ANDRE BEGIN

When we lived in the city, I remember Ivy’s vet saying that for an indoor cat, she was in good shape and didn’t need to lose weight. However, the comment came with a little asterisk. I was warned to keep an eye on her dietary habits and not let her gain more.

When we moved to the country it was a different story. Our new vet recommended a change in diet to bring her weight under control as well as to reduce the chance of diseases that can affect older cats.

At first, I wondered if the vets were contradicting each other, but I realized that there was a pretty good chance that they were both right. The city vet saw her as a teenager and as an adult cat, while the country vet saw her as a middle-aged cat approaching her senior years. I heeded the warnings of the country vet and agreed to the change in diet.

Needless to say, anyone who has been on a diet knows that it isn’t always easy. In Ivy’s case, she went from always having food out and grazing lightly through the day to having a measured quantity of food available at specific times. It was a challenging transition for us all as her pet parents received an earful during the change. There were times she was quite hangry over the situation.

Gradually, she got used to the change, but there were some days when she was not completely satisfied. She inhaled her dry food as fast as we put it down. Puzzle toys were recommended as a way to slow down the process, giving her a “hunting” activity to access the kibble and to feel rewarded when she found the treat.

I didn’t gravitate to expensive puzzles at first. With cats, toys can be a hit or a miss with very little middle ground. To splurge on an expensive toy can sometimes lead to disappointment for a well-intentioned pet parent.

The first thing I tried was a simple cardboard egg carton. She took to it right away in being able to see and smell the kibble and go into problem-solving mode to try to scoop each morsel out of the egg cups.

The strange thing was that she licked her paw after every scooping attempt. I had never seen her do anything like that before. Was it something about the texture of the cardboard egg carton? Unfortunately, the novelty of the egg carton puzzle wore off as she started ignoring it despite the availability of kibble.

Shortly thereafter, on a trip to a discount store, I noticed that they had ice cube trays of different sizes, shapes and depths. I wondered if she might take to those instead. I started with an ice cube tray with shallow round compartments. She mastered this one right away and loved it. She could stick her little paw into the compartment and slide a morsel of kibble up the walls like a champ, no licking required. Once she successfully released it, she would bat it to the floor and enjoy her reward.

To increase the challenge and to slow down her kibble intake, I stepped up to an ice cube tray with a deeper well. Unfortunately, this one was not a hit. I could tell that after a session during which she wasn’t as successful in moving kibble up the taller compartment, she would take a step back, sit down and look up at me as if to say, “Oh come on Dad, really?” After a couple of days of being subjected to her look of deep disappointment in me, I decided to return to the shallow ice cube tray, which then became our standard.

Fortunately, between the diet food, the ice cube tray puzzle and the leash walks around our country property, we were able to bring down her weight. It didn’t happen overnight, but we successfully got to a point where the vet stopped offering weight loss suggestions.

However, last November, Ivy developed an illness that required treatment with a different kind of food. Interestingly, she loved her new food and wasn’t prone to overeat. I could leave out measured doses of her wet and dry food and know that she would graze throughout the day and not ask for more. As a result, the ice cube tray was washed and put away as its purpose had been served.

One day, after a stretch of dreary winter weather and Ivy looked bored, I cycled through her toys to see what might spark some playtime fun. As an experiment, I took out her favourite ice cube tray and placed a few pieces of dry kibble in the compartments. To Ivy’s great interest, she found her pieces of kibble right away and asked for a few more. From that day forward, we continued taking out the ice cube tray as a form of entertainment more than anything else.

The part that I did not expect was that on certain days, despite her full day’s allotment of food available to her, she’d choose the ice cube tray and its individual kibble pieces over a bowl full of kibble. And when she would ask for more, I’d transfer a few from the full bowl right next to it, put them in different compartments of the ice cube tray, and she’d continue playing. Believe it or not, the ice cube tray has become her favourite.

Yes, I know it’s weird. But that’s my cat!

That being the case, I think we’ve reached a sweet spot where she enjoys her new prescription food, is able to graze from her regular bowl without overeating and the ice cube tray is no longer needed as a tool to slow her down, but rather as a source of joy, entertainment and to keep her hunting skills sharp.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André