5 cats, 3 different diets!

[Catshrink]

Holy Moley!!! The vet said emphatically that Sam and Wrigley are too fat (Sam is 25# and Wrigs is 17.5#). I agree. Ryno is 14 and needs the mature cat diet.

So, the diet starts tomorrow for all of us (hey, I'm a bit chubby, too!).

The plan is to lock Sam and Wrigs in the bathroom in the morning with their prescribed amount of fat cat chow. Then I can feed Lucy and Ricky regular food in one corner and Ryno her food in another. The vet said to give them 30-45 minutes to eat, then pick up the food. Offer it again in the early evening. They've always had free feedings.

Sam gets 3/4 cup a day and Wrigs 1/2 cup. The vet estimates it will take 18 weeks to get Wrigs down to a svelt 13 pounds and 36 weeks to get Sam down to 15. She only wants them to lose .2 pounds a week.

Please wish me well. This is going to be very difficult on all of us. Has anyone else had to do this?

Here's Sam: And here's Wrigley:

[Az]

1. 5 cats 3 different recipes

Come on... someone had to say it. :evilgrin:

[Catshrink]

4. Thanks...

:puke:

but no thanks. Hear they taste like chicken. (And Sam would probably be very tough!)

[billybob537]

18. Terriaki is GOOOOD!!!

[fairfaxvadem]

2. Holey Moley is Right!!!

You have a couple of Chubbalubbs on your hands!

Your Sam looks my Snowbell without the, er, extra padding!!

Good luck to you and them, they will feel great once they get the poundage under control.

Post Before and After Photos!

[Catshrink]

5. It's gonna be an adventure!

I will keep a photo record of they diet. Sam has a weigh in in late August.

[Dookus]

3. I pity you...

luckily, my three cats eat dry food at their whim, and so far all are slim. My youngest girl, though, has potential to pork up - she's lazier than I am.

[Catshrink]

6. That's how it was with us...

dry food whenever. But they are fat fat fat. And damn lazy too.

Time for us all to get healthy I guess!

[tandot]

7. * D-A-M-N * ... Did Sam swallow another cat?

25 pounds? And Wrigley 17.5 pounds? :evilgrin:

I've always liked chubby cats. My cat Tommy is 3 years old and still only weighs 9 pounds. He always has access to his food, but he just stops eating whenever he is full.

They'll hate you for a while and probably try to open each cabinet door to see where they can find anything edible. But they will be healthier in the long run...

Good Luck!

[Catshrink]

16. Ricky is only 9 pounds....

He's a little guy and is also 3 years old. He's pretty active, running around the house and antagonizing all the other cats. What an adventure awaits!

[meti57b]

8. I succeeded in getting one of my cats to reduce from 10lbs to 8lbs.....

They were eating dried food. The vet said to give them canned (wet) food and they would lose weight. I didn't believe canned food would cause them to lose weight. But to make the vet happy and get him to stop tweaking my conscience that I was making the cats unhealthy, I tried the canned food.

Sure enough for the one cat that I could get to eat the canned food, he steadily lost the 2 lbs over a couple months and has maintained that lower weight by continuing to eat canned food. In fact, he eats more than the recommended daily amount of canned food and still doesn't gain it back. I feed him three times a day.

My older cat, who is 11 lbs when he should be maybe 9 1/2 lbs, would rather eat nails or even starve to death than eat canned food. To make it more difficult, he doesn't understand the concept that he has to eat all the canned food on the plate and can't graze at it all day (you can't leave it out, it will spoil.) I tried giving him less dry food and he still doesn't lose weight on dry food. He is able to jump up to a high shelf on a bookcase and the other cats cannot, so I put his dry food up there and no one else can get to it.

My other cat who lost the weight would still rather eat dry food, but I only give a little as a special treat, occasionally.

Cat #3, I have gave him canned food since he was a baby so he is used to it and is the right weight.

Try giving you cats canned (wet) food, it works!!

[Catshrink]

15. I'll talk to my vet about this...

it's intriguing. I'm interested in hearing what she has to say. Meanwhile, I start mixing in the R/D with their regular food tomorrow. I think if I gradually mix it in over two weeks or so they'll accept it better.

