Tweaking the smell of cat food can encourage fussy felines to eat

Recent research indicates that cats might reject their usual meals due to a lack of interest in the food’s aroma. This insight opens up new possibilities for pet owners to encourage their cats to eat more willingly.

Many cat owners experience frustration when their pets, who once seemed to enjoy certain foods, suddenly refuse them. This behavior might give cats a reputation for being fussy, but altering the scent of their food could make meals more appealing, according to Masao Miyazaki from Iwate University, Japan.

“Consider adding a topper, varying the food slightly, or refreshing the feeding environment,” suggests Miyazaki. “Cats might not be picky in the human sense; instead, they may lose interest as the smell becomes too familiar.”

Miyazaki and his team conducted experiments with 12 unsterilized cats, comprising six males and six females. Each cat was offered various commercial dry cat foods for 10 minutes, and their consumption was monitored. After a 10-minute break, each cat was given another 10-minute access to either the same or a different type of dry food. This process was repeated six times over 110 minutes. The amount eaten decreased over each round, particularly when the same food was presented repeatedly. Introducing a new food each time led to roughly twice the total consumption compared to offering the same food.

To further examine the impact of smell, the researchers repeated the experiment by placing the same food in the upper part of a double-compartment bowl with a perforated divider. In the lower section, they placed different cat food that the cats could smell but not touch. For the first five rounds, both compartments contained the same food, and consumption declined. However, in the sixth round, they changed the lower food to one with a different scent, leading to a significant rebound in consumption, with the cats eating about twice as much as in the previous round.

Miyazaki states that the results highlight the strong influence of scent on cats’ appetites.

“This explains the wide variety of canned cat food available in supermarkets,” comments Katherine Houpt from Cornell University, New York. “It makes me wonder if cats switch from eating mice to birds after consuming a mouse or two.”

Scott McGrane from the Waltham Petcare Science Institute in the UK shares, “Having both professional and personal experience with finicky cats, I find this study offers valuable insights into how food aroma affects eating behavior. Providing different wet food flavors and a combination of wet and dry foods can help offer variety and maintain a cat’s food intake.”

According to David Thomas from Massey University in New Zealand, the study’s findings might also explain why modern feeding strategies with a variety of flavors, such as assorted pouch packs, could contribute to weight gain in cats.

Mikel Delgado, a cat behavior expert in Sacramento, California, advises pet owners to keep their cats interested by offering a range of smells and flavors and giving meal choices, all while managing their daily intake and health to sustain a healthy weight.

Delgado emphasizes the importance of washing cat bowls to remove leftover odors from previous meals. She also suggests that persistent finickiness could indicate underlying health issues that may require medical attention.