Trouble Getting On Feeding Schedule

[writingislove]

I have two cats, 6 and 7 years old. We've had them since they were kittens, and they've always been free-fed.

Now one of my cats (Winston) is 19 pounds and the other (Orville) is about 11-12. Winston recently developed asthma and I've realized I really, really need to help him lose some weight.

I tried recently to get them onto a feeding schedule. This was how it went:

• Day 1: Took food away completely in the late morning. Gave each cat a measured bowl in separate rooms around dinnertime. Winston vacuumed his food right up, Orville angrily nibbled a few pieces before walking away. I left the food out for about ten minutes and Orville refused to eat, so I put it away until morning.
• Day 2: Gave food the same as the night before. By now Orville was yowling and circling the spot their food used to be. Once the food was in front of him, he refused to take even ONE bite. Winston ate his own food. I gave up and returned to free feeding until I could come up with a better plan.

I'm at a loss. Orville is already pretty thin so I'm worried that if I keep at it he'll lose weight and be thinner than he should. Is this normal cat behavior when they're put on to a schedule? Can I expect that he will finally come around after another day or two if I persist? HELP!

 

[orange&white]

You definitely have a challenge ahead, but it's doable.

I allowed my senior to get overweight because his brother was like Orville...too thin and didn't like change. For a few years I was more worried about skinny cat starving than I was about his brother gaining too much (shame on me).

You'll need to keep Orville eating, obviously, so I'd take a different approach to cold turkeying from free-food to a strict schedule. Start by picking up the food for 1 hour three times a day, so food is still down 21 hours. Then start extending the time there is no food to 1.5, 2, 2.5 hours, until you have food down only during the scheduled times you want.

The most difficult time to take away the food will be overnight since you won't want to be setting alarms to pick up or put down food. You might try cold-turkey - no food at night - and see if Orville will eat enough calories during the day. If he will, then that problem is solved. If he won't eat enough during the day, you may need to put him in a separate room with food all night (which also may not make him happy for a while).

Dieting one cat is more difficult when there's another cat in the family, but it is not impossible. Getting Winston down to a healthy weight will be worth the struggle though. I'm sure it will help relieve some of his asthma symptoms and prevent other obesity-related cat diseases.

There are plenty of people here who have dieted a cat in a multi-cat environment. Someone is always here for help and support.

Please keep posting here. I found that keeping a log of Tangent's diet here helped keep me motivated when I occasionally got discouraged.

 

[lisahe]

I'd also suggest taking a more gradual approach -- cats really are creatures of habit! When we weaned our cats off dry food shortly after we adopted them, the first thing I did was gradually reduce the amounts of dry food I set out at night. I think it took about a week to taper that to nothing. Then I kept cutting back on the dry food during the day as I started making wet food feedings a little more regular. The whole process took about a month or so.

Real scheduled, timed meals came later on, mostly because we also have a cat who tends to overeat (and poach her sister's food) and a cat who prefers to graze. We feed them separately -- usually with a closed door between them -- and the best thing is that the fast eater has slowed down a little and the slow eater has sped up a little. The slow eater obviously gets a little nervous if she's eating in the same room as her sister but she's a confident eater when they're separated. She's also very easily distracted when she eats and often changes her mind about where she prefers to eat, something that can be very puzzling to deal with!

 

[writingislove]

Thank you both for the great advice! For the past two days I've taken the food away twice a day for 1-1.5 hours at a time. I work full time so I'll increase it to three times this weekend. Even the hour has made Orville (skinny/temperamental cat) very irked, but last night I noticed that as soon as I put the food back down, he made a beeline for the bowl and ate quite a bit. Even THAT is progress for us.

So, gradual approach it is. I'm more than willing to take it slow, especially if I can see that progress is being made by doing so.

 

[lisahe]

That sounds like very good progress, writingislove ! Tapering and gradual approaches are very important with food changes... something I always forget, too! Here's to more progress... over time...

 

[orange&white]

Thanks for the update! That sounds like good progress.