Good story. I guess Friend came to enjoy the closeness that "force" feeding entailed. We all need physical contact, some of us just don't know it! It makes me think about my bottle babies. Feeding time is such a bonding event. It took me forever to ween them off the bottle, not because they weren't eating enough on their own, just because I enjoyed it so much!
Nina
TenHouseCats wrote:
friend is a black, dmh. totally feral when he came into the sanctuary (he's FeLV). before i got there, he got really ill, and had to be force-fed, given fluids, meds, the whole nine yards. they really didn't think he would pull thru.... after awhile, however, still hissing and spitting, he started to put on some weight and get healthier....
HOWEVER, he'd decided that he wasn't gonna eat on his own. when i started at the sanctuary, the director had been feeding him a/d with a syringe for about 6 months. he'd attack the syringe, and usually went through two or three of them per feeding. he would NOT eat dry, nor a/d in a bowl, nor anything else..... as time went on, all she had to do was go to the door of the FeLV room and call his name--he'd come running for his daily "force feeding...."
by this time, he wasn't the slightest bit feral, of course..... months later, the director was going on vacation, so feeding friend was one of my jobs.... go to the door, call his name, scoop him up, syringe-feed him his a/d..... on the second day, i decided to just SEE if he'd eat on his own.... started with putting some a/d on a spoon and holding it to his mouth.... he ate it, so i kept moving the filled spoon closer and closer to the bowl--whereupon, he immediately slurped up the rest of the can all on his own.
for a week, he ate from the bowl just like a normal cat.... THEN mommy came back from vacation--everyone was so excited to tell her that friend could eat on his own...... yep, you guessed it--as soon as he saw her, he totally forgot how to eat! she ended up syringe feeding him for another 6 or 7 months before he finally decided he could eat with the other cats..... that was his mommy/cat time, and he clearly valued it! (did i mention he became rather HUGE from this experience??????)
