My cat is a young cat (about 9 months) and pretty chill most of the time. Of course he is curious when I eat something, but he’s not annoying. Only when I pick up his bowl to get food for him, boy does he start meowing. It’s super annoying and I don’t know what to do to teach him that he doesn’t need to tell me to give him food, while I’m giving him food.
I’ve tried maintaining eye contact and taking a step backwards every time he meows. Then I wait a few seconds for him to be silent and start walking towards where the bowl is supposed to be, but whenever I start moving again he starts meowing again. Sometimes it works, but only after I spent half an hour walking back and forth on the same spot. I just don’t have the time or energy to do that every single day, and I don’t feel like he understands what he’s supposed to do. He sits on his scratching cardboard, rubs on my legs, walks around, or lies on the ground, but he never stops meowing for more than 5 or 10 seconds.
By now I resorted to locking him in the bathroom until he shuts up and then letting him out with the bowl already in place, but I also feel like that is not a very effective solution. Also it just feels wrong.
Does anyone have an idea how I can train him better?
I have 2 cats, one who generally yells the entire time I’m preparing food, and the other is totally silent. I have also found myself quite annoyed with the yelling and have tried various methods to train him. The most effective method to stop his meowing has been feeding him via an automatic feeder, meaning that there’s a separation between when I prepare his food and when he gets to eat. For a variety of reasons, I had to stop using the auto feeder, and have instead worked on training myself to be less annoyed by the meowing. It still gets to me when I’m already stressed, but I’ve learned to appreciate it most days. The other thing I notice with my cat is that if I respond to his meowing, he tends to meow more, so if it’s one of those days where I’m annoyed by it, I try my best to keep my mouth shut while I dish up their food.
One other idea that I haven’t actually tried yet is clicker training. Well, I’ve done some super basic clicker training, but haven’t reached a point yet where I’ve tried using it to train “speak” or “quiet”. My loud cat is also HIGHLY food motivated, and seems to pickup new commands with the clicker training very quickly, so you might also have some luck with that option.