Cat goes NUTS when I cook...

[Apocrypha428]

Originally Posted by purr machine

so is tuna juice ok for them? salt-wise?

I wouldn't do it everyday.. but as a treat every now and then I think it should be just fine.

[jusjim]

Zenobi never bothered me, but if it's chicken that I've just cooked, even if Missy is sleeping at the other end of the house, she's sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor staring up at me with her, "Where's my share ?" look.

I give her a little and she's satisfied unless she's hungry and then I give her her food to get her out from underfoot.

I worry that I'm doing the wrong thing. I'm alone and sort of old. Am I giving her bad habits that will get her into trouble if something happens to me and she needs to be rehomed?

On the other hand, she had the bad habits before she came to me, and I have great sympathy for cats who have to sit on the floor and stare up at us and hope we get them message. (This last note is not for those whose cats patrol the kitchen counter. )

Stop worrying about tuna juice and salt aslong as they're not getting pickled. I'm not sure they get enough. I dropped a potato chip one time (bad food for me. ???), Missy jumped on it and started frantic licking for the salt. For most cats, they're finicky enough about food that I trust them not to eat what's bad. Plants excepted.

[Marcia]

Originally Posted by purr machine

Seriously.. Nuts!!!
Especially when I make something involving chicken or fish, it seems like a slow torture for him. He can definitely smell it, and wants some of it.. He is begging for some of human food.

Now a question.. should I give in and give him some of it? Or will it just enforce the behavior? I do not mind giving him some salt-free spice-free chicken stock, but I also do not know if in the future he will think it is ok to meow for as long as it takes to get a treat?

He has a canned food diet, a great variety of flavors, sometimes with dome quality dry food mixed in... So I don't think his own cat food is lacking in any way..

How do you deal with cooking at home and cat smelling the tasty human food?

Sure!! Dogs will eat anything, but cats are pretty picky by nature. When we sit down our Zipper and Missy (avatar in better days) will sit and just stare at us. We offer morsels of whatever we are eating and sometimes they turn up their noses and sometimes they love it! Baked some salmon the other night and Zip wouldn't touch it while Missy would have eaten ALL of mine!

[librarychick]

I have four cats as well and I cook with them all out and about.

The only thing I actually put any of them away for is when I'm doing serious cleaning, then I put the boys away. Otherwise they have to 'help', aka pat what I'm wiping, put fresh nose-prints on clean windows, pat the water in the bucket, ect.

I don't give them samples very often, and when I do they always do something in return. So I'll ask each of them for one of their tricks, then everyone gets a little bite of whatever I'm cooking. I'd say less than once a week.

About once a month i cook something that has some component to it that they can eat with their dinner, so I'll save a portion and divide it into their meal portion later. Things like shrimp (1/2 shrimp per cat), salmon or trout (I always buy whole so I save the heads, tails, and other trimmings to be chopped up and mixed into their meal), anything with hamburger means I set aside tiny bits of it, um...that sort of thing. Oh! Raw eggs (less than once a month) I split 2 eggs between all four cats, whisked together then poured over their dinner as 'sauce', lol.

With all of that they don't beg when I'm cooking. The only time any of them is annoying is if I leave the kitchen for too long (which results in kitties sniffing what ever's cooking, and me having a minor heart attack when I find a cat stealing piping hot food from the pan...*sigh*), or if I bake. Doran has a thing about flour...if I leave the container on the counter and turn around he's got his front two paws and his whole muzzle stuffed into the bin. Seriously, why does he like it!? But he does, it's weird. If I leave loose flour on the counter, like if I've been kneading bread and wasn't quite done, I come back to find the flour spread out as far as possible and flour-y prints EVERYWHERE. And Doran. Sitting innocently in the middle of the kitchen. Flour on his whole face and up to his elbows. *sigh*

[Kitty-The-Cat]

Originally Posted by purr machine

so is tuna juice ok for them? salt-wise?

My guess is it probably has a little too much salt for them, but as long as you only do it once in a while (as I do) it's probably no big deal.

[Mitts & Tess]

I never cook. I'm the carry out queen. My cat and fosters think when I'm in the kitchen it is to open a can of food for them so they all congregate!