How to Reduce Your Cat's Eating Speed

Divide your cat's food into smaller portions on a plate or shallow tray. To encourage slow eating, you can pour dry food into a plate or a shallow tray. This makes it so the cat eats only a small amount at a time and chews the food properly.

Place dry food in a food ball and turn mealtime into a fun game.

Cats can enjoy both playing and eating from the ball during meals. This helps slow down their eating pace and encourages them to use their hunting instincts to get the food.

• To provide training opportunities, you can use the food ball while playing to encourage your cat to work for their food and prevent them from eating too fast or too much.

Place wet food at the bottom of the bowl. This method helps slow down the cat's eating since they can't gulp the entire food. Instead, the cat will have to eat slowly, taking one bite at a time and swallowing before moving on to the next bite.

Place a golf ball in the center of your cat's food bowl. The ball acts as an obstacle that slows down the cat's eating because they need to stop and push the obstacle or eat the food around it.

• Use an obstacle that cannot be swallowed, such as a golf ball or a ping pong ball.

Use a feeding bowl with a fixed tube in the middle. Many pet stores sell bowls with a large tube or multiple small tubes in the center. These bowls help cats eat more slowly and chew their food thoroughly.

Buy an automatic feeder. This tool helps pet owners control their pet's food intake by pressing a simple button. Many types of feeders have numerical settings so you can precisely monitor how much food the cat eats at each feeding. The devices also have parameters to help you determine the right amount of food for your cat and avoid overfeeding or underfeeding.

• You can set the feeder to provide small portions of food throughout the day, helping the cat slow down their eating pace and prevent fast eating.

Feed your cat multiple smaller meals throughout the day. If your cat eats too quickly and vomits or experiences digestive issues like bloating, you need to adjust their feeding schedule. Instead of three large meals a day, you could break it down into five to six smaller meals over the course of one to two weeks.

• After one to two weeks, check if the new feeding schedule helps slow down your cat's eating pace. Multiple smaller meals throughout the day allow your pet to digest food properly and maintain their appetite for the next meal.
• You can also place food in small dishes around the house to force your cat to move more while eating. This turns mealtime into a “hunt,” stimulating both their mind and body, while also encouraging self-control during eating.

Prepare multiple feeding bowls for each cat. If you have several cats, you may encounter situations where one cat bullies the others and finishes their portion, or one cat claims all the food during mealtime. You can resolve this by setting up multiple bowls around the house, ideally in different rooms or areas. This will help separate the cats during mealtime and ensure each one gets their fair share of food.

• Set up multiple feeding bowls with evenly distributed food throughout the day for your cats to help slow their eating pace.

Take your cat to the vet if they continue eating too quickly and show signs of inadequate eating. If you've tried the above steps but your cat still eats too fast and shows no sign of gaining weight or is not eating enough, they might be dealing with a health issue that needs attention. Take your cat to the vet for a health check-up to ensure that their fast eating habits are not a symptom of an underlying illness.