The cat is odd

[The Snark]

It has been subsisting on puppy chow. We ran out so I bought regular dog food and gave the cat chicken. It ignored the chicken so I gave it a little of the dry dog food. It cleaned it's bowl, leaving the chicken.
If you pick the cat up and hold it normally, feet down, it immediately wants down. You have to cradle it in your arms on it's back. Then it is content. Why? It gets a better view of the ceiling as it scopes for geckos.
Concerned about it's dog food diet I gave the cat a treat tonight. I parked the jeep up against the wall under the carport light and put the cat on the roof. CARNAGE! It's on around it's 15th gecko. A suitable diet supplement?

 

[PlaidJaguar]

Fresh geckos seem like a pretty good food source to me! The primary concern with feeding cats is getting enough taurine in their diet, as well as enough protein. Dog food doesn't have sufficient levels of either to comprise a significant portion of their diet. If it's only short term it should be fine, but in the long run this deficiency could be a problem. How much fresh prey does your cat eat vs. dry food? Does it ever eat other types of prey, or just geckos?

Your cat sounds awesome. I wish mine would hunt, but the one is utterly inept and the other is too lazy.

 

[pitbulllady]

Seconding what PlaidJaguar said about the taurine. Dog food companies do not add it to their products because dogs don't seem to need it as much as cats, but for cats, it's absolutely essential. Fresh meat contains taurine, but it's destroyed during the cooking process, which is why cat food has added taurine. Most dog food does not contain enough protein for cats, either, not even Puppy Chow. Puppy Chow is coated with dry milk-derived powder, which cats would find tasty, and that's probably why the cat prefers it. If you add that(something similar, like what they make for babies) to chicken, the cat would probably find it a lot more palatable.

pitbulllady

 

[JadeWilliamson]

Wow, I learned so much from stumbling onto this!

What kind of geckos is your cat catching?

 

[The Snark]

Wow, I learned so much from stumbling onto this!

What kind of geckos is your cat catching?

The ones high in Taurine, I hope! Just the local common S.E. Asian gecks. Anyone have the chart of the nutritional analysis of those? Alternately, could someone direct me to a food source that a mentally challenged cat might like to chow down on? This critter is completely obsessed with hunting. Seeing a gecko on the ceiling she will climb a window screen neaby then hurl herself upside down and backwards in the hopes of snatching it. She rarely lands on her feet. Most often, her head. Also, once she has spotted a gecko that is inaccessible she will meow incessantly, sometimes for hours. Think the cat equivalent of a neurotic cockapoo barking.

 

[PlaidJaguar]

Omg Snark, that's hilarious! My husband once bought a feeder mouse for my cat and the lazy jerk didn't even bother to pounce on it. He swatted it once, then laid down and took a nap. Cat fail.

 

[Najakeeper]

Yeah, my husky will dig a 3 meter deep hole if he smells some mice living under there. I once watched him dig for a good hour and he got his price at the end. Animals with strong hunting instincts are very interesting to observe but the problem with the husky is, usually anything smaller than him is prey so it is difficult to keep him off of the small dogs in the neighborhood.

 

[The Snark]

Yeah, my husky will dig a 3 meter deep hole if he smells some mice living under there. I once watched him dig for a good hour and he got his price at the end. Animals with strong hunting instincts are very interesting to observe but the problem with the husky is, usually anything smaller than him is prey so it is difficult to keep him off of the small dogs in the neighborhood.

You need to keep in mind the tundra tractor dogs, in the wild mice is their staple diet but with scarce food in those parts they will hunt anything. They will also go fishing and some are darned good at it.