Kitty weight-loss

March 11, 2005 5:26 PM

Help my cat lose weight.

Our spayed female kitty has gotten chubby in her later years (she's about 10). At first there was just more to love, but it has now reached the sad point where she can no longer clean herself properly. She's a medium-sized cat and weighs about 15 lbs (~7kg). When our vet recommended we put her on a diet he said to not leave the food out, but put it down twice a day fifteen minutes a day.

However, that was a few pounds ago and I read on the 'net that a dramatic decrease in food intake can lead to deadly problems in obese cats. How do I make sure she's getting enough? Complicating the problem is that she's very sedentary, our second cat doesn't need to lose weight, and he's also used to having a bowl of food on the ground whenever he wants to eat.

Has anyone had experience with cat weight loss? Are there any diet brands of food you recommend? Any magic toys that get your cats moving? Aluminum foil, paper, balls, toilet paper rolls, things-on-strings, and even catnip won't get her off her butt.

posted by schroedinger to pets & animals (17 comments total)

to get your kitty active, try a laser pointer. my cats would play with them for hours if it didn't bore the shit out of me.

i have a chubby kitty and my vet prescribed some prescription food. it didn't work for me. both the cat and i decided that the diet isn't going to work out.

best of luck. we might try it again soon.
posted by birdherder at 5:47 PM on March 11, 2005

Call your vet. In my experience, vets are fine with answering follow-up questions like this over the phone. They want you help you do manage your cat's health correctly. (Just give the vet a day or two to return your message.) This vet knows your cat's unique circumstances, his weight, his health conditions and risk factors--that's the best person to tell you how to implement a healthy weight loss regimen for your kitty.

If you're not sure what brand to use, the vet can make some suggestions there too. Prescription brands are pricier, but when may be a good way to start this. Most of the prescription food wholesalers have an unconditional money back guarantee, so if your cat rejects it you can just bring back the open bag and keep experimenting with alternate brands/flavors until you hit upon the right one.

Seconded on the laser pointer. I usually have to give up only because my finger cramps up from holding down the button that long. The cats would be happy to hunt down that wily red light forever if given a chance.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 6:03 PM on March 11, 2005

They want you help you do manage

Oh bloody hell. Pretend that part made sense, okay?

"They want to help you manage..."
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 6:05 PM on March 11, 2005

Like what birdherder said, exercise is where it’s at. Unless you are feeding your cat poorly, it is most likely that, like most house cats, it’s lazy. My family adopted an obese cat a few years back. Around the same time we also got a pretty young cat. They got along fairly well, but there was a few times that it was hard to tell who was playing and who was harassing. They got into this game where they would chases each other up and down the stairs, and before we knew it, she was the thinnest cat in the house. It really does come down to personally, but another cat, if selected carefully, can be the full time trainer any cat needs to get into shape. Hope this helps. Peace.
posted by Neosamurai85 at 6:15 PM on March 11, 2005

I have three cats and am having to feed the two fit ones in a different way than the fatty. He doesn't get to eat with them. I've also eliminated the human food that I used to share with them, much to their annoyance.

The excercise thing is the main thing. I try to make sure the fatty gets about 15 minutes of excercise at least twice a day. His weight hasn't changed an awful lot, but he seems much more active and, frankly, much more happy.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:16 PM on March 11, 2005

I what I meant to say was… “It really does come down to personality…”
posted by Neosamurai85 at 6:18 PM on March 11, 2005

to get your kitty active, try a laser pointer

Beware, lest ye run afoul of U.S. Patent No. 5,443,036. ;)
posted by caddis at 6:29 PM on March 11, 2005

Alas, she's not into laser pointers either. She is committed to laziness. Even harassment by the other cat will only make her meow and move a few feet from wherever she was.
posted by schroedinger at 6:32 PM on March 11, 2005

Read this thread for more info. After reading it, I started my cat on the nutro natural choice indoor senior diet, and he has lost weight.
posted by matildaben at 6:39 PM on March 11, 2005

First, put your cat into a steel chamber. Inside this chamber you also need a vial of hydrocyanic acid, and a small amount of a radioactive substance. If a single atom of the substance decays, it will activate a relay mechanism which trips a hammer. This in turn will break the vial of hydrocyanic acid.

There are a few problems with this however: it might kill your cat, but you won't really know until you open the box. So for all intents and purposes, your cat will be both alive and dead, according to quantum law. The weight won't be of too much import at that point.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. The coincidence was too much.
posted by still at 7:27 PM on March 11, 2005

nakedcodemonkey is right about calling your vet to discuss how much and what to feed, as well as how quickly she should lose the weight. And you are right about being concerned about too-rapid weight loss. As you've found, it's very hard to make a cat exercise, odds are she'll have more energy as she loses weight (but she's also getting to be an older lady, so I doubt she'll ever be really active). With cats diet is normally really the best way to go.

