Oh, yeah, I know that. I’m pretty sure there was a version for cats, though.
Thanks everybody for the cat education!
As a fellow multi-cat owner, I get it. Our pudgebutt came to us as a stray. Usually once cats learn that they will always have food, they settle down. We’ve had two cats in 35 years who never figured it out and always wanted to eat for tomorrow.
The term our vet uses for pudgebutt is “competitive eater”.
I didn’t know that Gormless George would make such a difference in her health, but I haven’t had to wash her butt for longer than I can remember. The increased exercise seems to make her poops firmer as well as allowing her the flexibility to wash her own butt, which makes her happier as well.
Hey, I have a Pudgebutt too! I adopted a sibling pair of rescued feral kittens. One is Salvador, shy, sweet, introvert, normal weight. His sister, weighs easily twice what he does. She has another name~Gruntle, but it has been surpassed by Pudgebutt. I just have to be careful to not refer to her by that name in front of my 4yo grand daughter. Her mother would not be amused. My roommate calls her Potato, also apt.
I have owned cats all my life-never have figured out a way to slim one down if there are other cats around that also need to eat. My Pudgebutt is, however, by far the chunkiest one to ever grace my lap. .
Doesn’t it make you sad? Our Pudgebutt has lived in the land of never empty food bowls for over ten years and she’s still food insecure. I sure wish I could just TELL her that when I promised to take care of her for the rest of her life, I meant it.
With mine, they’re siblings, they came out of the same mama and kittenhood nurture. One is food secure and his sister isn’t. Makes me sad indeed.
I’m not sure that it’s current food insecurity, unless the cat is still getting fatter and fatter (rather than having reached a fairly steady state of Very Fat.) Weight, once gained, rarely goes away again, short of serious illness.
I currently have three. All of them get a bit of canned food twice a day, and free choice dry food available pretty much 24/7 (occasionally the dish is briefly empty because they finished off the contents while I was asleep, or out somewhere, or working outside, or whatever.)
All of them were rescues of various sorts, though not going through any specific rescue organization – one showed up meowing at my door, one showed up meowing at the door of friends of mine who couldn’t keep him, and one was originally only supposed to be staying here for a couple of months but when we hit about year 1 3/4, close to two years ago now, I got her earlier human, who had been continually claiming to intend to pick her up at imprecise dates which kept receding into the future, to acknowledge that she lives here now.
The first two got slightly fat and then stabilized, very active, only a bit overweight. The third cat’s earlier human had tried to deal with the starved kitten’s attempt to eat everything in sight by restricting her food; she’d been getting only dry food and only served once daily, so that once she finished off the daily serving she went hungry till time for the next. Despite or maybe because of this restriction, she arrived here quite fat; fat enough I think to slow her down some, though she’s still able to wash herself properly (she’s shorthaired, which probably helps) and to jump up on beds and chairs, and to indulge in occasional Mad Dashes All Around The Place. Having been given access to food at all hours, she hasn’t gotten any fatter. And she shows no sign of trying to eat everything she can get; sometimes she doesn’t even finish off her canned food, and she never tries to finish off all the dry.
I’m sure you are right about our last fat cat. Once he got used to the always full bowl of kibble, he didn’t over eat or try to push the others out of their food. Our current cat is aka Snarf and Barf kitty. She has had several very comprehensive (read expensive) examinations as well as changes in diet and dining location. I’m amazed she has any front teeth left due to the constant floods of stomach acid.
Ooof, yes, that does sound like something else going on. I’ve known a recently-starved cat to eat until he puked once there was food available, but he stopped doing it within, IIRC, a few months once it sunk in to him that we really were going to keep feeding him. (Convincing him that we really weren’t going to kick him even if there was a foot raised in his presence took longer, but that also happened eventually.)
Isn’t there something that sometimes goes wrong in humans, such that the hunger impulses never shut off no matter how much has been eaten, and you wind up with hugely fat little children frantically stealing food? – OK, after a bit of googling: it’s one of the possible symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome, which is genetic. Brain damage to a particular part of the brain can apparently also cause it. I wonder whether something similar can also happen to cats – and whether they’ve ever found any treatment for it (the link is to a 2014 article; I didn’t take the time to look for anything newer).
Well, I woke up this morning crumpled around Tippy’s snoozing body, so I guess she’s not mad at me anymore. That’s good.
You don’t want this to land in their lungs either. Find a groomer or ask your vet for advice.
That’s comforting for both of you!