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In a message dated 10/31/2007 10:40:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Sandra@... writes:

We leave
food down for her and the cats all the time.

The vet started to give the speech about it being bad, I guess, but
here was this dog that's fine and fit. So what she said was she was
surprised the dog wasn't overweight.

Because there's food down, the dog eats when she's hungry.


We have a cat (around 15 years old) who's never had a serious lack of food,
never starved, never had to compete for food. His mother was with us a few
years before he was born in our dining room, and he's never been outside the
house except being carried to the car for vet trips or moving. We leave food
down all the time for our cats, too. Sometimes, we get busy and the dish gets
emptied (rare)-not daily, maybe once a week-for an hour or a few hours. As soon
as that food hits the empty dish (the sound draws all the cats), and the
humans have vacated the room, he goes straight to the dish, eats until he's so
full that he barfs it back out again, then proceeds to eat (fresh food from
the bowl) until he's had enough and walks away. Weirdest thing we've ever seen.
We call him our bulimic cat. I never really thought about it being about
"perceived lack" until something clicked when I read what you wrote. It doesn't
*seem* like a serious amount of time to be "lack" or "panic" or some sort of
mental state that one would never have enough food again, but apparently, it
seems that way to him... Could easily be applied to one's kids-not
necessarily lack of food, per se, but perception.

Peace,
De



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<<As soon as that food hits the empty dish (the sound draws all the cats),
and the
humans have vacated the room, he goes straight to the dish, eats until he's
so
full that he barfs it back out again, then proceeds to eat (fresh food from
the bowl) until he's had enough and walks away. Weirdest thing we've ever
seen.
We call him our bulimic cat. I never really thought about it being about
"perceived lack" until something clicked when I read what you wrote. >>

Whoa...my cat does this too. (Pardon the "me, too" post.) And I made the
same connection when I read Sandra's post.

So yeah, it must be that "perceived lack." Unless maybe they're twins
separated at birth. <g>

-Patty



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