Living with picky eaters | Lisa Scottoline

My cat is a picky eater.

And so is my fox.

I don't know where to begin.

Maybe with the fact that I have four dogs, none of whom is a picky eater. They eat the same dry food every day, and they never make a fuss.

I'm not a picky eater, either.

I eat the same thing every day for lunch and dinner, and I have no problem with that. It’s easier, and one of the pleasures of having an empty nest is that you don’t have to feed any little birdies anymore.

By the way, Daughter Francesca wasn’t a picky eater, either.

But when she comes home to visit, she brings her cat Mimi, who used to live here with my cat Vivi. You may remember that Francesca ended up taking Mimi to New York with her because I wasn’t meeting the cat’s emotional needs.

To this, I plead guilty.

I was busy meeting my dogs’ emotional needs, so that they could meet my emotional needs.

There’s a lot of needy emotionalism at my house. And we like it that way.

After all, every time you cuddle your pet, it cuddles you back.

Unless it’s Vivi.

Vivi is the most aloof of cats, which may be redundant.

I know, not all cats are aloof, but Vivi has raised aloof to an art form. She has lived with me for 12 years and every day looks at me like I dress funny.

Actually, I do.

I have no problem meeting Vivi’s emotional needs, because all she wants is to be fed and left alone.

And every day until recently, Vivi ate dry food without complaint.

But when Francesca came home for Christmas, she brought Mimi, and Mimi has gotten accustomed to wet food, so we fed both cats wet food. But now, Francesca and Mimi have gone back to New York, and I have returned to feeding Vivi dry food.

Which she boycotted.

Day after day, she ignored her bowl of dry food, meowing for wet food.

I tried to wait her out, but she won.

No one wins an argument with a cat.

At the same time, wet food is a euphemism.

It's actually goopy food.

And smelly food.

And, sadly, it’s little bits of animals that are lower on the food chain.

I'm a vegetarian, so I'm having carrots.

My cat is having prime rib.

And leftover wet food dries like superglue to a plate, so right now, I have a sink full of soaking plates covered with indeterminate minced meats.

The problem is, Vivi doesn't take yes for an answer.

I started giving her flaked tuna, but she boycotted it until I gave her minced tuna.

Then she got sick of minced tuna, and I switched to turkey.

She turned down turkey, but she went for the beef.

Which lasted three whole days before her next boycott.

I spend all my time buying and comparing wet food.

And somehow I end up with assortment packs, because she will eat only one of the three types, leaving two-thirds wasted.

But then the other day, I happened to notice that a fox was eating birdseed that had dropped to the ground from the bird feeder in my backyard.

And I thought to myself, the fox might present a solution.

So I started giving the fox the wet food the cat didn't want.

And you know what?

The fox likes the turkey, but not the beef.

The fox likes the salmon, but not the tuna.

Then I ran out of fox food.

It was a snowstorm and I didn't want to go to the pet store, so I figured the fox would go back to eating his birdseed.

But now the fox is boycotting the birdseed.

I'm waiting for the cat to boycott the fox.

In any event, I'm boycotting them both.

When the snow melts, everybody's getting dry food.

As Mother Mary used to say, this is for the birds.

Look for Lisa and Francesca’s humor collection, “I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses,” and Lisa’s number-one best-selling thriller, “After Anna,” and her Rosato & DiNunzio novel, “Feared,” in stores now. Also look for Lisa’s new novel, “Someone Knows,” coming April 9. lisa@scottoline.com.