Hello everyone! I’m finally coming to reddit to ask for help after months and months of failure. 

As the title says, my son is ravenous. Like will stop at nothing to stick his face in the measuring cup full of milk above the kitchen counter as you’re pouring it into something while cooking dinner kind of ravenous. He will climb up you for food. No matter how many times you get him down, he will immediately climb up again. Or jump at you. He is persistent and fast!! When he’s around and food is out the situation becomes 99% stopping him and 1% eating. He is just about to be 1 years old, currently 11 months. We adopted him back in August when he was just a little baby and we’ve been battling this problem the whole time. 

Simply put, we can’t have him out and about while we are cooking OR eating. So, we’ve been putting him in a specific room while we cook or eat, but we let him roam if everything is in the oven or put up. We’ve been to the vet about it, and other unrelated things, 3 different times since August and they keep saying that he is perfectly healthy, a good weight, and we are feeding him enough. I would love to be able to let him stay out, but it’s simply way too difficult to get a meal made or eat if we’re constantly having to fend off the little boy. 

Here’s where the real problem is. He’s started destroying the doors and carpet in this room. It’s mostly small areas, and tbh I’ll just give it the landlord special when we move out, but I’m really tired of this behavior. In the room he has soft blankets/mats to lay on. He has a water bowl in there. He has toys in there. I thought maybe he wasn’t feeling fulfilled in this environment. Around the apartment are multiple cat trees and scratching posts of different orientations. It’s a very large 2 bed, 2 bath, so I very much feel like he has enough space. We do almost weekly enrichment activities that I find off Instagram/Pinterest and local shelter websites. He gets dedicated daily play and cuddle time, and often plays with his two sisters. He’s truly like a perfect, sweet little angel as long as no food is involved. 

I had always thought that if his behavior got bad enough I would put claw caps on him. Well, we tried that. Today. And he got them off within 10 minutes of being let to roam. We’ve put them on our other cats in the past, and I am completely 100% confident that they were put on correctly and had FULLY dried before we let him roam. 

I genuinely don’t know what else to try, or how to curb this behavior. I know whatever the solution is will require putting in immense effort, and I am willing to do so. If anybody knows what to do, please help!!   
—————————————————————————————-

TLDR: My cat is a food demon and our solution has led to damage around the apartment. 

At a Glance: 11 month old male, living with two other cats (3 yo female and 5 yo female), 2 bed 2 bath apartment, owners are 2 loving gay dads in their mid 20’s, access to a vet. Midwest United States. 

My Cat is Ravenous!!