How to Train your Human to Feed You

How to feed a cat properly is one of the hardest things to teach your human. Something as simple as cat food should be easy, but so many people have no idea of what a cat should eat.

In these easy steps, I will show you how to train your human to feed you, and other cats, what's necessary for a happy, healthy cat.

All it takes is a little training.

After a hard night of guarding the house while chasing buttons along hallways, food is a necessity for all industrious cats.

No matter how devoted your human is, have you noticed the unjust inaccessibility of your necessary food supply? It's all packaged in outlandish containers not designed for cats to open. Can openers are horribly discriminatory against even the most nimble of paws and those pouches are resistant to the sharpest of teeth.

The fridge, repository of delicious chicken fillets and salmon slices is, literally, a closed door.

Even if your human has forgetfully left the remains of last night's pizza on the table, I don't recommend breaking your fast on old vegetable strips and/or hot salami. No, you will have to wake her up!

Remember that all humans, not just the woman-who-feeds-me, will feign sleep to avoid their morning duties.

Get the human out of bed with these tried and tested methods.

1. Dragging off the duvet to expose the feet. If the response isn't fast enough, lick the soles of the feet. In the most slovenly of humans you will have to resort to nipping the toes
2. Carry a plastic bag into the bedroom and lick it. Over and over. While the noise may be slightly annoying to you, your human will find it excruciating
3. Play with the window blinds. Build up a good rhythm of slapping the cords. If this fails, swing on them

Repeated and determined use of the paw-on-face technique should force the most sleepy (or stubborn) human out of the bed.

If this fails, watch the artistry of Simon's Cat for more advanced methods.

Simon's Cat
This feline prodigy has taken the world by storm! He's known from Anatolia to Zaire as a force majeure on YouTube, and I've been following his phenomenal rise from the very start. (I might even pick up a few tips to give my own career a boost).

When you finally get your human up and out of bed, don't make the mistake of relaxing. She may try to appease you with kibble!

A bowl of dried food, next to your fresh bowl of water, is perfectly acceptable when left overnight. It's certainly not acceptable for breakfast. You need something more substantial.

Sit by the fridge door and look mournful. Try a piteous meow and, if that doesn't work fast enough, build up to a quavering, high-pitched wail. You're STARVING and you need a hearty meal.

In serious cases, get the dog to help.

A little bit of dog food won't do much harm, but it has very little nutritional value for a cat.

Curiously enough, milk isn't at all good for cats. I've seen plenty of humans putting out bowls of the stuff but they don't really know why they're doing it.

Cows milk is for baby cows, not for anyone else, but I've seen humans drinking it too.

Let's face it, humans are strange creatures.

A little milk won't kill a cat, just like a little greasy, fatty dinner won't kill a human. But it's best to be on the safe side.

As a change, a bowl of dried food is fine for one or two days a week.

Variety is more than the Spice of Life

If I lived in the wild I wouldn't be worried about training humans to feed me. If I were a hunting cat, I wouldn't decide to eat only small southern rosellas, I would eat any small prey I could get my paws on! Tasty things like mice, grasshoppers, sparrows or rabbits.

I enjoy my modern pampered life but I want a proper variety in my diet.

Variety keeps us from becoming finicky and food-addicted, lessens the chance of dietary excess or deficiency of any single nutrient, and can prevent the development of food intolerances, allergies, and all sorts of nasty illnesses.

Remember that I'm a carnivore!

My Five Cat Food Recipes
It's about time people realised something basic about feeding cats. Cats are carnivores. More to the point, cats are obligate carnivores.

Often I'm asked if I also trained my human to type up my notes for me. The answer is no, short and sweet, NO.

I believe this could be an achievable aim, humans can be taught all sorts of tricks. They're bright creatures and some have a high degree of intelligence. (But not all). Perhaps one or two of them could learn how to put your thoughts on the keyboard but I don't recommend it. Too hard. It only means lot of lost nap-time.

I prefer to do all my creative writing and mathematical calculating myself.

To this end, I have my own notebook. Just my size.