What’s one of the most damning things one political candidate can say about another? (Get your minds out of the gutter, people… I mean things about the other candidates politics.) “He doesn’t understand foreign policy.” … “She thinks she can do all that and lower taxes?” … You know the stuff. But of all these accusations, the one they seem to trot out with the most regularity is the dreaded flip-flop. Nothing signals weakness of character like a changeable mind, or at least, that’s what they’d like us to think. It’s the ethics of constancy, and it reigns supreme in the land of politics.
Cats have no such code of ethics. You may remember the fits that mine threw when I changed his kibble last year. If you don’t remember and don’t feel like clicking the link, the short version is as follows: taste new food, puke, hunger strike, puke, taste new food again, yell at me, puke… for months. Three months, to be precise. This was an emphatic vote against the new kibble if I ever saw one.
A couple months later, I did some research and found out that cats really don’t do well on kibble at all (they don’t need any carbohydrates, and they don’t have a well-developed thirst instinct, so wet food that’s rich in protein is best for them). So I started feeding Pippin wet food at night, and I even diluted it with water to keep him from existing in that state of subclinical dehydration that I’d read so much about.
Well, at his vet visit a couple weeks ago, I talked about kitty diets with Dr. Calm, and she confirmed that he wouldn’t need any dry food at all. So the next morning, in place of his customary morning kibble, I gave him lovely, protein-rich wet food.
Bear in mind that this is the same wet food that he’s been eating every evening for at least 6 months. Also bear in mind the fit he threw over this kibble. Remember especially the emphasis he put on his message that this new kibble was unfit for catly consumption.
As it turns out, he is very attached to his newer kibble. He refuses to eat his wet food in the morning unless I tuck a few pieces of kibble into it. When I don’t, he leans longingly against the cupboard in which the desired kibble is stored, wails (truly, and with an angry edge to it, and with teeth showing), rubs against the cupboard, sniffs the cupboard, and then leans on it again while looking pathetic. When I don’t include a few kibbles with his wet food, he often refuses altogether, but only if it’s the morning meal. The evening meal is supposed to be wet, in his mind, so he eats it with good appetite and no complaints.
So is this the worst case of flip-flopping ever? Or is this an absolutely entrenched love of habit? And is it possible for it to be both? Only cats can tell. Meanwhile, I will watch in amusement as mine feigns starvation every morning.