[TrogL]

9. You are going to get meowed at

You do realize that, don't you?

[Catshrink]

14. Oh yeah.. they're not gonna be happy

I'm bracing myself for angry stares, litterbox misses, and whining. It'll happen. They are so damn spoiled.

[TEXASYANKEE]

10. Good luck!

I have 4 female cats (14-12-8-7) and the vet wants 2 of them to lose a bit of weight. She suggested canned kitten food (growth formula), which is high in protein and low in carbs. Well, the one cat doesn't like wet food much, so that's out of the question. But she's only a pound or so too big, so I'm not going to stress us both out by trying to force it on her. The other cat, however, needs to lose several pounds and, luckily, she loves wet food. So I'm feeding her a can of wet kitten food (small helpings 3 times a day) and have taken her completely off dry food.

Good luck with your new routine. If your precious felines lose the weight and live long healthy lives, it will be well worth your effort.

[Catshrink]

13. That really is a great idea...

I'm taking another cat to the vet on Monday and will talk to her about it.

[Mallifica]

11. good luck with the diet

I have a 3 yr. old petite cat that should weigh around 7 pounds, but is now over 10 . ..

I've tried smaller portions of dried food which was beginning to work, but then I took in a stray, undernourished kitten. Now they just fight for the kitten food and leave the diet stuff alone. Didn't even think to seperate them . . . my 3 yr. old cat just keeps pilin' on the pounds.

I'll put my kitty on a diet too.

Are your cats indoor only? I let my older cat out during the day. I'm worried that if I seriously restrict her diet she will run away. Do you think I should lock her in the house?

[Catshrink]

12. I'd keep your baby indoors...

Mine can use a kitty door to go out into the Arizona room (screened porch) so they can get fresh air and smell the birds. I wouldn't let them outside because of the coyotes, fox, and traffic around here.

They are gonna be so pissed at me!

[mwdem]

17. Ohhh, I've been through this

my tabby weighed 23 lbs. I put him on the Science Diet, but a year later he had to be put to sleep. He had a chronic problem with kidney stones ( I really don't know if it came from the diet). We adopted him...he was abandoned in an apt. for about a week...some food, water must have been a faucet left partly opened...that's how he drank in our home. He was maybe 9 or 10 years old..the vets were just guessing. We did have him for 7 years, and he was a sweetheart. You can't beat orange tabbies.

[Catshrink]

19. Ricky agrees!

[mwdem]

20. He was soooo Ricky...

I wish you the best. These boys are tooooo sweet!!!

[geniph]

21. No offense, but those cats are lard butts!

That's hard on their joints, besides predisposing them to all kinds of problems like diabetes. It's no fun to lose a cat to diabetes; I've done it and I still miss her. I wish I'd put her on a diet instead. Stick to the diets, no matter how pitifully they beg. And they will.

Some cats just won't stop eating when food's free-fed. I usually leave dry food out all the time, and only one of my three is a porkbutt, but I keep busting her sneaking in there to eat all the food when the other two have their backs turned. Then the other two insist they haven't gotten anything to eat because Yankee scarfed it all down. My three are big cats anyway - they're all Maine Coons - but if they were double their ideal weights, like your Sam and Wrigley, they'd be (brace yourself, this is not an exaggeration): 36 pounds, 34 pounds, and 30 pounds. Crap, there's no way I could take the three of them to the vet at the same time - I have to put the carriers on a luggage cart now!

[put out]

22. "Lard Butts" Oh Dear Me

Oh shit oh dear! I'm shaking my chair trying not to laugh and draw attention.

My Ma has a Maine Coon mix and he weighs 19 pounds. Good grief, he is big and he is fat. Taking him to the vet nearly got me a dislocated shoulder when my Ma was out of town. Picking him up causes my back to talk to me. When I'm sleeping and he decides to jump up and share the bed, guess who gets the best spot? After I recover from having the wind knocked out of me.

So the vet sez, give him this special diet food, one cup a day because the cat, Fergus, is overweight. Bwa-ha-ha. My mother insists that all this talk about a lard butt cat is an illusion because he just has a lot of hair.