Speaking of cats, I have never owned a fat cat. The largest cat I owned was maybe 20 pounds, but he was evenly thick, not fatter around his belly nor pear shaped. Most of my cats were outdoor cats, and some lived both indoors and outdoors. I REALLY doubt my outdoor cats had more exercise than my indoor cats.
But, I see obese cats all the time. They don’t seem to eat more than other cats. Cats don’t seem to be like pigs that will eat themselves to death if you give them too much food. Leaving kibble out doesn’t seem to encourage my cats to eat more, and they don’t fight over food.
My theory is that I used a measuring bowl to give them kibble, or when I gave them a can of food, I bought the small, individual cans.
If you’ve ever owned a fat cat, how did it get fat?
Some cats will gain weight regardless of the owner’s actions. My parents’ cat weighs more than he did five years ago and he’s been getting less than the recommended amount the whole time and had his cancerous rear left leg amputated. It’s hard to see why.
Other people cave when the cat demands food constantly and loudly. Me, I put the cat outdoors when it cries for food, but I also never feed it, so it doesn’t ask me very often.
Some cats can manage their own food intake in a healthy way. Some cannot. Neutered males have a reputation for gaining weight in their middle and old age.
My fattER cat (he isn’t “fat” - the vet says he’s fine, but he’s definitely shopping in the “husky” section) is an ex-feral who’s constantly in starvation mode because when he was younger he didn’t get enough to eat. I also have one big cat who’s just plain big and very muscular with a little bit of that neutered cat belly and one very skinny cat.
My cat’s not fat, he’s big boned! Actually, I don’t know how he got fat… he was quite large when I adopted him from the shelter. They did free feeding though, with canned food available 24 hours a day, so I think that’s partly why. He’s also not very active… most cats will at least spend some time running around, jumping on things, batting toys around. Mine doesn’t do that; on weekends when I’m curled up with a book, he’s curled up taking a nap. And if I’m up and about doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. he is… taking a nap. Even though I have him on low calorie kibble for over a year now, he can still barely lick himself.
Oh, and his physical proportions are really weird. He has a skinny/pointy face, long torso and huge belly, and a short tail. I don’t mean a stump or anything, it’s just too short for the long torso he has…
I think part of it with cats comes from when they are little. If a cat has access to food all the time, it doesn’t feel the need to overeat.
If it’s an alley cat or doesn’t get food always, it eats like it would in nature, feast and famine type thing. I recall a documentary on PBS where the weather was exceptional one year and the grasses grew. And the animals that grazed multiplied in numbers and the lions that ate those grazers got really fat as well as there were so many grazing animals to eat.
Then of course came the famine…
I owned a cat from the time it was a kitten it had access to dry cat food and got one meal of tender vittle a night. It never over ate.
That’s my fat cat. he was starving stray when he found me. Its been over 10 years and he still eats like he won’t see food again. I’m gone 10-12 hours a day, and have other cats, including a hyperthryoid cat, so I have to free feed kibble.
I used to have a Maine Coon. 24 pounds in the winter, 22 lbs in the summer because I would take him to the groomer for a crewcut. Not an ounce of fat on that boy, but he looked HUGE.
Fred is the only obese cat I’ve ever had. The others seem to stop eating when they are full. Fred gorges if he’s given the opportunity. I’ve learned to put the kibble on a dresser in their room. Fred can’t jump up there because he’s too fat, and only gets canned food twice a day. He’s lost a pound since I started doing that, but it took a year.
We have an indoor cat in a small apartment but he’s a skinny little guy. He just eats dry food. We offered him wet food but he wouldn’t eat it. He’s kind of twitchy and sticks his tongue out a lot, but he has a good coat and otherwise appears healthy.
I have two cats, same litter - raised with identical feeding habits. Serafina is plump and likes to lounge around a lot. Diego is super slim and a bundle of energy (he likes to race up the stairs for no reason). Serfina gets anxious if she can see the bottom of the food bowl, Diego nibbles a bite of food occasionally. The only treats they get are fish flakes 1-2 day for scratching on their post. I tried to only feed twice a day, but Serafina started wolfing her food and puking it back up. I went back to free feeding. I put a measured serving in 2 food bowls, twice a day. I’m sure Serafina eats more than Diego.
I don’t do anything to help Diego stay slim and I don’t put huge endless piles of food in the bowl for Serafina to get fat. They are just different.
Even the best kibble is mostly grain. It has to be so it will hold its form. Cats don’t need that many carbs. Cats do much better on Atkins diet.
High quality canned food is much better for them. And for you…its a typical garbage in, garbage out thing. Once I stopped feeding my cats grocery store food, the litter boxes were much easier to manage.
This does not always hold true. When I first got my current cats ( as kittens ) I free-fed calorie dense food. At some point past the one year mark their metabolism downshifted, but for one them his consumption did not. I didn’t even notice until someone mentioned one of them was definitely getting chubby ( not yet obese, but a little plump ) and my vet confirmed it.
