[LadyFaile]

so aside from the heart murmer my vet also said that Moo could lose a pound or two. she used their chart to show his weight according to bone structure etc. he looks really fat but he's a very big cat so most of it is just 'him'. he is on the very highest point of "healthy". not quite overweight but just about.<br><br><br><br>
she said it's not a huge problem now but just to be on the safe side he should lose a bit so he doesn't have problems when he's older like diabetes.<br><br><br><br>
i'm not quite sure how to go about this.<br><br>
he gets nothing but dry food. i just keep his bowl full and he picks at it through the day. it's the way i've always fed cats, with the assumption that they will eat as much or as little as they need to. a friend suggested giving him meals, wet food in the morning and dry at night.<br><br>
yeah my cat is a gobbler when it comes to wet food. he gets it so rarely that he'll just sit and eat the whole dish in one or two sittings. fine but when the time comes to give him dry he'll still only pick at it now and then.<br><br><br><br>
then there's the issue of my schedule. it's all over the place, i don't work the same shift every day, so i have no set time for getting up and getting home to stick to a feeding schedule.<br><br><br><br>
if his bowl is empty for even a second he yells at me til i fill it lol even if he's not hungry, he'll watch me fill it, sniff, and go lie down. it just has to be full that's all. i figured i could give him less before i go to work so it runs out before i get home but he doesn't really eat much when nobody's home anyway so it doesn't really work.<br><br><br><br>
i'm kinda out of ideas, aside from just playing with him more<br><br><br><br>
i did try a diet food a while back and he became lethargic and depressed. he just wasn't his energetic self. i put him back on his regular food and he bounced back immediately. so i won't try that again. i figure a higher quality food might help but i'm not sure what to try. some of them are so expensive. so i went from original Nutrience to the supreme one. i think it's helped a bit. so maybe there's a better brand that will help more, i just don't know what. the vet recommends Iams because it's what they sell. i won't use Iams.<br><br><br><br>
any suggestions?

 

[SilverC]

Hills g/d or Medi-cal Reduced Protein. Your vet can order it in for you. Both are great diets for heart patients.<br><br><br><br>
Having meals instead of freefeed is the best way to help your cat loose weight. When I got Cassie, she was used to being freefed and yelled at me constantly. It took some time, but now she knows the routine and she's lost 3 1/2 pounds! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/smiley.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""> It's the only way to control how much your cat is eating. Even diets specifically designed for weight loss won't do a heck of a lot if the cat is allowed to eat to his heart's content.<br><br><br><br>
I get up at 5:30 to feed them. Then they get fed again in the evening, usually at 5:30, but some nights I don't get home until 8. They get mad at me, but oh well.<br><br><br><br>
The food is left down for 15 minutes. If they don't eat it all in that time, too bad, it goes away. After a couple weeks, they get the idea.

 

[Chasing the Dog]

I agree with Silver except for the Hills part. I despise Hills, but's that a personal thing.<br><br><br><br>
Tough cookie, kitty! I'd say. Get used to it fatty! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/wink3.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[karenlovessnow]

My Tommy is almost 11 years old has been overweight from the get go. He used to eat feline RD prescription cat food that I would get from the vet. He went from 24 pounds down to 17 pounds over a 2-3 year period. He pretty much kept it off, but when he went back up to 20 pounds the vet suggested the 'catkins diet'. Apparently dry food has a lot more carbs and calories than regular canned food, which has more protein. So he now eats one small can of fancy feast in the morning and one at night. He just got back down to 17 pounds. Maybe this would work for your kitty as well. And just to mention, Tommy gets very little exercise. Luckily for me (and him) he is very healthy.

 

[SilverC]

No offense Karen, but feeding your cat fancy feast is the equivalent of feeding your child McDonald's every day. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[GhostUser]

<div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">if his bowl is empty for even a second he yells at me til i fill it lol even if he's not hungry, he'll watch me fill it, sniff, and go lie down. it just has to be full that's all. i figured i could give him less before i go to work so it runs out before i get home but he doesn't really eat much when nobody's home anyway so it doesn't really work.</div>
</div>
<br><br><br>
Are you sure we don't have the same cat? <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/tongue3.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""> One of my cats is just like this. I have the same problem. I am starting to feed him separate and measure his food. He just has like an anxiety attack if he can not see food 24/7. I am working on the same thing.

