Americans don’t know basic facts about their cats, fail to properly care for them and overestimate how well they do as pet parents, according to a new poll.
The survey of cat owners commissioned by PetSafe found most people in the US who have cats in their home don’t know their feline friends typically have 18 toes, for example, and don’t realize cats purr when they’re content as well as when they’re trying to soothe themselves.
Respondents said they frequently forget to refill their furry little buddies’ water bowls, but the thing that really blew my mind is that people supposedly forget to feed their cats an average of three times a week.
How is that possible?!?
The number of times Bud has missed a meal in 10 years is precisely zero. Even when I had COVID, even when half my face was frozen with Bell’s Palsy and I was throbbing with the worst headache I’d ever endured, I fed the little guy according to his schedule.
It’s not just that he reminds me. There’s a whole ritual around it, an elaborate series of increasingly affirmative and urgent meows that quickly give way to panic if Buddy doesn’t see activity associated with a bowl of fresh wet food and water delivered to his nook.
The pre-reminder reminders begin about 45 minutes to an hour before feeding time, with Bud’s infallible internal clock signaling upcoming meal time.
At the 30 minute mark Bud will put himself directly in my line of sight and stare at me. Then he’ll start to meow at regular intervals, and if I’m not up and heading to the kitchen by T-minus 15 minutes to yums, the meowing begins in earnest.
Even the act of retrieving a pack of wet food from the Buddy Cabinet is highly formalized and ritualistic: the little dude grunts and trills excitedly as I open the seal, dump the food in his bowl, mash it up and pile it in the middle the way he likes it.
Then he leads me back to his nook, looking over his head every few paces to make sure I’m right behind him, even though we’ve done this song and dance literally 7,318 times as of today. (It’s probably more than that since I fed him more than twice a day when he was a kitten, and doesn’t include his bowl of dry food for his late night snack/overnight emergency supply so he doesn’t have to wake me up if he’s hungry.)
I realize Bud’s a bit of a tyrant and there’s no peace until he gets what he wants, but still. Cats are cats. So really, how does anyone “forget” to feed their cat?
via Pain In The Bud