My cat is almost 5 years old. She is the type to overeat to obesity, probably because she was abandoned at ~1yr by her previous owner. For half her life my partner and I have been feeding her like clockwork 3 times a day, minus all of 2-3 weeks of vacations where our roommate took over.
I have to exert a constant effort to maintain our bedroom door and the rubber that I lined on the jamb to prevent her from rattling the door at 5am to ask for food - the paint is a lost cause. We have a white noise machine. We ignore her cries for food. We ignore her pawing things off our desks. We have a system to keep track of food we give her so she can't "trick" the other person. She knows exactly when we feed her (the meows get cranked up a notch about an hour before food time) but despite not giving in, she keeps acting like meowing at us is going to go anywhere.
No luck. And we know we're not underfeeding her - she's getting the calories appropriate for her (currently normal) weight, is being fed wet food, has fresh water, lots of attention and toys, all that stuff.
Unfortunately we have to give this up because we've got a baby on the way, and it's just so frustrating to lose 2+ years of effort put into having her not weigh 18lbs...
Try an automatic feeder. I have the one mentioned in the article and didn't need to do any extra hardening to protect it from our two cats.
Even though we kept a tight feeding schedule, our cats used to start meowing and pestering us an hour before dinner time. Now, they just sit quietly and stare at the automatic feeder until it dispenses their food.
Second this. Our cat was clearly able to outlast my patience. At one point early-ish into our cat's tenure in our home, during a particularly persistent meowing session I said to my wife (jokingly!), "holy shit I'm going to kill this cat." To which I quickly had the sad realization that some people probably do abuse or kill their pets. So I decided to check for advice from the ASPCA.
All the kitty guides on webbernets say, "be firm and don't give into kitty's demands." Whereas I read on the ASPCA website, "buy an automated feeder."
Guess which worked? Happy automated cat feeder owner, and our cat mostly doesn't drive me insane around feeding times.
For reference, I also own this model of cat feeder and have not needed to harden, though I do have it wedged up next to a wall to lessen risk of tipping.
Fine, fine, I just ordered the Petnet feeder :) Not my first pick, but it supports the 1/16 cup portions I would need to maintain my cat's weight on the dry food that she likes most. I shall see on Christmas Day if she'll tolerate it :D
That's our eventual plan! I haven't ordered one yet since all of them have reviews about cats being able to open them up plus I have to figure out how to transition to a dry food diet again. Mine will paw at the sealed container of bonito flakes we use as treats... I'm 110% counting on needing to harden a feeder.
for our cat it was two simple solutions: 1, feed her about 1/3 of her daily food right before I go to bed; the later she eats the later she gets hungry. 2, when she cries for food before feeding time, I chase her around the apartment with a spray bottle spraying the shit out of her. over time it has gotten much better, not perfect but she definitely learned that crying for food = getting unpleasantly wet.
If spraying works for you that's good. In general it is not recommended to spray because cats generally don't associate punishment well with actions. They are more likely to develop fear of you and/or the object than discouragement for the related concept or activity the punishment is being doled out for.
It was certainly this way with my cat. I really regret the months of different punishments we tried on him to discourage his bad behaviors as it changed his personality.
We use an SSSCat[1] device to keep the door paint(and our night-time sanity) in-tact. It's not entirely reliable but it works enough that it keeps them away from the door.
We turn it on when we close the door at night. The cats haven't figured out when it's on or off, but they have figured out if the door is open, they can run really fast past it and it won't get them.
It did stop the door scratching, but now the door scratching has turned to 5am serenades.
We associate our cat's food with a phone alarm instead of any sort of bothering us. We vary the alarm somewhat over time (three different repeating alarms) so the time of day isn't quite predictable.
This seems to have worked so far to avoid the cat bothering us in the morning.
My cat was on a "diet" similar to yours. I just ended up giving in and letting him eat all the food he wanted, which ended up being less than expected. He just freaked out at having an empty bowl.
He's a very big strong boy now (20ish pounds) and is just very happy.
My thinking was that he's a cat and what's the point of a cat being unhappy for his whole life.
It's possible 20lbs is closer to your cat's ideal weight, since some breeds tend to run large. Mine only hit 18+lbs while we freefed her. Now she's around 12lbs, in good body condition (just a little more abdominal fat she could stand to lose).
We really had to push the weight loss because it was clear she wasn't meant to be so big. Her asthma was significantly worse when she weighed more (multiple attacks a week vs now I don't even remember the last one within the past year), and there were huge patches of her body covered in greasy dandruff because she couldn't groom herself. It would have eventually led to a lot of problems. Better for us to put up with her antics than to watch a painful death, really.
Extra abdominal fat in felines is a feature, not a bug - the 'primordial pouch'[1] which provides some extra protection in fights, and allows for a longer stride (with all four legs spread out more when running). But you know your cat best.
My cat is almost 5 years old. She is the type to overeat to obesity, probably because she was abandoned at ~1yr by her previous owner. For half her life my partner and I have been feeding her like clockwork 3 times a day, minus all of 2-3 weeks of vacations where our roommate took over.
I have to exert a constant effort to maintain our bedroom door and the rubber that I lined on the jamb to prevent her from rattling the door at 5am to ask for food - the paint is a lost cause. We have a white noise machine. We ignore her cries for food. We ignore her pawing things off our desks. We have a system to keep track of food we give her so she can't "trick" the other person. She knows exactly when we feed her (the meows get cranked up a notch about an hour before food time) but despite not giving in, she keeps acting like meowing at us is going to go anywhere.
No luck. And we know we're not underfeeding her - she's getting the calories appropriate for her (currently normal) weight, is being fed wet food, has fresh water, lots of attention and toys, all that stuff.
Unfortunately we have to give this up because we've got a baby on the way, and it's just so frustrating to lose 2+ years of effort put into having her not weigh 18lbs...