 

[LadyFaile]

ok so what if i feed him a bit of canned in the morning and at night and leave him a little bit of dry to nibble? like a 1/2 of a small can per meal and a 1/4 of a bowl of dry for the day? at least he'd have some to nibble but he wouldn't be able to eat more than he should. plus this way if there's a wee bit of dry in his dish i won't feel so bad if i work late and miss his dinnertime. or sleep in late and miss breakfast which is also quite likely lol.<br><br><br><br>
i'd always intended on switching him to Nutro at some point. but then i moved here and can't seem to find it easily. there's one pet store downtown i haven't looked at. it was the one and only brand of canned food my previous old fussy cat would eat as she got older. it was expensive, like a buck a can, but we'd found a place that sold it by the case so it was cheaper. i'll have to look for it, i've only ever heard good things about that brand. is there another one that i can try that is good quality if i can't find nutro here? otherwise i might just stick with nutrience, i believe they have a line of canned food also.<br><br>
hopefully cutting back on the dry will help. but his strictly dry only diet has given him some very healthy teeth and gums so i don't want to cut it out completely.<br><br><br><br><br><br>
i second the suggestion that fancy feast (and frankly any pet food you can buy at a grocery or department store) is complete and utter junkfood. garbage. feeding your cat only fancy feast is a great way to have her end up nutrient deficient. i'm sure it's fine as a treat every now and then but you wouldn't feed your kids junkfood for every meal, your cat deserves the same treatment. Nutrience is better quality and not horribly expensive, give it a try <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/smiley.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""> i go through a 3kg bag which costs about $18 after tax every 2-3 months (is that too much? lol. they keep track at the pet store where i buy it cause you get the 11th bag free, they comment sometimes and ask me how many cats i have that i go through so much so quickly.)

 

[nowoutonvinyl]

ok so heres how it works. choose a high quility cat food. personally i choose science diet but whatever your vet recommends. look at the bag and there should be some feeding guidlines. find your cats IDEAL weight not its current weight and feed that amount twice a day. and like someone else said if they dont eat it all right away take it away. they will piss and moan for awhile but they soon learn the deal. didnt your vet give you any info when he said to reduce his diet?<br><br>
you may run into some problems though. my cat was on this diet but is such a fatty she started stealing things off the counters and eating the dogs food! so, ive kind of given up...<br><br><br><br>
does it show? haha<br><br>
[attachment=4541:000_0369.jpg]<br><a href="http://cdn.veggieboards.com/a/a8/a8cec83e_vbattach4519.jpeg"><img alt="LL" src="http://cdn.veggieboards.com/a/a8/525x525px-LL-a8cec83e_vbattach4519.jpeg" style="width:525px;height:396px;"></a>

 

[LadyFaile]

wow that is one fat cat <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/laugh.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=":lol:"> . mine's just an allaround "big" cat. he has a little bit of belly waggle and a little pudge around the middle but i think the rest of it is just him.<br><br>
he sure fills out his cubby nicely though <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/grin.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="">

 

[nowoutonvinyl]

haha your cat is awesome. i love fat cats.<br><br>
the only way mine can lay is on her back like in the picture otherwise her feet stick straight out heh.

 

[LadyFaile]

that's probably a bad sign.<br><br>
mine looks really fat but he's really just a big cat who is slightly chubby.<br><br><br><br>
i'm going to try measuring his food starting tonight. the bag suggests 3/4 - 1 cup for a cat up to 18lbs. so i'm going to try him at 3/4. i don't think he eats more than that as it is, but i've never measured. plus we've gotten into this thing where my fiance and i both feed him whenever the dish is empty, so we never know when the other person last filled it. i didn't realize for the longest time that he'd been feeding him. i commented one day that i hadn't been filling his dish that often so i don't think he eats all that much. fiance says "uhh no i've been filling it when i get up in the morning"<br><br>
hah.<br><br>
so we'll have to work out a system. maybe he can feed him when he gets up and the i will when i get home. he'll get 1/2 cup in the morning and then the other 1/4 at night (since there's more time between him getting up and me getting home than vice versa and Moo really does nibble a lot through the day)

 

[karenlovessnow]

<div class="quote-container"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>SilverC</strong> <a href="/forum/post/0"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style=""></a><br><br>
No offense Karen, but feeding your cat fancy feast is the equivalent of feeding your child McDonald's every day. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/images/smilies/sad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title=""></div>
</div>
<br><br><br>
None taken...it was by the vet's direction...I was a little surprised myself.

 

[karenlovessnow]

He will literally eat anything so I could try to get some Nutrience or something similar at the Feed Barn.