily scared away from her food. Once the kittens reach a certain age I move from a communal plate to individual dishes to help them learn self-control, and to more easily police meals so everyone gets a chance to eat.

That's easy with two or three, not so easy with six. The routine that we have settled into is that the three little girls get their plates in the mud room, I shut the door to the kitchen and feed the bigs there. After they (the bigs) have clearly eaten all they want, I open the door and the not-so-little-anymores usually clean the plates. As long as dinner is something they like.

Sometimes it's not. We went through a few trials of new food last month, trying to help John eliminate cheese and grains from his diet to see if food allergies might be playing a role in his gingivitis (probably not). With a few of those meals, this is what I found when I opened the door.





What's that? A rug? Well, yes, it's the rug by the mud room door, usually the place to leave wet shoes when you come inside. That's what Mud Rooms are for, primarily, or in addition to a place to feed kittens.



But the rug looked a little bumpy, and it's what's under it that is important. Looks like that dinner choice wasn't very popular. (Seri is very good at covering things.)

This is a more typical sight: three fat and happy postprandial kittens, wondering why it is taking so long for that darn door to open. (Oops. Forgot again.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny!!

We feed our cat in the laundry room. It's been awhile since she's done this but occasionally we'd find some laundry that had been dragged over to cover the offending food.

The dog also tries to cover her food once and awhile. If that doesn't work she carries a mouthful of kibble to the living room sofa and stores it in the cushions! I guess that's for a latter snack. My dog isn't fussy and eats just about anything but then so does our cat.

Dma said...

I can't imagine mealtime for six kitties. Three is difficult enough. Theo eats so slowly that I have to watch until he's done or Diego will gladly help him out.