101–110 of 302 posts
Wonder what would happen if you just gave the cat unlimited access to a large bowl of unguarded food all day every day. Would the cat eventually self-regulate the amount it ate? Or would you just end up with a really fat cat? Or both to some degree?
The fact that you're downvoted for common sense is alarming. HN is supposed to be a place for smart people.
//waiting for this to be flagged and silenced just for suggesting HN quality has declined
I recently got a SureFeed RFID feeder. It can read your cat's microchip or an RFID collar tag. When an authorized kitty approaches, a flap raises and lets the cat eat. I got it to prevent other family pets from stealing my cat's food. It works well for that purpose and seems well designed. The feeder has clear side "walls" and the flap itself acts as a wall on the rear of the feeder, helping prevent food theft during…
Don't feed your cat until 7am no matter what. Ignore all foot rubs and meows. He'll eventually learn and give up. Operant conditioning. Watch out though for that extra-hard last ditch effort he will put out before giving up. Stay strong.
He'll maybe learn to give up. Or he's like one of our cats where we have to install a baby gate on the outside of the closed door to our bedroom to make it difficult for him to bang on the door all night/morning so that we can sleep.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't feed your cat until 7am no matter what. Ignore all foot rubs and meows. He'll eventually learn and give up. Operant conditioning. Watch out though for that extra-hard last ditch effort he will put out before giving up. Stay strong.
Cats have been known to modify their purring sounds, to include a sub-carrier that is remarkably similar to an infant crying. That in turn triggers an instinctive response in humans which cause them to subconsciously rise out of bed and apply food to the source of that sound. Source: a documentary on Netflix "The Lion in your Living room".
Cats are awesome, especially at finding our weaknesses...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't feed your cat until 7am no matter what. Ignore all foot rubs and meows. He'll eventually learn and give up. Operant conditioning. Watch out though for that extra-hard last ditch effort he will put out before giving up. Stay strong.
That last ditch effort is called an extinction burst [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Exti...
This is the best up-armoured cat feeder I've seen this week. Kudos to Quinn for never giving up. I'm terrified to think what the next step will be once Sprocket chooses to escalate.
anyone with more money than time and metal working skills might consider just getting a super feeder: http://www.super-feeder.com (nothing but a satisfied customer, here.)
Dissenting opinion: I owned a Super Feeder before upgrading to the feeder pictured in the original story. My cat was able to produce food from the super feeder continuously, just by lightly smacking the tall column on the top. Perhaps the kibble my cat eats is below the minimum supported size? The new PetSafe feeder is better: it will produce a little food when kicked, but it will only drop out a bit of the next meal…
> Perhaps the kibble my cat eats is below the minimum supported size?
i do think it has some issues with sufficiently small kibble. i noticed a bit of increase in portion size variability when we moved to a smaller kibble.
did you have any luck with reducing the gate opening?
> I do think the super feeder is more hackable though
controlling it by applying power is certainly convenient. i've got an rpi which dispenses on a schedule, and lets us hit a web page to dump out some more food when the cats are complaining.
The fact that you're downvoted for common sense is alarming. HN is supposed to be a place for smart people.
Compare to cows, who after being trained by real cattle guards, won't step on painted lines that simulate them.
But on the other side, compare with pigeons who could pilot a glider bomb into WWII enemy ships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon (As the owner of both a cat and parrot, I've learned not to underestimate their intelligence.)
