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- Dec 13, 2013
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Oh, thank you. Yes, we had been feeding dry food since day 1 and free-feeding (against my better judgement) for the first few years as we both worked out of the home. I knew it was wrong but we just weren't set up for anything else at the time. When Max started packing on the weight, I decided it was time for a change, plus I thought we could do better in general as far as their diet. My husband wasn't convinced or totally committed to discontinuing the free-feeding (and would continue to sneak food into the bowls from time to time), so I really had to put my foot down at one point.
Update
Mickey weighted in at 16:9 (lbsz) this past weekend. A month ago he was at 16:12 so that's a loss of 3 oz in the last month. Charlie and Susan are satisfied with a much slower rate of loss than I was. As long as he keeps going down it's OK but man 3 oz in a month isn't much. I probably just need to adjust my expectations and not compare with how much he was losing when he was with me.
I plan on posting updates about once a month from now on. Hopefully next month he will have lost more than 3 oz! C&S have been having some work done on their house during the last few weeks and Mickey has gotten into their other cats food at least a couple of times so there is a change he'll lose more this month.![]()
Thank you! Yes, Charlie and Susan just love him to death and he loves them.![]()
Congratulations! Were you free feeding him dry food before? Have you stopped feeding him dry food entirely now or are you just giving him less now? Sometimes just switching from free feeding dry to feeding a measured amount of food (wet or dry) is all it takes.

Last October was the beginning of no more free feedings, just 1/4 cup of dry food 3x day. In December I started replacing some of the dry for grain-free wet for the morning feedings, and also switched the corn-based (prescription - another story) dry food for a low fiber dry food with better protein source. This has been going well as the cats seem satisfied and don't seem to miss having food out all day. All cats currently still get 2x wet (5 hours apart) in the morning and 1x dry (1/4 cup) in the afternoon, and that's it. The next step is to transition completely away from the dry food to an all wet diet. This last bit will prove a lot more challenging I think. We shall see.
Glad to read that the weight loss continues for Mickey. That is just so wonderful. I will check here again and look forward to more updates!
