Seishi, aka Mr. Bingley, has a delicate tummy. He declines people food, but will eat tinsel, string, anything he shouldn’t. And will return you anything he liked yesterday but which nauseates him today.
Mr. Darcy, aka The Night Fury, aka Shu, will eat anything BUT people food. Unless it’s cake. And plastic bags. But he has a cast iron stomach and almost never returns anything. Shu tends to get fat—and Sei doesn’t.
So…after trying absolutely everything, I think I’ve got at least the longest-running answer yet. Sheba makes little packets of two individual portions. I break them apart, one salmon, one fish. I take the covers off, I offer both to Sei and feed him whichever one he goes for. I feed the other to Shu, who eats anything. We have now had two weeks with Sei not returning me his dinner, no matter which one he gets.
Am I a sucker? Oh, yes. Absolutely. And we still have to keep plastic bags out of Shu’s reach. Turns out they use fish-oil somewhere in the manufacture, according to legend, and he’s not the only cat.
Well, I’ve ordered some fish-oil tonic for Mr. Shu and we’ll see if we can have sanity around here.
I wish you could.
We have 2 litter mates who are short-haired. We feed them both canned and dry food on the advice of our vet, because it’s easy to mix extra water in with the canned food, and some medications can be combined with canned food. We mix in about 3/4 of a can of water, and both kitties drink the liquid quite happily. They also have access to wheat grass, which does help with eliminating hairballs.
We’ve had only 1 long-haired cat. His coat was very thick and matted easily, so brushing and combing was absolutely necessary. During shedding season, he needed grooming 6 to 8 times a day, but only once or twice a day otherwise. I used an undercoat rake and a comb, followed by a slicker brush designed for collies. The grooming “ritual” became part of the daily routine after meals for most of the year, with extra sessions during shedding season. The regular grooming greatly reduced the number and pain of hairballs. He also learned “lie down” and “roll over” as part of the grooming. One of the best (and most intelligent) cats I ever had. He died in 1998, and I still miss him (and dream about him).