When it comes to the food of your cat, you may give free-choice feedings or scheduled feedings. If the cat is given free choice, it will feed every few hours. This is usually for cats who lead active lives. But if the cat is facing an obesity problem, then scheduled feedings should be best. You must also remember that cats are genuine carnivores. The undesirable result is that more food passes through as waste and less is used for energy, causing a drop in lean muscle mass and body fat that leads to potentially harmful weight loss. In addition to providing the proper diet, owners of senior cats should pay close attention to their cats' activity levels, weight, and eating, grooming and elimination habits and report anything new or different to their veterinarian. Those who would like to avoid this like to use nail caps instead. These are applied as false nails would be to the cat s nail. If your cat is a scratcher, do what you can to stop him before you have him de-clawed. If this becomes the best option though, it may be better than having your furniture torn up! This is an important sign that he s not feeling well and it can be a serious problem then. Cats that are finicky may waste a lot of food by refusing to eat it if it has been sitting in the feeder for too long. Another type to consider is the automatic cat feeder. These have several compartments. The feeder s lid has an opening that will allow the cat to eat out of one compartment at a time. Use the sprayer but if this scares him, you ll need to pour water over him using the pitcher. A word of warning, do not pour water on his head. You ll clean his face later. Now he s wet. You can squeeze a palm sized amount of shampoo and massage the shampoo into his coat. Use slow, calm motions and he ll relax and maybe even will enjoy it. If you find that your cat exhibits a not-so-healthy clawing habit, you may go for the option of declawing your cat. This is a surgical procedure where the nails are permanently removed so that it will not grow back. However, you should still ask your vets advice if you want to go for declawing because with this, cats will lose a natural defense mechanism.