I have a female cat that is 8 years old and she was 18lbs last time she was at the vet. The vet said she seemed healthy then other then the fact she is overweight. She has always been overweight but it is really starting to worry me lately because I believe it is starting to affect her breathing (she has started snoring). She is eating Blue Buffalo Wilderness dry food and only gets 2 tablespoons twice a day. I have tried wet food but she won't touch it. I have tried getting her to exercise with toys and laser pointers but she won't chase or play with toys and will only chase the laser for a minute then doesn't want to play anymore. I plan on taking her to the vet to see if there is any medical reasons for her weight but if there isn't I know the vet will want to put her on a prescription diet and I do not like the prescription diets. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get her to lose weight assuming there is no medical reason for her weight. Thanks for any help.
Sage8662
You are right to be concerned. A fat cat is not a healthy cat.
Keep trying with the canned food. There are so many to choose from. You want foods that are low in carbohydrates. Dr Lisa Pierson has made a list of canned foods and their carb percentage.
http://catinfo.org/docs/Food Chart Public 9-22-12.pdf
Her site also offers a lot of advice on how to transition a kibble addict to a wet diet.
http://catinfo.org/docs/Tips for Transitioning PDF 1-14-11.pdf
I recommend you get a baby scale for weekly weighing. It is very important to do this slowly, no more than 4 ounces a week.
Don't give up on the playing. She doens't play because she doesn't have any energy, because she is heavy, and because she eats dry food. She will feel so much better and be more active once she is transitioned to a wet diet, but in the mean time:
Play at scheduled times. Cats thrive on routine. Even if she will only play for 30 seconds at each session, keep at it. Keep trying different games. Try Catch the Bump Under the Rug type games for her.
Get a wand or string toy and drag it slowly under something, a rug or newspaper. Some cats like to pounce while they can still see it peeking out. Other cats prefer it to be completely hidden and just wiggling under the rug or paper.
Keep trying with the canned food. There are so many to choose from. You want foods that are low in carbohydrates. Dr Lisa Pierson has made a list of canned foods and their carb percentage.
http://catinfo.org/docs/Food Chart Public 9-22-12.pdf
Her site also offers a lot of advice on how to transition a kibble addict to a wet diet.
http://catinfo.org/docs/Tips for Transitioning PDF 1-14-11.pdf
I recommend you get a baby scale for weekly weighing. It is very important to do this slowly, no more than 4 ounces a week.
Don't give up on the playing. She doens't play because she doesn't have any energy, because she is heavy, and because she eats dry food. She will feel so much better and be more active once she is transitioned to a wet diet, but in the mean time:
Play at scheduled times. Cats thrive on routine. Even if she will only play for 30 seconds at each session, keep at it. Keep trying different games. Try Catch the Bump Under the Rug type games for her.
Get a wand or string toy and drag it slowly under something, a rug or newspaper. Some cats like to pounce while they can still see it peeking out. Other cats prefer it to be completely hidden and just wiggling under the rug or paper.
Oscar is also overweight and is on a diet right now. He never lost weight until I switched him over to the wet food. Oscar is very food motivated and also doesn't like to play much, so we "go hunting". At meal times we lead him with his food bowl and get him to follow us through the house, with several laps around the dining room table and out into the living room with a final running dash back to the kitchen to eat.
Lottie is overweight (when we had her she was obese but has slimmed down from that). She is actually quite energetic (not at this moment as she is sleeping flat out on top of the radiator), often tearing up and down the stairs. Oddly enough she is probably the smallest eater of my crew and certainly the slowest and most methodical one. Although I would like her to lose a bit more weight, her diet is healthy and not excessive and she gets exercise so I do feel that I may have to accept that she is never going to be as slim as the others.
yup, keep on doing whatever you can to get her to exercise. i believe as well that as soon as she really does start to get the hang of it, she'll start to enjoy the play and exercise and her energy level will increase. it's the opposite of a vicious cycle then. our kitty doesn't like to be picked up, so i would make like i would do it and follow her around the house nice and slow and she would be forced to keep on walking just to get away from me. (i wasn't scaring her really! she was probably just a little annoyed. when she DID finally get sick of it, she knew she could just lie down on her blanket because i would never invade her space there and try to pick her up) if you have stairs where you live, that could be another good way to get a different kind of exercise. just bring her downstairs so that she has to go UP every once in a while to get to her food. good luck!
btw, this is just an fyi, but we have an 11 yr old who is 9 lbs and she gets @100 cals/day. our 14 yr old who is 15.5 lbs gets @150 cals/day. both mostly wet. the only dry food is the treats like greenies or pet greens. neither is REALLY active, but they do like to play when they can. they're certainly not couch potatoes and i think they're both very happy. maybe this will help you figure out how many cals to feed your baby.
btw, this is just an fyi, but we have an 11 yr old who is 9 lbs and she gets @100 cals/day. our 14 yr old who is 15.5 lbs gets @150 cals/day. both mostly wet. the only dry food is the treats like greenies or pet greens. neither is REALLY active, but they do like to play when they can. they're certainly not couch potatoes and i think they're both very happy. maybe this will help you figure out how many cals to feed your baby.
