Fat Cat Problems

[WhiteCochinLover]

My cat is 10 years old. She has bern fat for as long as I can remember. You can tell she is a small cat by looking at her. She has small sholders and a small butt but her stomach is huge! It looks like she swollowed a basketball. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there anything I can do to help her lose weight? Thanks so much! All comments appreciated

 

[Gryphon]

My friends have a fat cranky cat with the same problem. Even though she'd run around and play, she had this huge belly she had to haul around. After switching her (slowly) to a grain-free diet, her energy level ramped up, she dropped quite a bit of weight, and she plays TONS more and is far less cranky. Her coat is much improved too. Cats aren't designed to eat grain, even less than dogs are. It makes sense that feed that's loaded with grain as a filler would cause inflammation of the digestive system and overall make the cat feel crummy.

Some other things you can try is to put her food dish up high so she has to jump to get to it, and/or get one of those slow feeder balls that dumps out a piece of kibble randomly, but the cat has to swat it around to get it out. It feeds into their instinct to bat at something before eating it.

 

[Fly 2006]

The thing is, unless she has some medical condition that causes a big belly then she is having too much food! I would get her checked at the vets and then if necessary reduce her food and try to encourage exercise, remember, a fat cat is most likely an unhealthy cat X

 

[donrae]

I have a cat we call a dwarf pot belly cat! Her momma is normal but has kinda short legs. The litter had 4 kittens. Two were born with loops of intestine on the outside of the abdomen and died soon after birth. One kitten died at about a week from some type of belly bloat. Pedestrian (our potbelly dwarf) has always had, well, a pot belly. She also has very short legs. She's perfectly healthy and had a litter herself last spring. Three kittens, one died in 24 hours. One run over at about 3 months, one on my porch as we speak. The two who made it past weaning both have potbellies, also. We had Pedestrian spayed this spring and told the vet her history, the vet didn't notice anything funky about her innards. Her surviving kitten is getting spayed in 2 weeks, we'll see if her insides are weird either.

 

[BrendaJ]

Take her to the vet & make sure she doesnt have a health problem. Get blood work done ect. Then put her on a low cal food. She might be over eating or have a thyroid problem.

 

[WhiteCochinLover]

She is a tortoise shell cat if that helps any. I got her from petsmart. She won't drink out of the sink but will sometimes pee in it. I have taken her to the vet to get check ups and they have never said anything about her weight. Or how we can help her lose it. It's so frustrating! She used to be on science diet but that didn't help. Now she is eating tractor supply company food. Maybe she is just a fat cat?

 

[Herducks]

I agree you should try a grain free diet. I hate that science diet puts themselves out as such a good food, it really is not. It has alot of grain in it. Many animals are allergic to the corn in pet foods and it can cause bloat and excessive weight gain. Even if you can't afford or can't find a grain free, corn free may be enough to help!

 

[1muttsfan]

there is nothing wrong with grains in the diet. They are healthy, have fiber and protein, and are a nutritious source of food - for cats too. However, cats are carnovores and require more protein in their diet. Since protein is the most expensive ingredient in food, companies tend to try to balance out the calories with less-expensive things like carbohydrates. Purina makes a prescription diet called OM that is high in protein and fiber, and low in fat - works great on cats that have a hard time loosing weight.

 

[Eggsoteric]

Remove any dry food and feed a good quality, grain free canned food. We adopted out a cat that came back to us horribly obese. We removed any dry food and gave him several meals of a good quality, grain-free canned food and his weight came down.