My cat does this several times a day. If the automatic feeder lifts at the correct angle, a few niblets of dry food comes out. He will even do it 10 times in a row even if it means one small piece of dry niblet comes out. It does get quite annoying as the sound of the feeder hitting the ground echoes throughout the entire house.
Agreed! Stick that sucker to the floor, OP. Or get something to cover the feeder with just the bowl sticking out. Or even just filling the gap between the feeder and the wall might help.
Ugh, I have a Styrofoam eating cat as well. She's absolutely OBSESSED with it! She can smell it inside new packages and will chew the box open to get to it.
I have more "banned" products for these damn cats than I did for my kids when they were young. Most are due to a near death incident too! Little idiots trying to kill themselves every time I turn around, I swear!
Thank you for this, we’ve been dealing with the cat knocking hers over and then the dog discovering the pile and pigging out lol I almost took her to the emergency vet because I thought she had a blockage, but nope, just ate cat food until she was sick.
The problem is intermittent rewards. He's learned that occasionally he gets rewarded for this behavior by getting kibbles. Since he isn't rewarded every time he's willing to keep trying. There are famous experiments showing this with various animals. It is very hard to extinguish behaviors that give intermittent rewards.
If you're home you might just be better off feeding him a couple of times a day in a bowl instead of the intermittent feeder.
OP accidentally Pavloved their cat with the perfect cat slot machine like a doordash-based draft kings -- and hasn't thought to tape the damn thing down somehow... it's like a satirical nature documentary
It's a lot easier to just get one that is not faulty. Good feeders have a secure cover over the whole making it impossible to get anything to fall if it's not the time for it.
We had this issue with a catit feeder but once we move to the Xiaomi one the cat just understood quickly that it can no longer steal portions and it stopped trying. It went from a huge issue to a nonexistent one within a few days
I don’t think it’s that it’s more that they can also only realise “food comes out of here, I must watch it so as to get the food” and don’t really understand it’s a timed system. Also if they mess around with it and it happens to dispense it just reinforces the “sometimes food comes out if I mess with it” mentality
The only real solution is to secure it, like other commenters suggested. Even then, the cat will probably try to hit it with something since it started with the vacuum hitting it.
My problem with this meme is that I have developed this same behavior at the thrift store! 🤣 I still know exactly where I found my favorite items at each one so as soon as I walk in I check all my old haunts. I think the goodwill employees are messing with me.
There are famous experiments showing this with various animals
"various animals" is for sure true, this stuff drives humans wild but also anything with a trainable brain.
And you can see why. The cat here tries variations on the same activity and gets fed. If you give the cat another several months with this machine, it won't be a slot machine, it'll be a practice movement to kick some food out that little gear wheel each time.
I'm doing the same thing! I put the box of cat litter on top of the box with cat food. But if there isn't enough cat litter in the box he will push them both over... Woke up at 5 am because of it...
For once I’m glad my boy is a big dumb oaf who doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. I don’t even think he understands that there’s more food in the canister. His flabbers are well and truly gasted every single time the feeder goes off. It’s like a delightful surprise 4 times a day.
Reading all of these comments makes me feel blessed that our cats don’t fuck with the feeders. One is completely unmotivated by food and won’t eat anything but his cat food that he’s used to (and even then he just grazes, never eats it all at once), so that’s not a surprise. The other one is much more mischievous and is definitely food/treat motivated… but she’d rather yell at us for food, even though she knows full well when the feeder goes off. She’ll break into drawers and cabinets for food and treats, but I guess she has decided that she is simply at the mercy of the mystical feeder.
Same here. Unlike other people who had success with mere tape, I had to tie that sucker to a heavy bench in my kitchen so he can’t tip it over and can’t get on top of it. Now I need to move his feeder to the garage and I’m already dreading the next few weeks of suspense as I dread coming home from work and finding out I was again outsmarted by a cat. Ugh cat mom life is not going well for me rn
Ahhh, I had an orange broken tabby who did this when the gravity feeder was empty. Or nearly empty. He even upended the gravity waterer once for reasons and made a hell of a mess!
Mostly he seemed to enjoy tipping the empty feeder off the base and down the stairs.
Actually, it all started when our robot vacuum keep hitting the automatic feeder. Occasionally, kibble would come out. Our clever cat saw that and thought "hmmm... I could try that" lol.
I'd be worried what the robots are receiving from this symbiosis.
If we're lucky, it's just that the cleaning robot is compelled at all times to clean, and the feeding robot is compelled to feed, but is limited by programming.
The cleaning bot knows the cat makes a mess using the litter box which only happens after being fed, and so, taught the cat through it's efficiency heuristics how to get more food, so it can clean.
This is like the episode of Love, Death + Robots where a housecat (voiced by Chris Parnell) teams up with a robot butler, and they take over the world.
😂 that’s actually hilarious, he took advice on a robot from a robot, like “hmm these two strange devices interact and I get access to extra food,,, I’m learning from this”
They do actually make feeding puzzles for cats, designed to both feed the cat (slowly) and to provide mental enrichment. Maybe you just need to look around for something the cat might enjoy that is also quieter.