If she's an only cat, I don't really see any reason to feed her meals, give her her ration for the day (measured out) and leave it, unless she's gobbling it all down in one go, in which case I'd divide it into two or three meals. Make sure she has lots of fresh water available. Diet foods for dogs are a rip-off, since you're paying for filler you can provide yourself more cheaply and in better quality. With cats, diet food can sometimes be beneficial, I would definitely discuss it with your vet. Stay away from Science Diet (unless it's Prescription Diet - I have seen many cats do extremely well with weight loss on Prescription Diet R/D, and keep it off with W/D), Iams and Purina (unless it's their Veterinary Diets), their ingredients quality is very low. Nutro Natural Choice is a decent brand, and Felidae and Innova are extremely good. It's worth your while to choose a better-quality cat food, since your cat will be eating less, you want what she does eat to be of good quality.
posted by biscotti at 10:21 PM on March 11, 2005

Is it possible that she's depressed? It doesn't sound like it, since you clearly pay a lot of attention to her. Still, I feel I have to bring up this possibility. If she were depressed, then a lot of touching, cuddling, petting, massaging might encourage her to get up and do something, chase something, etc.

My cat is bored with most toys, but he seems completely unable to resist the thing-on-a-stick class of cat toys. There are ones you can buy, usually a plastic stick about 2' long, with a string on the end, with a real fur or feather toy on the end of that. However, his absolute favorite is a piece of recently-living willow or bamboo, maybe with two small leaves on the end (we think of it as a "bug").

There is an art to playing with some toys, with him. (he's so jaded!) My fiancé is better at it than I am: he tries to "simulate" living prey, giving the cat plenty of time to act all nonchalant before he suddenly pounces out of nowhere, scaring the dickens out of us both. That's Max's (our cat) way of playing. I'm not sure I'm always patient enough. Your cat may have different tastes.

One other thing: Max likes to hide behind things when he's thinking about pouncing. Dan (the fiancé) very thoughtfully often provides this cover - it can be a box about the size of a shoebox, a 4-5" high drift of department-store tissue paper, or sometimes just his (Dan's) shoe. The cat pretends he's completely invisible to his prey, and it is most amusing to us, but it really seems to enrich the experience for him.

The cat also likes little "puzzles", essentially getting something out of a box, or some accessible nook, or out from under some tissue paper. These are pretty simple puzzles. It sounds like your cat may not be quite motivated enough to want to do this, though.

Your toy list didn't mention anything made out of dead animals. I'm a vegetarian, so this is kind of icky to me, but Max -- and most cats I've heard of -- completely loves these real fur mice you can get from pet stores. I think it's actually close-trimmed rabbit fur made into little mice, usually costing about 99 cents or $1.50 or so. Real feathers may turn her on, and if you're really desperate, you can try fancy food treats - there are these little dried fish (anchovies) you can buy that smell repulsive, but they do motivate the cat. What if you put one inside another toy? Would your cat chase stinky food?

Whatever the toy, it's most attractive when it's new. After a week or so, the shine is usually off. We have taken to "hiding" his stick-toys in a coat closet between play sessions so he doesn't get tired of them quite so quickly. Of course, now he gets this touchingly hopeful expression on his little kitty face whenever we go to get a coat, but we deal with it.
posted by amtho at 3:46 AM on March 12, 2005 [1 favorite]

My seven year old spayed female cat was starting to be a bit more pear shaped, and was becoming less active during human-feline play. She remained enthusiastic, but was more content to chase things with her eyes than her body. That's even with the fishing line, and changing the lure to include catnipor dried meat.

So, I added a new young cat to the mix, and so far (after a three day hiss-fit) feline-feline play ensures she gets a bit more activity.

I still have feeding issues to resolve, because the young one is still able to eat endlessly and burn it all up.
posted by KS at 7:30 AM on March 12, 2005

My mum has a cat that was overweight and lazy. She's lost some of the weight (we don't know how, neither does her vet) and she's become much more active. It may simply be the weight that's holding your kitty down from being active.

Regarding the cat that doesn't need to lose weight - try feeding him up higher (a washer or dryer works well) where chubby kitty can't get to.

As above - Nutro is a good brand (I've not had to use the weight loss stuff for my two kitties, but kitten and indoor adult is great). It's made with human grade foodstuff.

What you may have to do is feed both kitties the weight loss food and supplement skinny kitty's food when/where chubby kitty can't get to it.

Rabbit fur mice are "da bomb" per my kitties. My male beastie, Oliver, shreds them to the plastic nubbins (inside the fur) and we have to frequently replace them.
posted by deborah at 11:37 AM on March 12, 2005

schroedinger: you didn't say whether the cat was eating wet or dry food; if wet, switch to dry. generally less calories in dry food.

I know someone that that worked for, and actually, it worked the opposite for their other cat, who needed to gain weight after being sick-- they gave her wet food when she had been eating dry, and she gained the weight quickly.
posted by exlotuseater at 2:12 PM on March 12, 2005

Sorry, I couldn't resist. The coincidence was too much.

Surprised it took that long!
posted by dmt at 3:36 PM on March 12, 2005

Chairman Mu gets the Nutro weight management formula, which works pretty well (dropped him from 15 lbs to 13). We also give him a 1/6 of a can of wet food twice a day.
posted by electro at 3:16 PM on March 13, 2005