Helping Bonnie Get Healthy: A Tale of Two Cats

[Jeff Ford]

I've got two cats, Bonnie and Clyde. A few months ago the vet said there were both overweight, so we started on a diet. Now they're down to about half of what they used to get in food. Clyde is doing well, nice and lean, plenty of energy. Bonnie is fatter than ever!

Her recent problem has been eating her share of the food so fast she throws up within a few minutes of finishing. Also, if Clyde leaves his share alone for a few seconds she gobbles it all up. We've started feeding them in separate rooms, which is keeping her from getting more than her share, but she's still eating so fast she makes herself sick. Any ideas to help my poor kitty get healthier?

 

[Astronuc]

We had the same problem with our cats.

Years ago we had a male cat who scarfed food. He would his then the others. So we fed them separately. That pretty much solved that problem.

If a cat eats too fast - give them a little - wait and then give more. Hopefully that will slow them down.

We have the opposite problem now - our female gobbles her food and is ready to take the male's food. So we keep them separated. Recently, the male has been eating faster, so now he can actually finish just after the female.

Also maybe adding a little pumpkin meat (not pie filler) to the food will help a little. We added it rather than bran, so they could get fiber. The bran was too coarse.

 

[Jeff Ford]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot this evening.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think you should feed the cat by hand; a teaspoon at a time. Do this about ten times a day and twice at night. Cancel all vacation plans and be sure that at least one person is always home to feed the little tike.

...that's pretty much what we've done with our fifteen year old.

 

[Jeff Ford]

If only I could. With a full-time job and a wife in grad school it could prove difficult.

 

[russ_watters]

I've got two cats, Bonnie and Clyde. A few months ago the vet said there were both overweight, so we started on a diet. Now they're down to about half of what they used to get in food. Clyde is doing well, nice and lean, plenty of energy. Bonnie is fatter than ever!

Her recent problem has been eating her share of the food so fast she throws up within a few minutes of finishing. Also, if Clyde leaves his share alone for a few seconds she gobbles it all up. We've started feeding them in separate rooms, which is keeping her from getting more than her share, but she's still eating so fast she makes herself sick. Any ideas to help my poor kitty get healthier?

Seems to me, the eating-so-fast-she-pukes thing is both a problem and a solution!

 

[russ_watters]

...that's pretty much what we've done with our fifteen year old.

Jeez, I've been feeding myself since I was like 3. :tongue:

[had to be done]

 

[russ_watters]

There's also this: http://www.smarthome.com/6100.html

 

[Math Is Hard]

My vet said my cat was too fat. So we got a new vet.

 

[Mental Gridlock]

There's also this: http://www.smarthome.com/6100.html

That's awesome! Of course you should never trust a machine to feed your cat when you go out of town, but it's a great invention if you're generally lazy!

Also they have an automatic litter box too. It's like seventy bucks. I'm going to save up and get one for my cat because she poops way too much and fills up the entire box every day. She poops so much more than I feed her and I don't know how.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't think you need to go to the extreme of feeding her with teaspoons 10 times a day, but doling out the food in a few smaller portions should help. Or, feed her in a room with a floor you can clean easily and scatter her food (assuming it's the dry stuff, not the wet stuff) across the floor so she has to work a little harder to get it all. If it's the wet stuff, you could try dividing it over two or three servings a day, so even if she gobbles it all quickly, it isn't enough to get her sick in a single serving. If it's dry food, you could also just make it more challenging for her to get it, such as putting it in a plastic bottle with holes in the sides only big enough for a piece or two to come out at a time, or just leave the cap off...depending on how lazy or adventurous she is, so she'll have to bat around the bottle a bit to get her food (this also will keep her entertained...it's a similar principle to what they do with the big cats at zoos to keep them from getting bored).

 

[Jeff Ford]

Well I fed them in separate rooms, with her food spread out on a plate. She still finished in under a minute. He took almost 5, and didn't even finish his serving. As soon as I let her into his room, she immediately went for the bowl to see if there was any left.

The bottle idea is intriguing. I'd just have to make sure it wasn't something they would destroy right away.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My vet said my cat was too fat. So we got a new vet.

Same thing here but the dog outlived the vet! [okay, not really but it sounded good]. I did get chewed out though. Our one dog was seriously overweight and we tried to regulate her diet, but it was near to impossible to control the little ****. At 30 Lbs she kept our 40 pound and 90 pound dogs at bay waiting for her to eat first. Then we learned from our neighbor that she had been raiding their dog food for years - at least a third of a mile walk or more on six inch legs; down into the pasture, follow the creek to the the hole in the fence, through their pasture and finally up to their garage. Then she would take food away from a dog twice her size. :rofl:

 

[Moonbear]

The bottle idea is intriguing. I'd just have to make sure it wasn't something they would destroy right away.

