Be very cautious about letting the girl cat go hungry until she decides to eat. Cats (especially overweight cats) can have issues with hepatic lipidosis (aka fatty liver) and you DO NOT want to deal with that.
I also have a background working at a vet office, worked at an animal shelter for 7 years and I also have an animal science degree
I currently have 3 cats, 1 eldery male cat I very recently adopted, 1 adult female cat I adopted last year and a senior male cat I've had since he was 4 weeks old who has all sorts of medical problems including urinary issues.
We tried the prescription food but it cost an arm and a leg to feed ALL of the cats the prescription diet c/d......and Norman (the cat with issues) was not a fan. I am a HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of Pro Plan dry food. We feed the chicken hairball management formula. It is about $30 for 16lbs. Not sure how long that would last you but it is a great BASE for a cat's diet.
In addition to that, I feed canned food. For a long time I fed Pro Plan canned food. With the diet of dry food and canned food twice I day I was able to wean Norman off all urinary meds and prescription food. and he did just fine for years. I would just put out a small can in the morning and a small can at night. I did eventually wean him down to 1 can once a day (night).
To make a long story short (ha), in the last year he started losing weight and acting "funny". After months of a slow downward spiral, repeated vet visits and numerous tests, we eventually figured out that his phenobarbital level had risen to a toxic level. (he was on phenobarb for seizures he has had his whole life). He went from 15.2 lbs to 12 lbs. He is a BIG cat and looked horrible. We dropped his dosage by HALF and he slowly started to improve. However....he had ZERO interest in food. None. Nada.
The problem with hepatic lipidosis is that after a prolonged period of "starvation" the body basically breaks down the fat in the liver....the cat feels ill and does not want to eat. So it doesnt eat. Which makes the body continue to break down.....making him feel bad. So he doesnt eat. Its a horrible cycle.
At that point I was feeding him anything he wanted. I went to
Petsmart and bought the chicken beef or turkey version of every single option in canned food and went through them all one by one. Sometimes he would take one bite and then walk away. I was giving him string cheese, teriyaki chicken japanese food, chicken pasta ANYTHING to get food in his belly.
He did slowly improve and has probably gained about a pound back. He still has very limited interest in food....barely picks at the dry food but will eat certain canned foods regularly. I am currently feeding the most delicious and CRAPPY food ever. Food City brand, or the
Petsmart brand (not authority, the crappy one lol). Anything is better than nothing!
I actually believe it is healthier to feed a small amount of GOOD quality dry food as a base with any quality canned food. I really really like to see cats on canned food, whether it is "high quality" or "low quality". Cats seem to love the dry Pro Plan. I used to use the kitten version on all of my foster kitten litters and they went back to the shelter looking amazing, regardless of the condition I took them home in. My cats all have great coats.
Also, on the water note....my cats hated that water fountain. I experimented with different dishes and eventually settled on a LARGE ceramic dog dish. For whatever reason, they love it!
My sister has 3 huge obese male cats. She used to free fed dry pro plan. did I mention obese? One cat weighs 25lbs. Anyways, they have switched to a coffee cup full of dry food split into 3 dishes once a day, plus canned food twice a day. When she free fed dry food only, the obese cat used to absolutely binge on the dry food and barf everywhere all the time. To where he was barfing up blood. They started to feed limited dry but with canned food and the vomiting issue has stopped other than a hairball here and there. All 3 cats are doing great on it and in addition to going through way less dry food, it is a lot easier to tell if a cat isn't feeling well if they have set meal times rather than grazing all day. If Sparky or whoever doesn't have any interest at feeding time, you know there is an issue.
