Quandary

[desperance]

Barry eats faster than Mac; and then, if I don't stand over them and keep them apart till Mac is done, he muscles in and eats the residue of Mac's meal too.

Very briefly, while dealing out their tea this evening, I had a bright idea: if I give Mac more than Baz, then Baz will only get to eat the excess that should have been his in the first place, and all will be equal and well.

But then, of course, I realised the flaw in this, that Baz would then finish eating even sooner, and so muscle in on Mac earlier, and so eat even more of Mac's. Or would it all work out the same anyway...?

Oh, I dunno. There's probably an equation, like the one that says that hot tea cools down quicker than cool tea, or something. Greedy cat eats quicker than idiot cat, but if a cat is both greedy and an idiot, then...

If you saw them while tea is being laded out, you'd think Mac was the greedy one; he's the one that make the desperate O-my-god-I'm-dying-of-the-hunger fuss. But Baz inhales, where Mac stops to chew. Idiot.

Comments

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

We have a similar problem: Cleo (age 14, hyperthyroid) gets senior hairball dry food, but Ranae (also age 14, diabetic) is on "kitty-Atkins-diet" (a gourmet wet food called Fancy Feast, which is of course much more delectable but also much more expensive). I feed them in separate locations, give Cleo a taste of Fancy Feast in the morning, try to remember not to wander off when I've put Ranae's food down for her. Cleo has Gotten the Idea that yummy food served in the kitchen is Not For Her, and she communicates her displeasure vocally. Loudly.

And then, there's the dog (Oka, 90 lb. German Shepherd Dog), who -- despite his otherwise admirable obedience training -- has developed the uncanny knack of knowing exactly when my back will be turned and dashing into the kitchen with lightning speed. He can down an entire can of Fancy Feast in one gulp, or so it seems. Again, it won't hurt anything but our budget and his house manners. And our budget can't afford to feed him on this stuff, too!

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

There is an alarmingly elegant experiment including the solution to this, though it's for chimps, and I suspect cats are too clever and Bolshy to take part in a chimp experiment, but anyway:

You first train the chimp in a long thin run with a lever at one end that operates a food dispenser at the other end, so they have to push the lever and then go to the other end to eat. You then put two chimps in the same run, a dominant one and a victim, perhaps thinking in human terms that the bully would wait by the dispenser while the victim has to go and push the lever.

But of course the chimps can't discuss things and there's no point the victim ever pushing the lever as the bully would then get all the food. So they do the only thing that gets food for either of them, the victim gets first go at the dispenser while the bully pushes the lever and then runs to the other end to push the victim aside.

I'm sure your house could be configured into a suitable maze for cat experiments, if only they'd co-operate.