Help with a fat cat

thewatch

Hi,
I was hoping for some advice
Our cat Jess is overweight. She is 5.3kg

At the moment she is on Hill's RD for the last 3 weeks but she hasn't lost any weight.

This is her second time on the RD. Previously she was on it and we think she lost weight very quickly.She would come to the bowl crying for food. However she put the weight back on when she was back on the normal Hill's cat food

She's neutered and goes outside when she likes but she is very lazy. We do try and make her play as much as we can.

We both work 12 hour shift so she is left along for long periods. She gets fed 60g twice a day. 40g in the morning and 20g in the evening

We suspect she may be stealing food or getting food from a neighbour because there are dogs all around our semi-detached. She never disappears for too long and always sleeps in

So any suggestion as to how to get her weight down?

If she is stealing dog food, is there anyway to stop her?

How quick should the Hills RD work? do you think a change in diet to something else would help?

Should I have her blood tested? and is this expensive?

I don't really want to call around to neighbours and ask them about our cat, if she's feeding there etc.
　
　
Sorry for all the questions, any help would be greatly appreciated

anniehoo

You're giving the perfect quantity of R/D for an adult female cat. How old is she OP?

wrote:

I don't really want to call around to neighbours and ask them about our cat, if she's feeding there etc.

If she's allowed ramble outside, then yep...this is your next port of call. If you're providing her with her daily allowance and she's then allowed outside with free range to "wildlife" and your neighbours buffet then this may be where the problem lies.

thewatch wrote: »

Should I have her blood tested? and is this expensive?

She's not MASSIVELY overweight, although does need "work"! My cat was 5.5kg (male neutered) , he's now 4.8kg (too skinny)!He needs to be 5kg (perfect imho ) Those few hundred grams make a difference in cats. I see no need to blood test her tbh, but if she's allowed outside i think this is where your added calories are coming from!

The Sweeper

thewatch wrote: »

Hi, I was hoping for some advice

Our cat Jess is overweight. She is 5.3kg

At the moment she is on Hill's RD for the last 3 weeks but she hasn't lost any weight.

What should her weight be?

What type of cat is Jess? Is she simple domestic short hair moggy? Has she any other partial breeds in her? British Short Hairs, for instance, are bred to be 'well padded' cats. If she had that breed in her she'd have a predisposition to being heavy.

In terms of how heavy she is, look at her from the side. Does she have a large gut? Lots of cats have a hanging fat pad at their lower stomach - colloquially called 'the flabdominals', it's not necessarily a sign of being overweight as long as the rest of the cat is slender.

If you look at her from the top, she should have a shape that goes out at the head, in at the neck, out at the shoulders, out further in a gentle curve of her ribcage, then in at her waist before her hips. If she starts in at the head and then heads out and in again at the tail, with an overall shape like a canoe, then yes, she's overweight and needs to lose some.

thewatch wrote: »

This is her second time on the RD. Previously she was on it and we think she lost weight very quickly. She would come to the bowl crying for food. However she put the weight back on when she was back on the normal Hill's cat food.

Miaowing at the food bowl means absolutely nothing whatsoever. Virtually every domestic pet cat in the world has realised that if it miaows hysterically at its food bowl, its human will feed it. This is regardless of whether or not its hungry. It's very easy to overfeed kibble and make your cat fat.

thewatch wrote: »

She's neutered and goes outside when she likes but she is very lazy. We do try and make her play as much as we can.

We both work 12 hour shift so she is left along for long periods. She gets fed 60g twice a day. 40g in the morning and 20g in the evening

We suspect she may be stealing food or getting food from a neighbour because there are dogs all around our semi-detached. She never disappears for too long and always sleeps in

Lets pretend Jess should be 4.2kgs. Her maintenance allowance of dry food is about 85g per day. By feeding her 60g per day you'll encourage rapid weight loss, but she'll also be very hungry so no surprise she's heading out to knock off whatever food she can find.

Assuming you have access to the product I think you do, here is teh feeding guide:

http://www.hillspet.com/products/pd-feline-rd-feline-weight-loss-low-calorie-dry.html

Speedy weight loss is as bad for cats as it is for humans.

thewatch wrote: »

So any suggestion as to how to get her weight down?

Try varying her diet. A kibble-only diet is indicated in feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) and the formation struvite and oxalate crystals in the bladder. Kibble is also like kitty crack. The pellets are sprayed with a hydrogenated oil base to create palatability and they really can get addicted to it.

Introduce commercial tinned food and human grade raw meat. Continue to feed her two meals a day, but be conscious of what her calorie intake should be. If her goal weight is 4.2kgs, she needs about 30 calories per 500g of her weight per day - so she needs to eat about 250 calories per day to fuel 4.2kgs of bodyweight. You could try making up half that with kibble and the other half with raw meat or tinned food to keep things interesting and stop her seeking food elsewhere.

I'm not convinced that a lower-calorie diet to loose the weight more quickly is a good thing. I'd rather see her eat only what'll fuel her ideal weight and no more. The weight loss will be slower, but it should be more sustainable.

thewatch wrote: »

If she is stealing dog food, is there anyway to stop her?

