Pray for me


I just got back from my epic trek through the Arctic wilderness to reach the grocery store. This was an urgent emergency mission. See, here’s a pantry shelf:

You may look at that and tell me, “no, there’s no hurry here, you have plenty of cat food,” but you would be wrong. There is only one can of cat food there. Our cat will only eat Fancy Feast, and then only the seafood varieties, and no, none of that “gravy” crap, she only wants Fancy Feast Seafood Pate. Anything else, and she will walk away with a look of disgust, and will probably vomit all over the floor.

We’ve tried everything else. She is an extremely finicky eater.

I have been going to the grocery store for over a month looking for her brand, with no luck. That shelf is totally bare at the store, and has been for weeks and weeks. We’re down to our last can. When that’s gone…I fear there will be a bloodbath. I figure we’ve got maybe a week, perhaps a little more if I stretch it out.

If the blog goes silent next week, call the cops. Tell them to mobilize that stupid SWAT team and their tank that we’re wasting taxpayer money on, and bring the big guns, and be prepared before they open the door. There will be a berserker cat waiting for them.

Comments

  1. raven says

    I’ve got the exact same problem.

    My cat will only eat Friskies Pate style cat food and only certain flavors. And she likes variety. She won’t eat the same flavor for very long before demanding something else.

    There is a nationwide shortage of Purina’s Friskies cat food.

    Purina said that some products are in short supply.

    It says, “Due to unprecedented levels of demand as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak, retailers in some locations may be struggling to meet normal levels of supply and delivery.”Jan 21, 2022

    They say that they will have this fixed by 2023.
    Lot of good that will do us.
    My cat can’t wait a year for her cat food. She gets upset if it is 5 minutes late.

    They said the same thing in 2021, that the problem would be fixed by Fall, 2021.

  2. R. L. Foster says

    @4 — My solution.

    I buy cans of WalMart chunk light tuna packed in water for our most finicky cat. Though it may be hard to believe, human tuna (as I call it) is more economical than buying Fancy Feast. When you compare the price of a 5 oz. can of tuna to two 3 oz. cans of FF the human tuna actually costs less per ounce. Strange, but true. I guess the catfood companies figure we love your kitties so much we won’t catch on to how much we’re being gouged. The one downside of tuna is mercury. Though our cats love it, I am sparing in how much I serve them. I have gone to Petsmart and tried some of the boutique catfood brands, but they can be eye-wateringly expensive. Some can run up to $2 per can which is pure robbery. Worse yet, the cats usually don’t like it.

    Regardless of price, I think most of the major canned catfood brands comes from a handful of packing plants. If you squint at the label you can see that many of them come from Canada for some reason. Pet food is a racket like so many things in our capitalistic hellworld.

  3. blf says

    The mildly deranged penguin notes that as long as the cat doesn’t eat cheese, MUSHROOMS, or her, and is sufficiently aerodynamic to be good trebuchet ammunition, she’s not too fussed about just what they eat… but would prefer if they ate mostly peas and horses.

  4. dadboyghost says

    I’m always astonished that an animal that will happily chew through a warm mouse and lick its arsehole can be so fussy

  5. bmatchick says

    I had to switch to dry food for now as Fancy Feast is the only wet food my cats will eat and I haven’t seen it in weeks, either. I don’t quite understand how PZ is going to stretch a 3oz can of food out for a week. My cats went through 3 cans a day, each, and they’re not fat.

  6. says

    The cat gets dry cat food ad libitum, and a spoonful of wet food, once in the morning and once in the evening.

    I certainly wouldn’t give her a whole can. She’d suck it all down and then vomit it up all night long.

  7. Becky Smith says

    Chewy! Really my dear, go to chewy.com. They’re amazing at getting your order ready and delivered. They have all the various varieties of Fancy Feast. You have to buy by the case, but if you know what your cat likes it not so bad. Free delivery at $49. And no, I don’t work for them or have stock. They’ve just saved me many a time! Heck…I even have litter delivered! 😸

  8. John Morales says

    All cats are finicky eaters.

    Housepets, maybe. Feral cats, not-so-much.

    Many years ago, we ran out of a particular dry food and got a different one. Our cat did not want to indulge in that different food.
    So a contest of wills ensued — I’d leave that food out and give the cat no other food.
    Hunger would tell, I thought.

    Cat complained about it (owners know!) and did not touch it.

    Day goes by. Two days. Three days. Four days. Complain complain complain.
    Unpleasant all around.

    I gave up.

    (As Heinlein put it: “Never try to outstubborn a cat.”)

  9. Rich Woods says

    If the cat feeder keels over dead and there’s no-one left to feed the cat, I’m pretty sure the cat will quickly stop being so finicky.

  10. Nemo says

    I ran into the same problem yesterday. For those suggesting Chewy.com and Amazon — if you look more closely at their inventory, most flavors of Fancy Feast are out of stock, even there. At Amazon, some of what remains is marked up ~100%. I did end up ordering from both places, and I think it will tide us over, but it’s bad.

  11. raven says

    I had it on my list for today to check Chewy.com for cat food.
    Which I just did.

    They were out of all 10 types of Friskies cat food that I checked!!!
    Everything I tried to buy was “temporarily out of stock”.

    This has gone beyond annoying to downright scary.
    My cat is old but most of the time she has a good appetite. Some days though, she just picks at her food. I know what to do to get her to eat. Give her what she wants from the small list of what she will eat.
    This just got a whole lot harder.

  12. Snarki, child of Loki says

    Why is the Walmart tuna cheaper than cat food?

    If you put a picture of a cat on something, you can increase the price by 30%!

    It is known. Just check on etsy.

  13. says

    As a former cat owner whose cat ate exclusively Fancy Feast, can confirm.

    “Do not get my friends, become addicted to Fancy Feast! It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!”