Thanks for the input everyone. If I am going to switch from a dry food to wet food, I'd rather do raw. I also think they would take to the raw better then the wet food. I am trying to decide between making my own or buying a premade raw diet like Primal or Bravo. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
I havent personally tried the Bravo or Primal but I heard they have a lot of veggies in them. Someone recommended to me Felines Pride or Rad Cat... Much more natural with 0 veggies. One of the resellers of Felines Pride is kind of close to me. I just have yet to get there and get some to try.
Rad Cat
Felines Pride
Rad Cat
Felines Pride
I was thinking of starting off with some ground meat/bones and organs from Hare Today till they get used to it then start to introduce raw pieces with the bones. Is there anything I should add to the ground meat supplement wise. I read if it is frozen you may need to add thaimine and taurine but I don't want to add things if there isn't a need too.
This is my fat cat, Lottie. She has lost more weight since then but had already lost a lot from when we got her.
![Image]()
your cat is fat because of the food you are feeding her.....when i started feeding my cats earthborn chicken, they started loosing weight....now i feed a raw diet from catinfo.org, no more canned food with all that garbage in it that makes them fat, but the earthborn chicken will not make them fat....raw is the best, since its all meat...
Add taurine whenever you use ground meat. Air exposure decreases taurine content. To avoid this, just give them a complete piece of meat. If you are worried, try giving a little bit of liver first (the texture is closest to wet food) to see how it'll go over (and it is cheap so you don't waste a lot of money buying food your cat may/maynot eat). You can always try bribing kibble addicts a bit too (as I saw earlier, mixing wet and dry or dry and raw), or if my cat gets finicky with raw, I stuff it with a couple cat treats. By the time she gets the treats, she has eaten some of the meat, so she just keeps going.
My cat is very overweight also and I have been battling with it for ages. We have only had him 10 months but since being with us he has put on 2.2lbs! It wasn't until I joined this forum that I realised that it was probably the dry food that has caused this as when we got him he was on a rubbish wet and dry mix and I just thought that 'good quality' dry was the way to go..
Anyways.. Feeding whole prey.. Could you get a mouse from a pet shop, defrost it and feed that? I don't think tinker would eat it but I'm just curious
Anyways.. Feeding whole prey.. Could you get a mouse from a pet shop, defrost it and feed that? I don't think tinker would eat it but I'm just curious
Our local pet shop sells small frozen mice (they refer to them as pinkies) - they mainly seem to be bought by people with tarantulas and snakes.
Before I transitioned my cats to the raw food, I had to get my dry-food addict cat to adopt the can food. I tried all kinds of stuff to get my young cat off the kibble addict state.
Things that I think that worked: Set twice or three times a day as a meal time. Outside of the meal time, remove the food bowl from the house. At first, you may give them the kibble for meal since that's the food your cat will eat.
Once she is used to the meal time, replace one of the meals to can food. In the can food, add your cat's favorite as a topping. In my case, fortiflora, pieces of kibble, tuna flake worked the best, warming it up with warm water is good too. If that did not work, I turned to not-very-reputable can food like Royal Canine Can, or something with tuna in it, just to get them used to can.
When my cat is getting "somewhat" used to the can food for all meals, I'd remove the dry kibble bag to outside of the house so that the cat cannot smell the food in the house.
Things that I think that worked: Set twice or three times a day as a meal time. Outside of the meal time, remove the food bowl from the house. At first, you may give them the kibble for meal since that's the food your cat will eat.
Once she is used to the meal time, replace one of the meals to can food. In the can food, add your cat's favorite as a topping. In my case, fortiflora, pieces of kibble, tuna flake worked the best, warming it up with warm water is good too. If that did not work, I turned to not-very-reputable can food like Royal Canine Can, or something with tuna in it, just to get them used to can.
When my cat is getting "somewhat" used to the can food for all meals, I'd remove the dry kibble bag to outside of the house so that the cat cannot smell the food in the house.
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