Hi there,
I recently adopted a new cat with my husband, and as he is extremely obese (23.4lbs) I thought it would be good to seek out a forum (also of course doing veterinary care...he's been twice in the 6 days we've had him!) to get support.
I adopted my first cat, Mitch (a silver tabby) from a rescue here in Toronto. He was a stray on one of their feral feeding routes who got hit by a car. It took a few weeks to capture him, and he needed one of his front legs amputated. But he turned out to be stray, not feral, and I saw him and fell in love.
It took awhile for my roommate and I to gain his trust. But we did. I realized after awhile that he was lonely, so I adopted Lear, a semi-feral. I had already started feral feeding for that rescue. Lear and Mitch were best friends, and as Mitch aged, Lear helped him out (Mitch became a little senile). Mitch lived with renal failure for around 6 years until around 18 years old he was just too worn out and it was time to let him go. He was my love though.
I had ended up running the feral TNR program for the rescue, and fostering a bunch of special need cats (prolapsed rectums, hydrocephalus and blind, megaesophagus, terrible IBD, missing eye etc). I also took in Esme from my BFF, after she met her husband who was allergic. As my BFF's dog had bitten Esme and punctured her esophagus I was glad to have her!
Currently we just had Lear (now 14) and Esme (now 11). We also have two dogs, Luc (German Shepherd/Border Collie mix, 14) and Neb (Beagle/Husky mix, 9). Both dogs are good with cats, though when Luc comes in from evening walks he gets a little excitable.
I recently saw on Toronto Animal Services (city run shelter) site a silver tabby (just like Mitch!) named Timothy. I fell in love. He looked bigger, but I called and got more details, and my husband said yes to a third cat. TAS had told me that he weighed around TWENTY THREE lbs, so we needed to buy a dog carrier for him (our current cat carrier was big - big enough for Lear and Esme - but Lear and Esme put together are still smaller than Timothy).
We brought him home last Thursday, and I took him to the vet that day. 23.4lbs, breathing and gimpy-ness likely due to weight (he has a slight limp in addition to his waddle - but they couldn't feel a thickening of the joints). Poor dude. The vet that day calculated he should eat 329 calories/day for gradual weight loss.
We had trouble getting him to eat that. I'd say he was eating about 150-250 calories a day, if you sat with him. When he was brought into the shelter (his owner died; they don't know how long he was alone for) he needed appetite stimulants and to be hand fed, likely due to stress.
He seems VERY chill - he really wanted to be friends with Lear and Esme, who were mean to him, and he hated the dogs. I got some Feliway Friday to try to smooth things over. I think it might be helping, that or they're just adjusting.
Timothy and Esme now coexist peacefully for the most part. Lear is getting better - they shared the same couch cushion last night - but he was mean to Timothy this morning. Timothy will now walk past the dogs without hissing or swatting (generally) and even walked under Luc on Sunday and sniffed nose to nose with him last night! So there's settling.
We took him back to the vet last night as we were concerned he wasn't eating enough and that he would develop hepatic lipidosis. The vet said he looked great (aside from being 23.4lbs) and that she wasn't too concerned, but we ran bloodwork (results today; everything is fine, liver function good).
Timothy is being fed mostly wet food, and stays in the kitchen during the day (Neb our Beagle will eat cat food and poop, so we have a baby gate up that the cats get under - except for Timothy, who is too fat). We also bought a litterbox for the bathroom so that when Timothy isn't in the kitchen he has somewhere to go. He has a cat bed and scratching post in the kitchen as well as of course water and the litterbox.
For a cat that wasn't neutered until he was brought into the shelter at 8.5 years old, so far he has very tidy litterbox habits (not finding a lot of poops, but we've looked around the house, and nothing we can find - and they did a rectal exam last night, he's not constipated - just hard to distinguish which cat is pooping when I guess). I did have to clean his bum last night and he was very good about it. He prefers to use a perfectly clean litterbox so I'm constantly cleaning! We got a new litter locker so we have two now!
He loves to snuggle, has a huge purr, and is just the most affectionate cat ever. I absolutely adore him.
We cancelled our August vacation with the dogs because even though our cat sitter was going to housesit, we were concerned it was too much change too soon for Timothy coming three weeks after his adoption. So we're doing a staycation.
Anyways - any stories of successfully getting cats to lose weight would be great! Yesterday (Monday) he was the exact same weight (23.4lbs) as he was on his adoption day (last Thursday). So it's time to start focusing on trimming down!