At that point I went to scheduled meal times with carefully measured food and now they are ( again according to my vet ) perfectly proportioned. This was reinforced when I went to an all wet diet to help deal with urinary crystal formation in one of them - can’t really free-feed wet food ;).
Many cats do just fine with free-feeding, my last cat before these two certainly did. But some definitely do not, no matter what the upbringing. Just like some people, some cats are hogs. Given the number of obese cats I see, I think set feeding times with measured food is probably the best way to go in general.
My cat got fat (20 lbs) by gorging herself on dry food. She’d eat so much she’d vomit sometimes. I had free-fed dry to my other cats and this cat was the first one who had a problem. My wake up call was when she got too fat to clean herself properly and she was getting repeat bladder infections due to bacteria from not being able to clean herself.
I put her on controlled portions of canned cat food only and she’s slimmed down to about 13 lbs. She’s a big boned girl so I’m OK with her weight now. It took nearly two years for her to lose the weight.
I feed 1-5.5 oz. can split between my 3 cats in the morning, and another can split between them at night. All 3 cats are maintaining their weights very well. I don’t feed dry food at all any more. Grains aren’t good for cats (obligate carnivores) so I buy grain free canned.
I’ve been doing rescue for all of my adult life. I’m the kid who brought dogs and cats home, even found a lost pony once. I can’t even begin to guess how many cats have passed through my hands over the years. The number is prolly in high thousands. I’ve had 3 cats who gorged themselves. 1 dog who would eat until he puked, then eat his puke.
PDA: if only everyone would fix their pets…no cats or dogs would be so scared about where their food came from.
2 cats, both rescues. I free feed kibble, and they don’t seem to over eat at all - I top up the bowl when it looks like it’s getting low (maybe one cup in 2 days?)
I give them wet food as treats every now and then, and the big one eats maybe half of the tin before losing interest, whereas the small one chows down (and finishes her sister’s portions too)!
A bit of a pooch, but otherwise rather trim. My neighbour’s cats, OTOH, are TUUUBBBY. I have no idea why.
Female cat: no idea why she is skinny. She used to be a grazer, until we got the boys and she had to gorge to keep up. Still, she was the one to eat the least. Lately though, she keeps up with them eating, yet isn’t any bigger.
I have two cats. They are 3 and 5 and have been fed ‘raw’ since they were little kittens. The girl is slim, likes her food, but only has an appetite for her customary 3 small meals daily. The boy has a bit of chub (used to have more), and is a compulsive overeater. He gets 3 smaller meals and he’d be enormous if he had access to as much food as he wants - I supervise his intake and weight closely. He acts like he’s dying of starvation and is always trying to steal everyone else’s dinner.
We have two cats, and neither of them would be fat if it was just one cat. My husband’s cat is a free-feeder who only eats as much as she needs. My cat is a gorger who eats until the food is gone, but never begs for more - she just eats what’s there (which includes the other cat’s food). The free-feeder has arthritis so she doesn’t jump anymore; unfortunately, the gorger jumps just fine, so we can’t put the food up high to limit her access. The gorger isn’t horribly fat, but she’s definitely plump. The free-feeder is skinny. We don’t want to cut their food back much more because we don’t want the free-feeder to get any skinnier. In short, it’s complicated.
My parents have two cats. One is technically mine which I “gave” to them when I moved to New York, but I gave them my car too as a package deal, so I don’t feel too guilty. That one is skinny. She eats a lot and throws up a lot. Even when she doesn’t eat a lot she throws up a lot. (But the car is amazingly great! Really! ^_^)
The other cat is plump. She was mistreated and abandoned by the next door neighbors who believed that cats can feed and care for themselves outside in deep snow and below freezing temperatures. She was so hungry when my parents took her in she gulped down potatoes. She used to get a lot of exercise catching voles and birds but now she is older and more sedentary. She’s definitely fatter in the winter and thinner in the summer when she gets out more. My parents can’t bring themselves not to keep her bowl full all the time. Funnily enough, if the bottom of her bowl is showing she believes there is no food, and stands over it meowing tragically until someone tops it off.
I once had a 27-pounder. The problem was that I also had another cat with chronic health problems, and I had to encourage him to eat as much as possible. I found it impossible to encourage one cat to eat and prevent the other one from eating.
This makes me laugh Grapefruit, as you are describing my parents cat! When the cats were staying at my house, my Mom had to clean Bob up as he’d thrown up on himself on the ride over and it was understood he would never bother to clean his fur himself.
This picture of Bob(He is the orange fuzzball with Thor in front) doesn’t really do him justice, as his bulk is cleverly hidden by the other cat. He looks normal, if fluffy. It isn’t until you’re heading up the stairs with your husband and your dog and the group stops because there is a huge orange thing at the top of the stairs that you realize how large he is. My husband wondered when we’d gotten a land whale.
Bob is obese because he is very food focused, and he tends to gobble up Thors portion as well.
My cat, Dexter, though strange, has his exercise routine, so he is not in danger of becoming obese.