Right, you need to find something that's tough enough that they can't eat right through it, but also not so impossible to get food out of that they get frustrated and give up. A 1 or 2 L soda bottle or water bottle might work (and they're easy to find when it needs replacing) if you just leave the cap off. Or, if that still doesn't slow her down, drill smaller holes in the sides and leave the cap on. The possible drawback is she might decide it's her new favorite toy and will go from downing her food in under a minute to playing with it noisily for hours. If you just had the one cat, it would be easier, because you could just hide her food all over the house so she'd have to spend time hunting for it (:uhh: Okay, maybe that's not easier for you to do, but an easy solution.)

 

[Math Is Hard]

Same thing here but the dog outlived the vet! [okay, not really but it sounded good]. I did get chewed out though. Our one dog was seriously overweight and we tried to regulate her diet, but it was near to impossible to control the little ****. At 30 Lbs she kept our 40 pound and 90 pound dogs at bay waiting for her to eat first. Then we learned from our neighbor that she had been raiding their dog food for years - at least a third of a mile walk or more on six inch legs; down into the pasture, follow the creek to the the hole in the fence, through their pasture and finally up to their garage. Then she would take food away from a dog twice her size. :rofl:

:rofl: My goodness! That's a pretty long journey to get those extra vittles! I can see how she would have worked up an appetite by time she got there.

 

[Bystander]

Speed eating --- had a couple that had been hungry, and Darwin says, "If it holds still, gobble!" Couple others who'd never had to wonder about the next meal and still gobbled --- same problem --- food's moving so fast when it hits bottom that it bounces.

I have had some luck with Petromalt (for hairballs) and regular brushing. My interpretation is that there is enough hair in the stomach and gut that the animal is always hungry, but doesn't have the volumetric capacity to handle the food that hits the stomach --- bit of a somatic feedback issue --- stomach keeps sending signals to brain, "There's nothing in here to digest, so send more food NOW!" The animal complies, stomach gets overloaded, and unloads. Reduce the hair load, and get the chemical feedback from some actual absorption of food through the stomach lining.

 

[Astronuc]

We have regular (more or less) feeding times for our animals. The dog gets fed a 0700 and 1700 each day - although she is ready to eat about an hour before that.

The cats get feed about the same time, but they are usually ready two hours before that. So we more or less have a ritual. In the morning, Chester (our male cat) starts walk back and forth on my side of the bed meowing and occasional nuzzling me with his face. Our female comes to my side of the bed, and she used to just start clawing my side of the bed, but now she jumps up by my head and sits there. That's about the time the dog needs to go out, so I get up. And everyone heads to the kitchen. I let the dog out - and then in again - and head back to bed for another hour. The dog eats at 0700 and the cats shortly thereafter, except on weekends when I feed everyone at 0600 and go back to bed for one or two hours.

In the evening, the dog is fed by the time I get home, and so I feed the cats just after I get home. This means that I have two cats following me around the house, and if I look like I am headed toward the kitchen the cats walk ahead of me, occasionally turning their heads to make sure that I am going to the kitchen.


I am not sure which cat came up with this system, but it works.

Smart cats. :tongue: Either that, or they had training in logistics.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Speed eating --- had a couple that had been hungry, and Darwin says, "If it holds still, gobble!" Couple others who'd never had to wonder about the next meal and still gobbled --- same problem --- food's moving so fast when it hits bottom that it bounces.

I have had some luck with Petromalt (for hairballs) and regular brushing. My interpretation is that there is enough hair in the stomach and gut that the animal is always hungry, but doesn't have the volumetric capacity to handle the food that hits the stomach --- bit of a somatic feedback issue --- stomach keeps sending signals to brain, "There's nothing in here to digest, so send more food NOW!" The animal complies, stomach gets overloaded, and unloads. Reduce the hair load, and get the chemical feedback from some actual absorption of food through the stomach lining.

I can buy that. In fact I meant to mention petromalt for the puking. My thinking was that hairballs reduce the gag reflex; this since we have had the puking without the gobbling problem. In either case, there is no doubt in my mind that for some cats at least, hairballs cause problems keeping down food. But I'm not about to brush their teeth with pertromalt. :uhh:

 

[Bystander]

Oops --- regular brushing, or combing, of the coat, not teeth.

 

[scott_alexsk]

Our vet told us to put our cat on diet cat food also. But since he did not seem as healthy, nor his coat as shiny, we put him back on smaller portions of the regular food.

He is very aggressive when it comes to eating. He will constitently try to get our attention when we are doing other things. Several times when my mother was using the blow dryer he would unplug it. Also when we were gone and our neighbor did not feed him as much as he wanted, he simply opened the cabinet where the food was kept, pulled out the bag and ripped a hole in it, periodicly coming back for meals.
-scott

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oops --- regular brushing, or combing, of the coat, not teeth.

I just couldn't resist.

Try to comb or brush our one female and she gets mad and runs. Try to brush the other and you will have bloody hand, shortly thereafter. And of course the old one, the male, gives both of the other cats a bath a few times a day... :yuck: It's a constant battle.

 

[Entropy]

I have this same problem. My parents have to give me small portions or I'll throw up all over the table.