Overweight Cat

[Animal Freak]

I have three cats and a dog in my household. All of them are at a healthy weight except one. Ember is three years old, spayed, and obsessed with food. She eats hers, she eats the others, and she eats mine. I've cut her back on the food she gets and she doesn't get much human food at all. She refuses to play with a wand type of toy, but she loves the laser light. I've started getting up earlier so I could give her some play time in the morning as well as in the evening. I give about ten-fifteen minutes in the morning for her and what she doesn't use goes to the dog. In the evening, I play with the laser light for about fifteen-twenty minutes depending on how interested she is before switching to the wand toy for the other two. She runs quite a bit in this time though she does take a lot of breaks. However, it seems to have done rather little. She used to weigh around nine pounds. Then I weighed her and it came up around eleven pounds. Now, I'm not sure how accurate our scale is as it changes just about every time, but I don't think it's that far off. If it is right, then she weighs about the same as my largest cat and she's my smallest. However, she doesn't really look that heavy. Yes, you can tell she's a bit heavier than she should be and she feels very solid when I pick her up.

Anyway, when I saw she weighed eleven pounds, I started really trying to get her to lose weight. That was when I started cutting her back on food and trying to increase her play time. I weighed her again recently and it was still at eleven pounds. I'm not saying I was expecting her to be right back at nine pounds, but it seems as though she should have lost at least a little.

Why can't she lose weight? Is it just a slow metabolism? And is there anything else I can do? I don't want her having any issues due to being overweight and I'd feel a lot better if I could get her back down to normal, but I might be a bit more worried than I actually need to be. I wouldn't say she's obese by any stretch.

 

[abyeb]

If you can give her wet food, that could help because this is less calorically dense because of the higher moisture content. You can also mix in some extra water in with wet food. I'd also recommend asking your vet for exact calorie recommendations.

 

[Animal Freak]

If you can give her wet food, that could help because this is less calorically dense because of the higher moisture content. You can also mix in some extra water in with wet food. I'd also recommend asking your vet for exact calorie recommendations.

Thanks for the reply. They all do get wet food, but she hasn't been getting much so I suppose I can increase the amount of wet and decrease the amount of dry. I'm already giving one cat water so I can add some to hers quite easily. A call to the vet might be needed as well.

 

[stephanietx]

I would switch to mainly canned food, preferably grain-free so she's not getting lots of fillers and a lot of protein, which will keep her fuller longer. You can add water to wet food to make the consistency like a slurry to get more water in them. Then you can feed dry food "snack" offerings and use dry food as treats. If you go grain-free for both dry and wet, that will help cut down on the carbs.

 

[foxden]

This is one thread in the Nutrition Forum. Many members seek advice about "solid" kitties there.
Diet for Very Overweight Cat

This link is referenced in that thread. It's a bit old, but still relevant
Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight

Hope this helps.

 

[Animal Freak]

I would switch to mainly canned food, preferably grain-free so she's not getting lots of fillers and a lot of protein, which will keep her fuller longer. You can add water to wet food to make the consistency like a slurry to get more water in them. Then you can feed dry food "snack" offerings and use dry food as treats. If you go grain-free for both dry and wet, that will help cut down on the carbs.

Thanks for the reply! I'll start looking into grain free foods. They mostly get dry because it's harder to keep up on wet food. It seems like we go through it so quickly. But I'll do what I must. I'm not sure if we'll completely cut out dry, but I'll start decreasing slowly until I see some results. If we get to the point of having little to no dry, then I guess that's where we'll be. Do you think the other two should get the same? Ash gets wet and water due to his UTIs anyway so it wouldn't be a huge change for him, but he is at a healthy weight and I don't want him losing. Frost I worry about because he only seems to like the wet half the time anyway and he has lost weight due to not eating so I definitely don't want him losing.

It would be great if I could find a grain free food meant for urinary tract health in the dry food. We often get that for Ash since he's had quite a few. That or hairball control.

This is one thread in the Nutrition Forum. Many members seek advice about "solid" kitties there.
Diet for Very Overweight Cat

This link is referenced in that thread. It's a bit old, but still relevant
Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight

Hope this helps.

Thanks! I read through a little bit on them. I'll look at them more later, but they seem helpful. It gives an idea on what food might be good at least.

 

[burningbright]

Also it could be worms. The roundworms eat all the nourishment from the food so the cat is always hungry and bloated.

 

[Animal Freak]

Also it could be worms. The roundworms eat all the nourishment from the food so the cat is always hungry and bloated.

Would there be any other issues along with that for me to look out for? This isn't exactly a new thing. I'd hate to find out she's had worms this entire time. That would be terrible.

 

[burningbright]

When was the last time you wormed her? Every 3 months is recommended.

 

[Animal Freak]

When was the last time you wormed her? Every 3 months is recommended.

I honestly don't remember. She hasn't been to the vet in a while though. I'm still fairly new to having such a large responsibility since these are the first cats that I've done pretty much all the work for and I still don't pay for everything. We keep the dog up on medication since she's the only one that goes outside, but I don't think the cats are as up to date now that I think about it.

Edit: I looked up symptoms of worms and she doesn't have any of them. I would imagine she'd have some considering she's been overweight for probably close to a year now. She's eating fine, she's probably the most active of them, there's no diarrhea, no blood, nothing in the stool, definitely no weight loss, and I wouldn't really describe her as pot-bellied. Of course, it's still a concern, but it seems it's an unlikely one. I don't know how she wouldn't have gotten them either. They're indoor only, there haven't been any other animals around in a while, we don't have mice, and I haven't seen any signs of fleas. The only one who goes outside is the dog, but she seems totally fine and doesn't really interact with other animals much.

 

[Animal Freak]

Does anyone have recommendations for the wet cat food we should look for? Something affordable would be nice, especially if they'll be eating mostly that. They've been on Friskies though I've always wanted to get them on some better food so I can't say I'm not excited to be able to do so. We just can't afford the pricey stuff though hopefully that'll change. We also recently gave them Rachel Ray's wet cat food since we were nearly out of theirs and the place didn't sell it. I'm not entirely sure about the quality, but it seemed alright and it was grain free. The cans were really small though and I think it was almost the same as Friskies' larger cans in price.