Can I teach my cat not to eat her treats whole?

Question

I'm sure I should have asked this sooner, as this was something our cat was doing for months, although we didn't pay attention to this until vomit started to appear in our house.

Long story short, we give two of our cats (Chilli and Luna) some treats once every two days. We limit the amount of treats to around 3-6. Chilli breaks them down with her teeth as usual, however Luna mostly doesn't. We'd often find vomit behind sofa or in the corridor. We concluded that the vomit appearing in our house belongs to Luna. This doesn't happen often, but we are pretty sure it would be due to these treats as we caught her vomit a few times, hours after swallowing the treats. Also, she seems fine other than the occasional vomiting.

Is there a way to teach my cat (Luna) to break down her treats before she eats them? I'm not looking forward to refraining from giving her treats as we'd like to continue to give rewards for activities. Also, the treats in question are about as small as the 'dreamies'. Would giving them bigger treats be a good alternative?

Answer 1

I've observed that treats and kibble with a high cereal content can have this effect. I think it is because the dry material absorbs a lot of water once swallowed.

Try switching to something else as a treat, for example freeze-dried fish chunks or chopped chicken. I found this approach greatly reduced the vomiting issues with my six cats.

Answer 2

1) Commercial cat treats are intended to be eaten whole. Predator teeth are designed for puncturing and ripping more than chewing.

2) Feline vomiting is fairly common as a result of fur ingested during grooming. These "hair balls" can be controlled to some extent by brushing and by giving the cat food supplements which help them process these (lubricants, cat grass), but part of having a cat is dealing with this. With patience, some cats can at least be taught to look for a hard floor before upchucking, but that can be a hard concept to get across.

Of course if vomiting becomes more than occasional, especially if the cat is losing weight, a vet visit becomes appropriate. But once a week or less is probably just the cat being a cat.