Not unless you keep her inside, or the neighbours keep the dogfood locked away. Dog food is really bad for her - it's not remotely balanced for cats and it's bad for her to be filling up on it. Dogs aren't usually tolerant of other animals knocking off their food - some well-meaning and clueless neighbour is probably giving her a saucer of cream or a tin of sardines every time she wanders.

thewatch wrote: »

How quick should the Hills RD work? do you think a change in diet to something else would help?

It's reasonable for her to lose 1-2% of the bodyweight per week - 100g per week tops. If she's coming down from 5.3kgs to say 4.2kgs (and that's a number I keep picking on because it's the average weight of the average female cat I know) that's 11 weeks - give her four months to be safe and ensure she can maintain the new feeding regime. I'd rather see her lose 50g per week over a longer term and keep that weight off.

thewatch wrote: »

Should I have her blood tested? and is this expensive?

The vet can help you estimate what her ideal weight should be, and a blood test would reveal if she's suffering from her obesity yet with diabetes, hypertension, kidney problems and the other myriad of things a fat cat can suffer from. What age is she?

thewatch wrote: »

I don't really want to call around to neighbours and ask them about our cat, if she's feeding there etc.

thewatch wrote: »

Sorry for all the questions, any help would be greatly appreciated

If you don't want her to get fed next door, but you're not willing to ask next door not to feed her, your only option is to stop her going next door. You can do that by either keeping her indoors, building her a cat run or cat-proofing your fence so she can't get next door.

anniehoo

^^^

Yet again i bow down to the Master that is The Sweeper!!! Im bookmarking all this advice

The Sweeper

Haha - for what, kitty dieting? You intending on having a fat cat?

One of my cats is somewhat well padded, he could do with losing 500g.

Given I feed my cats together, his weight is something I keep an eye on but am not doing anything about yet. We may move house before the end of this year and we'll be in a different climate (going from temperate to tropical) and that'll have a major impact on their appetites and their metabolism, so not going to do anything about it until after we move.

I *know* when my cats are overfed though, because I use a measuring cup for their food. Makes a big difference. They're overfed when my cleaner comes once a week and slips them a cup of food in the middle of the day, and at weekends when my OH is home and he rewards them for coming when they're called by giving them a scant cup of food. Means they can be on double rations three times a week - I usually counter it by not feeding them their set meals those days because I know they'll get extras!

anniehoo

The Sweeper wrote: »

Haha - for what, kitty dieting? You intending on having a fat cat?!

Yep! I love your posts, so informative,full of facts and no waffle!

I did have a fat cat..now he's too lean. Molly came on the scene 6mths ago and he lost 20% of his bodyweight through being "too nice". He's learning and so am i lol

thewatch

Some good stuff there. I appeciate all the replies.

To answer the questions She is a year and a half old, our vet said her ideal weight should be 3.8kg and she is a mostly black and some white, short hair little ****e

There's a boxer next door to us and apparantly the boxer is afraid of Jess :pac:. I asked politely if they had ever seen her steal food and the neighbour said he didn't see her but the dogs bowl is left out in the dog house at night.

She also goes over the back wall to God knows where and there are more dogs there

We were overfeeding her for sure after her operation, just trying to correct that now and we do use a measure aswell

I'm wondering if a leaflet drop to the neighbours would do the trick. Somethings along the lines of a funny "don't feed this fat cat"....but I have serious reservations about this

The Sweeper

Leaflet drop isn't a bad idea. You can keep it humorous and polite. Write it from Jess's point of view - people are suckers for that. Offer up your mobile number in case anyone's worried about her, or at least say what house she lives in. That might stop people from proactively feeding her.

The flip side though, be prepared for people responding to you about cats crapping in their garden, scratching up their car (or putting footprints over it) or stealing their dog's food - it's all right for you to ask people not to feed your cat, but people do have a right to come back at you and ask you to keep her out of their garden / away from their flowerbeds / from pestering their dog or eating its food.

serenacat

I have this problem!! My cat is 6.4kg and considered obese. He was 5.7kg when I found him sleeping under my car in January and when i weighed him again in March he had gained the extra weight. He has been on his diet of only 41g of the diet food from the vet for the entire day and hasn't lost anything!

We do however let him have a bit of milk, lick yogurt cartons, tuna tins etc,which we are deciding must be the next thing to cut out!

I thought he would have lost weight by now, the vet didn't give a estimate of when the weight should be normal. The vet seemed to recommend 4.5-5kg as normal.
He is a domestic shorthair neutered male, estimated at 4 years old.

Zapperzy

You could try putting a tag on her collar that say's something along the lines of 'I'm on a special diet please don't feed me'. http://www.identitag.co.uk/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=5 I got one of these ones, it's only €1 for postage and the plastic ones are very lightweight for cats. Make sure whatever collar she wears either has an elastic strip or the snap buckle breaks away if she gets it caught in anything. If you think she's catching birds or mice a bell or two on her collar might also cut down on the number she catches.

Cat's love those pole toys with feathers or rattle mice at the end of them and of course laser pointers, you could try encouraging her to play more with those and if you have a stairs try playing with her on that so she has to run up and down it.