Why do some people think obese housecats are cute? I’ll admit that some are interesting to look at, but everytime you see a incredibly overweight cat how can you not link the poor animal’s condition to an irresponsible owner that is endangering the animal’s health by overfeeding it?
Um…I think you’ve been whooshed…
Whooshed-? If you think the picture’s a fake, forget about the picture (although it seems perfectly plausible and real) there are plenty of real life, morbidly obese housecats to go around which I will point the question towards.
I’ve got a friend who jumps on the scales first thing every morning to check her weight.
Her cat has picked up on this and the first thing he does whenever he comes inside the house is to sit on the scales.
FYI he weighs in just under 5 kg.
I’ve been lucky with my cats…every one I’ve owned, indoor or outdoor, has been normal weight. I feed exclusively Purina dry cat chow, from a perpetual feeder, so they eat whenever they wish (I am SOOO lazy…that’s why I breastfed my kids, too…and they are skinny) None of them, except the male that came to us late in his life, has had any health problems. Even the 14 year-old tears around the house when the kitten chases her, and loves to play chase the marble.
My coworker has obese cats who demand…DEMAND…to be fed their special food for their health problems. I’ll have to ask her if she ever used dry food…I think she said she’s always used canned. They wake her up at 5 am each day, making noise and stepping on her face until she feeds them. If she locks them out of the bedroom, they claw at the door and knock things over til she gets up. Two cats living together should be getting enough exercise playing chase and pounce, but hers don’t play together.
Maybe it comes down to personality, but I don’t know. Out of 6 cats I have raised, not one has been plump. Lean, mean killing machines all. Maybe it is the food…that has been the constant.
Well…
Those cats could have a lot more problems in life than being fat and lazy.
Live like a pasha and die young of congestive heart failure or stroke; live a more spartan and disciplined lifestyle under someone else’s orders; or live in savage nature where they’ll scavenge carcasses till their teeth rot and they starve or et by something else.?
I’ll take door number 1, Monty. 
Hi kittenblue.
ROTFL! Yes, I know it’s sad that some animals are that obese, but I’m going to have to send that picture to all my friends. My word, I thought I’d seen fat cats before, but THAT is incredible. Especially the stupid expression on the cat’s face. Gaahhh. I will never let that happen to my cats.
I’ve always tried to watch my cat’s diets with fair success…until the most recent one. I wasn’t immediately aware of the problem but soon found out that he eats everything he can find. I mean not only food left momentarily unattended(he’s a fast dickens) but also such things as packaged bread and crackers he finds on the kitchen counter. Once when I dropped a jar of salsa this cat had lapped up half of it before I could clean the mess up. He also eats any insects he finds around the house, except for the dismembered body parts left as gifts on my bed (ick). I’ve got him on a strict diet as he weighs fourteen pounds and should only be ten but I’m not sure if it’s orking. I’m not sure from where his behavior originates, possibly it’s because he was a stray, but it’s not me.
Not to seem callous, here, but even a healthy cat has got only about 15 years to live. Granted, making your pet so fat that it suffers (and requires expensive vet visits) is just dumb.
That said, the op’s picture was hysterical and I immediately sent it to my mother, who has become fond of calling my relatively anorexic Siamese “Fatso.”
If it’s an only cat, I think that the owners are primarily responsible. If you live in a multi-cat household, it can be a problem trying to put one cat on a reducing diet while at the same time trying to get another to gain because she is dangerously low in weight.
And yes, I have had exactly that situation. The low-weight cat was in a much more borderline condition, so I decided that it was better to err on the side of overfeeding. (Although she ended up outliving the others, to the ripe old age of 19. And she was the fiestiest little thing – imagine a 6-pound cat breaking up fights between a 10-pound cat and a 16-pound cat – she hated fighting.)
I serve nothing but dry food to my cats, and they are all normal in size. Never had a fat one. And my YOUNGEST cat death was 18 years. The others lived 20 to 22 years. We call our male the Giant Kitty, but he’s just bigger than the girls. Not fat. I hate fat cats. They look uncomfortable and breathe funny.
I’ve always fed my cats only dry food (with occasional permission to lick my plate after dinner). The first one, who was of normal weight, died suddenly at the age of three; the vet said it was probably a congenital heart defect.
The current one is eight and going strong; he’s never had a health problem, but he is pretty chunky (about 16 pounds the last time I checked). I’ve tried limiting his food intake, feeding him low-cal food, etc., but every time I’ve tried, he drives me nuts whining, scratching the door and furniture, pummeling me, waking me up every hour throughout the night, etc. I finally decided I’d rather have him be fat and both of us be happy.
I would just like to say that grossly overweight pets are not cute in any way - that picture of that huge cat just broke my heart. It makes me very sad when people allow their pets to become grossly obese because either the owners don’t know how to curb an overeating pet, or because they think it’s just cute. (And yes, I do think the owners of fat pets are to blame. My two cats don’t run my household - I do.)
I don’t think it’s always the owners fault. I have 3 cats, Dagny the Mom and two from her litter, Sleestak and Gouda. Mom is pretty thin and Gouda is a little bigger but Sleestak is just plain fat. She’s 13 lbs and should probably be about 9. I have tried everything to get her to lose wieght but nothing has worked. They now eat Iams less active dry cat food and once a year on their birthdays they get some tuna. After a year I finanlly gave up to save my sanity and that of my cats. The vet says she’s perfectly healthy.
I figure that Sleestak is just built to be fat. Her Dad was about the same size she is so I think it’s just genetics.
Slee
Cats can be diabetic or hypothyroid, which can lead to excessive chubbiness…in the absence of other more obivious reasons. Cats by nature roam and hunt-think about a wild cat and how hard he would have to work for food. I’m surprised most indoor cats aren’t more often chubby.
How bout a kitty treadmill?
Eat-Play-Nap
Eat-Play-Nap
Eat-Play-Nap
Eat-Play-Nap
Eat-Play-Nap
Eat-Play-Nap
That’s the kitty treadmill around here, anyway.
Well, I have an obscenely fat cat. I mean, it’s just obscene. He weighs 24 pounds. But, he’s also an extremely large cat (his dad was part Maine Coon Cat). And he’s in a household now with 4 other cats. The next largest cat is 12 pounds, then there are 3 little tiny skinny cats. They weigh about 6 pounds each.
I’ve tried EVERYthing to get Ben to lose weight. I only feed him 3/4 of a cup of food every day. He has to beat Gomez to get to the food bowl, so I think that’s helping. I also try to get him to run around the house, at least a little. It was easier when we had stairs. It’s kind of difficult to monitor his activities 24-7 to make sure he’s not going to eat more than he shouldn’t, or to get him to exercise. So, nope, I think it’s that lazy-ass cat gene that we should blame. 
The stray cats that used to show up at our farm when I was a young-un used to not only be thin, but incredibly athletic. If you could tame one enough to pet it, you could feel that it was all muscle. A diet of mice, rabbits, other cats, and birds will do that. Not to mention those who are fast and strong are the only ones who eat.
Cats are cannibals in the wild?