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Lucky weighs too much...
Her ideal weight is about 8 lbs for her structure--she weighs 10 right now. I know 2 lbs doesn't sound like a lot, but she is a petite cat, and you can see a huge difference between 8 and 10 lbs.
So what the crap do I do?
We feed California Natural. She gets less than the recommended amount a day, because we were trying to keep her from gaining any more weight. We don't free feed. They get half their food in the morning, it gets put up in half an hour, they get half at night.
We supplement with wet food once a week or so. On those days they get dry in the morning, wet in the evening.
She rarely eats treats (she doesn't like most of them). She does LOVE people food, and will beg whenever I am trying to eat lunch, and occasionally I will let her have a bite of tuna, or other cat approved items that I might be eating, but not very often.
She isn't active. At all. She's not interested in toys. The only thing she likes is the laser pointer, and that only keeps her attention for 15 minutes or so. We have tried chirpy bird toys, ball toys, catnip, feather stick things. She will be interested for like, five minutes, and then she's done. She does play with Mocha, they will run around and chase each other and play "tag". Clearly it isn't enough to keep her weight down.
She has been to the vet, there are no medical issues.
Last time she was over her ideal weight we tried switching foods and she completely stopped eating. Would not eat ANYTHING we tried, tried to switch back to the old food, she still wouldn't eat it, and she ended up with hepatic lipidosis. That is why I am really hesitant to try a food switch. She was super sick. We had to force feed her for a while, then she finally started eating on her own again. I know that being overweight is also on of the contributing factors to getting hepatic lipidosis in the first place, so I'm obviously concerned.
So, what should I do? Try a food switch again and pray it goes better? Feed even less? She acts like she's starving when she does get fed.
TIA
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D
Re: Lucky weighs too much...
CN is a pretty low fat/low cal food so I don't think I would switch. Just feed her less I suppose. Are there any green bean equivalents for cats that might fill her up a bit without putting the pounds on? Or maybe feed her more wet? Since there is more moisture, it might fill her up more with less calories?
Just shots in the dark...
You said she likes the laser pointer.
Could you do multiple 15 minute sessions throughout the day? Say 4-6?
I was kind of wondering about a green bean equivalent. Although, knowing her, she might just eat green beans. She's weird.
I wondered about more wet food too, but if we feed it too often, she stops eating it. That's why we do it about once a week. We used to feed her wet food three times a week, and by the third night she would just sniff it and ignore it. But when it's only once a week, she loves it.
God love her, she is the biggest PITA cat I have ever known. lol
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI could definitely try this. Especially on days that I'm home, it would be easy to get in multiple sessions.
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DNapoleon likes green beans. I toss a few in his bowl a few times a week when he starts acting really pathetic. He too acts like we starve him and he hasn't eaten in a month. He gets fed twice a day, just like Lucky.
He also loves lettuce. (And white bread and cheese, but those don't help his weight.) He gets lettuce quite often, and he scarfs it down.
Sometimes I think he eats just to eat, so the lettuce and green beans help us a lot.