My Cat is Overweight! Help!

Hello!~

My Cat Deva, who My boyfriend and I rescued/adopted from a battered shelter 2 years ago is now overweight! .. when we got her she was a mere 12 ounces, missing patches of hair, cigarette burns , ear mites, and weak stomach..

This year, she gained so much weight right before my eyes!!! .. i'm not talking about 2 or 3 extra pounds.. she's huge! .. and i don't think it's healthy for her..

Since I've been so busy with work now, My boyfriends parents aren't really familiar with the types of foods out there that are healthy for cats (well neither am i for that matter) .. I think she is on Maxximum? ..

Does anyone have any suggestions for food for her diet.. she's extremely overweight, before she used to play with me and run around, now she can't even jump on the couch without resting! the vet only prescribes eukanuba/iams, and i really don't want that! so any advice would be helpful! thank you!

Hi.

Good for you for rescuing!

My recommendations would be to feed a food like this http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=product-detail&pxsl=//product[@id='73']

and to help the cat be more active. Find some toys that she likes. Some cats love to chase flashlights/lasers, some like chase balls. A good one is a fish on a line where you throw it out and reel it in and she chases and jumps... you could also get a kitty harness and let her explore outside. "walking' the cat is easier said than down but even just being outside is stimulating.

I also feed my cats up off the floor. That way if she wants to eat she has to jump up.

Im happy we rescued her too! she started as us fostering her for volunteer work for service hours in high school, but my boyfriend and i fell in love with her and we kept her!


but you know what! i have bought her tons of toys! the laser lights, the cat nip you put in toys.. she's sooo lazy lol.. only when i shake a bottle of treats is when she gets up! gaaahh! lol..

how often should we be feeding her anyhow? my family just puts food out when she cries for it (which is every few hours ) ..

Oh well. There is your problem. LOL That works for some cats but once they verge on OBESE you need to make some changes.

That same website has a 'tool' for helping you figure out how much to feed. http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=profile-wiz

As for how often... I guess that depends on your schedule. I think more, smaller portions would be easier for the cat to adapt to since she's used to eating often. But two meals a day would be fine too.

My parents have two obese cats but they can't listen to them cry for food and they don't bother to fix the problems. Those cats used to be gorgeous and as much as I love them they are hideous to look at now. It's quite frustrating.

forgot to mention that it could be a thyroid thing or something since she gained so quickly. Have you taken her to the vet?

I Haven't taken her to the vet, im actually scared! they will be so mad at me for letting her get this big..

but i was planning to take her to the vet when i brought oreo, which was next paycheck next week.

That's good. It's better to be safe than sorry!

Just to let you know, I changed both my cats over to Innova and they love it; it's also a very good food to feed them. If you leave food out for Deva all the time, maybe try portioning the amount you leave out. I agree that a checkup at the vet is in order.

I got Gomez a battery powered rat that skitters around in random patterns, just like a real one would. Talk about getting a cat busy! 'Course you have to supervise something like that, but you can't help yourself - it's too much fun to watch, lol!

I figured out with my orange boy that some cats don't have enough self control to have access to food all the time. This was a big change from our last cat, who we had to beg to get her to eat. Tybalt the fatso was a rescue too, and my theory is that when he was a stray he didn't know when or where he was going to get his next meal. So when he found a source of food, he had to stock up. Just my little behaviorist's insight. He's gotten better about hoarding food as he's gotten older and wider, but he's still convinced by dinner time that we've forgotten him completely and he's going to have to hunt down a dog for dinner!

I think you're right about that, Emma.

My Gonzo had been a stray before he decided he was my cat, but he never was inclined to overeat - probably because he was so good at providing for himself. He ate breakfast with the girl next door to me and her cat, had lunch (bologna sandwiches) with the guy five apartments down from me who worked nights. He and Gonzo would have lunch and watch "The Young and the Restless" together , then when I got home from work he'd be sitting on my doorstep for his "dinner date," an evening of playing games and snuggling and then he'd curl up in my papa san chair for the night. Some days, for a change, he'd go hunt something, usually a wild rabbit or a 'possum. I could leave food out for him all the time and he'd just nibble throughout the day.

CJ, on the other hand . . . would eat until everything was all gone! He was a starving kitten I talked down out of a tree in our backyard. The only thing we had right quick at hand to entice him down was a biscuit. He was crazy about biscuits his whole life - would snatch one right out of your hand, and didn't particularly care if he got a little hand with his biscuit!

Well! it's a good thing i'm going to the pet store tomorrow, cause i'm going to order innova for my kitty cat deva and hope that she can lose some weight and start to play with us again!

One of my cats can have food left down all the time without overeating.

My other two cats will overeat if I leave food down, so they get 1/2 cup each in the morning and that's it for the whole day. Even that's a little too much for them, but they're that much overweight yet that I need to cut down more.