Daily Cat Lesson: Is Your Cat Too Fat?

🐾 Daily Cat Lesson: Is Your Cat Too Fat? ⚖️

A chubby cat may look adorable. Unfortunately, those extra pounds aren't just cosmetic.

🐾 What is a healthy weight?

There isn't one magic number. A small-framed cat and a big Maine Coon obviously shouldn't weigh the same. Body condition matters more than the scale. At an ideal weight, you should be able to feel the ribs easily under a thin layer of fat and see a waist from above.

A hanging belly isn't automatically obesity - the normal primordial pouch can fool you! It is the normal flap of loose skin and fat hanging along a cat’s lower belly - it can swing when they walk and doesn’t mean the cat is overweight.

🐾 Can cats really become obese?

Absolutely. And obesity increases the risk of diabetes, arthritis and mobility problems, and can make grooming and other health problems harder to manage. Cats can also develop high blood pressure, although obesity isn't its only - or necessarily primary - cause.

🐾 Food-motivated vs. food-obsessed

Some cats eat what they need and walk away. Others hear a can opening three rooms away and appear by teleportation.
Food motivation varies with personality, habits, activity and past experience.

Cats that once experienced unreliable access to food may remain particularly interested in the next meal even when food is now plentiful.

🐾 Should an overweight cat go on a diet?

Yes - but never a crash diet. Cats that suddenly stop eating or lose weight too rapidly can develop dangerous hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). Weight loss should be gradual, ideally with your vet helping establish a target weight and calorie intake.

For the permanently hungry customer: measure the entire day's food, divide it into several small meals, use puzzle feeders or food-dispensing toys, increase play and don't let persuasive acting automatically earn extra calories. In multi-cat homes, feed separately if one professional food thief finishes everybody else's dinner.

💡Begging is evidence that your cat wants food. It is not necessarily evidence that your cat needs food. 🍗
🐈📸 TopTropicals rescued cats Wesley and Timo are not on a diet at PeopleCats.Garden.

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