I've had my cat for several years now, and up until a couple weeks ago, I've been free-feeding her dry food. My vet has just told me that she's a little overweight (the cat, not the vet), and instructed me to stop both the free-feeding and the dry food. Instead, the vet wants me to use a meal-feeding plan with wet food, to try to get the cat's weight down.
Sadly, the cat does not seem to be on board with this plan. When I open a can of food, she's always interested enough to run over and sniff it, but never enough to eat it. She will always eat it eventually, but only a bit at a time, which seems to defeat the purpose of meal feeding. Also, while the food sits out, it dries out, which can't be good for it, and attracts fruit flies, which is annoying for me.
The brand of the food doesn't seem to affect her behavior. I thought she might pick up on the fact that the feeding schedule was changing after a few days, but it's been two weeks and this is still going on. How can I get her to eat when it's mealtime? My only thought is removing the food a certain amount of time after I set it out, but that would surely lead to her going hungry for at least a few meals.