Stop your British Blue stealing the other cat's food

A chunky British Blue raiding his housemate's bowl multiple times a day — honestly, this is one of the most common and most fixable multi-cat feeding problems we hear about. Microchip feeders are one of the most genuinely useful innovations for exactly this situation: the lid only opens for the cat whose microchip is registered to that feeder, so your bigger boy simply gets nothing when he shoves his face in. Before I point you to the right one — are both cats microchipped, and is the concern purely about the stealing, or is one of them also on a specific diet or prescription food?

That's a really clear picture — and the weight creep on him combined with the stress and weight loss on her means this genuinely needs solving, not just managed. The product I'd point you straight to is the SureFlap SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder. It reads your cat's existing microchip (or a collar tag if needed), the lid closes the moment she walks away, and your British Blue will learn very quickly that bowl is not for him. It's robust enough that a determined large cat can't simply nudge it open — the mechanism is solid. You'd get one feeder registered to your smaller cat, and her food stays completely protected.

Yes — the SureFeed reads all internationally recognised microchip standards including 9, 10, and 15-digit chips, so a rescue chip is absolutely fine. You just hold her near the feeder during setup and it learns her chip in seconds. No re-chipping, no special tags needed unless you actively want to use them.

You only strictly need the microchip feeder for your smaller cat's bowl, since she's the one being robbed. Your British Blue can eat from a normal bowl — the point is that her food becomes inaccessible to him, not that his needs locking away. That said, if you ever want to portion-control him precisely or put him on a diet plan down the line, a second SureFeed registered to him makes that very easy. For now, one feeder for her solves the immediate problem.

Perfect choice for this situation. One thing worth knowing: some cats take a day or two to feel confident eating with the lid closing around them, so leave it open manually for the first day if she seems hesitant — there's a training mode built in for exactly that. Once she's used to it, you'll almost certainly notice her relaxing at mealtimes within a week, and his waistline will thank you too.