I recently adopted a new cat with my husband, and as he is extremely obese (23.4lbs) I thought it would be good to seek out a forum (also of course doing veterinary care...he's been twice in the 6 days we've had him!) to get support.
I adopted my first cat, Mitch (a silver tabby) from a rescue here in Toronto. He was a stray on one of their feral feeding routes who got hit by a car. It took a few weeks to capture him, and he needed one of his front legs amputated. But he turned out to be stray, not feral, and I saw him and fell in love.
It took awhile for my roommate and I to gain his trust. But we did. I realized after awhile that he was lonely, so I adopted Lear, a semi-feral. I had already started feral feeding for that rescue. Lear and Mitch were best friends, and as Mitch aged, Lear helped him out (Mitch became a little senile). Mitch lived with renal failure for around 6 years until around 18 years old he was just too worn out and it was time to let him go. He was my love though.
I had ended up running the feral TNR program for the rescue, and fostering a bunch of special need cats (prolapsed rectums, hydrocephalus and blind, megaesophagus, terrible IBD, missing eye etc). I also took in Esme from my BFF, after she met her husband who was allergic. As my BFF's dog had bitten Esme and punctured her esophagus I was glad to have her!
Currently we just had Lear (now 14) and Esme (now 11). We also have two dogs, Luc (German Shepherd/Border Collie mix, 14) and Neb (Beagle/Husky mix, 9). Both dogs are good with cats, though when Luc comes in from evening walks he gets a little excitable.
I recently saw on Toronto Animal Services (city run shelter) site a silver tabby (just like Mitch!) named Timothy. I fell in love. He looked bigger, but I called and got more details, and my husband said yes to a third cat. TAS had told me that he weighed around TWENTY THREE lbs, so we needed to buy a dog carrier for him (our current cat carrier was big - big enough for Lear and Esme - but Lear and Esme put together are still smaller than Timothy).
We brought him home last Thursday, and I took him to the vet that day. 23.4lbs, breathing and gimpy-ness likely due to weight (he has a slight limp in addition to his waddle - but they couldn't feel a thickening of the joints). Poor dude. The vet that day calculated he should eat 329 calories/day for gradual weight loss.
We had trouble getting him to eat that. I'd say he was eating about 150-250 calories a day, if you sat with him. When he was brought into the shelter (his owner died; they don't know how long he was alone for) he needed appetite stimulants and to be hand fed, likely due to stress.
He seems VERY chill - he really wanted to be friends with Lear and Esme, who were mean to him, and he hated the dogs. I got some Feliway Friday to try to smooth things over. I think it might be helping, that or they're just adjusting.
Timothy and Esme now coexist peacefully for the most part. Lear is getting better - they shared the same couch cushion last night - but he was mean to Timothy this morning. Timothy will now walk past the dogs without hissing or swatting (generally) and even walked under Luc on Sunday and sniffed nose to nose with him last night! So there's settling.
We took him back to the vet last night as we were concerned he wasn't eating enough and that he would develop hepatic lipidosis. The vet said he looked great (aside from being 23.4lbs) and that she wasn't too concerned, but we ran bloodwork (results today; everything is fine, liver function good).
Timothy is being fed mostly wet food, and stays in the kitchen during the day (Neb our Beagle will eat cat food and poop, so we have a baby gate up that the cats get under - except for Timothy, who is too fat). We also bought a litterbox for the bathroom so that when Timothy isn't in the kitchen he has somewhere to go. He has a cat bed and scratching post in the kitchen as well as of course water and the litterbox.
For a cat that wasn't neutered until he was brought into the shelter at 8.5 years old, so far he has very tidy litterbox habits (not finding a lot of poops, but we've looked around the house, and nothing we can find - and they did a rectal exam last night, he's not constipated - just hard to distinguish which cat is pooping when I guess). I did have to clean his bum last night and he was very good about it. He prefers to use a perfectly clean litterbox so I'm constantly cleaning! We got a new litter locker so we have two now!
He loves to snuggle, has a huge purr, and is just the most affectionate cat ever. I absolutely adore him.
We cancelled our August vacation with the dogs because even though our cat sitter was going to housesit, we were concerned it was too much change too soon for Timothy coming three weeks after his adoption. So we're doing a staycation.
Anyways - any stories of successfully getting cats to lose weight would be great! Yesterday (Monday) he was the exact same weight (23.4lbs) as he was on his adoption day (last Thursday). So it's time to start focusing on trimming down!
