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September 24, 2005 8:32 AM

There's always cat food all over my kitchen floor. Help!

My cats eat Science Diet dry, which is pressed into small rolly shapes. One of my cats is a messy eater. He flings the food around as he eats so there's always cat crunchies spread around the food dishes. Not only that: once he's eaten some of the food in a dish, he regards the lower layer as a kind of reject substance, and simply nags me till I top the dishes up again. It's messy, and - worse - it's wasteful. This food (I've got older cats and am feeding them the premium geezer food) is not cheap.

The cat dishes are shallow, the floor is wooden, the cats seem to be otherwise quite happy. Anyone solved a similar problem?

posted by zadcat to Pets & Animals (15 answers total)

Perhaps use two bowls, fill the second one up, then dump the leftovers from the other bowl. I doubt that the bottom layer is "stale"; just that cats in general seem to not eat/drink the lower layer (my cat does the same thing with water and food). That way it all eventually gets eaten, but you're not risking that the lower layer really does get stale because it just sits there.

I use an outdoor-style mud mat to catch stray litter so it doesn't make a mess in a similar fashion. If that doesn't disturb them, that may work to also catch food. Or try a deeper bowl.

(I feel your pain. I also use SD old geezer food and he's decided he doesn't even like it anymore!)
posted by artifarce at 8:45 AM on September 24, 2005

Get a dog. My cat Gus lifts his kibble out of the dish (which is on a table) and slap-shoots it across the kitchen. Then he jumps down, races over to it and gobbles it down. The problem was that he shot more than he ate, leaving cat food all over the floor. But after a few days of observing Gus at his game, Pokey the Dog realized that she had a brand-new source of food, and now races Gus to the bits on the floor.
posted by words1 at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2005

You can get a rubbery mat that has a raised lip (it looks a bit like a cafeteria tray) at a pet supply store. My cats love to knock food out of their bowl (although they do at least eat it afterwards) and the mat keeps everything pretty well contained.

It also means that if they slosh water it doesn't leave a puddle on the wood floor for 8 hours while we're out of the house.
posted by bcwinters at 9:09 AM on September 24, 2005

I second bcwinters' recommendation. I just got one at PetCo. My cat knocks dry food out of her dish and when she has wet food it ends up on the floor, on the wall, and in her water. This has helped a bit. She's a Persian so I blame her weird smooshed face for making it hard to pick up food, but maybe she just enjoys tossing the it around.
posted by jdl at 9:37 AM on September 24, 2005

Ha! I just solved this recently. I third bcwinters - picked up a rubber topped mat. My cats used to drag their bowls all over the house (spilling food and water along the way). One is clumsy and only eats with his paws, which means flinging food. I haven't had a mess since getting the mat.

(they have unsmooshed snouts, so I just blame creepy cuteness)
posted by zerokey at 10:03 AM on September 24, 2005

I use a cloth placemat under my cat's dishes, and the food doesn't travel.
posted by caitlinb at 12:39 PM on September 24, 2005

As for the "rejected" food. I just leave it. When he's hungry, he'll eat. I have the advantage of having just one cat, though.
posted by caitlinb at 12:40 PM on September 24, 2005

A plastic tray from Ikea solved my cat's tendency to pick up a piece of food, step back, chew, and drop huge crumbs on the hardwood floor (attracting ants). At first, it kept her crumbs off the floor (and the lip around the edge of the tray kept the ants from the crumbs) but she's since found the tray-edge to be enough of a hassle that she now chews right above the bowl.
posted by onshi at 12:41 PM on September 24, 2005

We have this same issue with 3 cats, so we put the cat food dish in the back of a 2' long box from a Costco 12-pack of soymilk, the end of which has been cut off. It's large enough for them to eat comfortably, easily replaceable when it gets dingy, and contains the mess quite well.
posted by pmbuko at 2:01 PM on September 24, 2005

Response by poster: Good ideas! The cat is a random tabby cat with a normal unsmooshed face, so it can't be blamed on that. He's just a goof. I will shop for a tray or mat-like thing and see how it works out.

Acquiring a dog is not an option.
posted by zadcat at 4:21 PM on September 24, 2005

Maybe try raising the bowl a bit? Maybe he's got discomfort with (or just dislikes) bending down far enough to get the food at the bottom.
posted by winston at 4:58 PM on September 24, 2005

Regarding the rejected food: both of my cats do this, and I found taking two or three bits of cat food, putting it in the bowl, and mixing up the existing food a little with my fingers satifies them enough to eat it.
posted by thebabelfish at 6:38 PM on September 24, 2005

Now that the messy thing seems fixed, may I?

Our cat eats fancy kibble, she’s a total smoosh-face, but she’s not too messy with it. My problem is that she seems to require me to shake her dish every few minutes after filling it, and I can’t figure out what she‘s REALLY crying for me to do. Can it be that she really does want me to gather the remaining kibble (there’s often more than half of it left) back into a neat pile in the corner of her dish? Seems to satisfy her, and she digs back in with enthusiasm, however briefly. But soon she’ll be back pawing at my leg, mewing piteously. I can take it for only so many repetitions , then she gets unceremoniously plopped on the deck. Which also seems to suit her. I ask you: Who’s the dumb one in this ritual?
posted by dpcoffin at 8:02 PM on September 24, 2005

My cats used to whine until I shook the bowl, dpcoffin--I thought they wanted "fresh" food and I was tricking them. But they stopped when we switched to a different brand of food. I guess they just didn't like that one.
posted by bcwinters at 9:10 PM on September 24, 2005

Bowl holders with lips are definately the way to go -- I picked up a couple of plastic serving trays on the cheap at a garage sale, and they do the job well (and can even be tossed in the dishwasher.)

dpcoffin -- smoosh face = persian/hemi/zot? She's probably convinced that shaking the bowl is the same as you adding fresh food :-) Persians are neat cats, but they're seldom long in the brains department (a friend of mine that breeds them insists that regardless of the color of the fur, deep down all Persians are genetically blonde :-)

(with apologies to persian lovers & blondes)
posted by nonliteral at 12:46 AM on September 25, 2005