Cat food shortage leaves pet owners in a bind

A LONG SEARCH ENDS SUCCESSFULLY Not everyone is noticing the scarcity. "I've seen it on the internet, but we've got cat food out the wazoo here,” says one clerk at Nashville

Pet Products in Nashville, Tennessee. But for those like David Saltz, 49, of Auburn, Massachusetts, searching for Fancy Feast's Classic Tender Beef Paté has been a tall order. He has

two cats, and the older one, Tiger, is “very picky.” In the beginning of his search he scoured Google and every possible brick-and-mortar store — from pet stores to big-box and dollar stores

— within 50 miles, all with no luck. "I tried literally every other variety of soft canned cat food in the store — including a few cans of some way overpriced, niche, microbrew,

small-batch, all-natural, wild-animal-approved, non-GMO, grass-fed (did I mention ridiculously overpriced?) canned food,” Saltz says. “Almost all were turned down. Only occasionally would

she eat a bit of a particular flavor, and I would go buy more of that kind, but she was having none of it." Saltz even posted a plea on Reddit. When someone in the thread noted that

Chewy.com had the food back in stock, he immediately ordered a case. The next day, when he went back to the site to order more, it was sold out again. Finally, a few weeks ago, Saltz found

the favored Fancy Feast on Amazon. He ordered two cases and signed up for automatic deliveries every two weeks. He also set up an alert on Chewy.com. "Tiger is happy again,” he says.

_Robin L. Flanigan is a contributing writer who covers mental health, education and human-interest stories for several national publications. A former reporter for several daily newspapers,

her work has also appeared in _People, USA Today_ and _Education Week_. She is the author of the children's book _M is for Mindful_._