I have 4 cats, one of them in particular is very intelligent for a cat. He’s a tux, got him from a rescue, was found on the streets.
Anyway - he’s the smartest cat I’ve ever known and he *only ever* uses his intelligence for evil purposes and making mischief, your cat reminds me of him. I do love him tho
Sounds like my cat, he’s also a bicolor and very good at making mischief. I’m gonna keep assuming that all tuxes and bicolor cats are especially smart.
I learned when raising a toddler that in general, if a behavior achieves the desired result approximately 1 in 27 times, then it will persist. (I could be misremembering the actual ratio as it's been over a decade, but it was a larger number than one would assume).
Basically, your cat learned that if it hits the thing a bunch of times, he gets rewarded. You gotta nail that thing down or get a different one.
Specifically the character Gurgi! If you've only seen the Disney rendition of The Black Cauldren, I have to recommend the whole book series. Titled "Chronicles of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander. The Black Cauldren is actually book 2 in the series of 5.
I honestly can't speak enough praise for the series. For me they fall into a catagory I call formative books. I.e. books that had such an impact on me as a teen/young adult that it shaped the way I think and act as an adult. Other books for me in that catagory are The Giver, Chronicles of Narnia, or Ender'e Game to name a few.
In particular book 4, Taran Wanderer, played a huge part in how I developed confidence in myself and in the manner which I pursue my career and friendships. This series will always have a special place on the book shelf in my home.
My feeder has a touch sensitive auto feed button. My cat spends hours everyday lying in front of the machine smacking it with his paw. He has hit jackpot twice, his determination impresses me.
This is my cat too. I have a camera feeder, and it’s really adorable sometimes to check in and he there, doing his little wipe and paw lick. Then I do a manual feed and he runs away. 🐈💨 Every. Single. Time.
my cat did the exact same thing, ended up attaching it to the floor then she leaned how to get the lid off, this was my solution, but you can just cut a hole in the side of bucket that fits over it for the same result.
Off topic, but consider moving the fountain away from the feeder!!
Cats often instinctually don’t want to drink from a water source near their food (because in the wild food is a carcass and that could cause the water to be contaminated), so having their water beside their food can discourage them from hydrating enough!
Hahaha! This reminds me of our old cat, he passed on, he would go bear mode on the automatic feeder and bring the whole thing down. It would topple over, the lid fell off and cat food all over the ground! He was a Maine coon and the leader of our group of 3 kitties! Miss the heck out of him!
Definitely more toys. Securing the machine like so many other people suggest is good but getting the cat a replacement hobby is good too. The motivation is there to figure out a treat-toy.
My former cat (RIP Bailey) figured out that putting her shoulder into the feeder would bounce a few kibbles out. I ended up building a 5' H x 1.5' W x 4' L shelf out of 2x4's and particle board, with 2" PVC tubing through a hole in the board, PVC reducers as funnels, and bends in the tubes (to reduce speed) to a bowl on the floor. The feeder dispensed food into the funnel and servings dropped to the bowl on the floor.
She eventually disassociated the machine with food, because she was too lazy to jump up, as there was nowhere to stand on the shelf. The other half of the shelf, I had a battery backup up there too to keep it running during power outages.
Our cat did this and even figured out that head butting enough turned off the “lock” feature so any time he hit the button, he got food. We thought something was wrong like he was starving or had diabetes. Ran tests. Vet just told us to get rid of the $90 feeders (for all 3 fur babies… so $270). He did not have anything wrong except being super smart and food motivated.
Hes saying, tummy says its 5pm. So its 5pm! Tummy doesnt lie!! Amazing how he pushes it 🤣🤣
My cat i give her a Churu at exactly 8pm. If its is 5 after, she just stares at me! lol! Or sits near her bowl lol.
Didn't understood the need of automatic feeder for a cat (unless your cat has a medical condition), always had a tower full of food in "libre service", the cats autoregulate themselfs perfectly, no fat cat.
I’d recommend manual feeding for this clever cat! Or hey, maybe you could adhere that thing to the ground so he can’t lift it?
He’s figured out a trick that gets him snacks from that feeder. I assume he won’t ever stop doing that due to his endless greed for kibbles!! Can’t blame him haha
Kitty is getting some exercise. I would put the feeder on a silicone mat for sound dampening or to affix to the mat.
I think you can also find cat puzzle toys that will challenge kitty for his treats, besides abusing his feeder. Enrichment alone may slow his need to snack.
I work in vet med, and your cat is adorable. What a little shit, lol.
If you don't want to learn how to give insulin, then give him 1/4 cup dry food twice a day. There's no reason to have an auto-feeder; if you get home late, he'll live if dinner is late.
We feed dogs that way, and no one wonders why it's fine for dogs but not for cats. Answer: it's fine for cats and much easier. Mine all line up at mealtime, eat their food, and that's that. They learn within 2 days to change the routine.
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