Cat question! (See details below)?

Question

I have two female cats that are 6 years old. My vet tells me that they are a few pounds overweight and I should put them on a diet and exercise them. The cats are strictly indoor. I do play with them, and I buy Authority Adult Lite and Hairball control formula. What are some good ways to help my two lovelies lose about 2 to 3 pounds? He said it should take about 4 to 5 months for the weight to come off.

Answer 1

Try the Catkins diet. Get a food that has a higher percentage of protein (more than 30%) and no corn. Corn is used to fatten slaughter animals who mostly have life-spans of under two years. The only thng it provies your cats' bodies is calories. And we all know the effect of too many calories, right?

All commercial dry cat foods have to have a carbohyrate to process the food so unless you go to a raw meat diet you are going to have some. Rice is not as fattening as corn if indeed it's fattening at all. CA Natural has just chicken and rice are most of its content. Natural Balance has a venison and pea. Also NB makes a chicken, turkey, duck I think that has brown rice. Prairie makes a good chicken with rice. The proteins in these foods will have about 34% protein, higher than the 30% you will find in the corn heavy varieties.

This will take time and your cats will in a few months eat less food as the higher protein and no corn kick in to truly nourish their bodies.

To switch foods: In a large plastic container mix 3/4 of their usual food with 1/4 of the new. Mix up enough for a week or ten days. After that is gone, make a mixture of 50% old, 50% new and feed for another ten days. Finally make a mixture of 3/4 new with 1/4 old. After they finish this you are home free to feed the new food.

I would use all three of these foods. Rotating protein sources from chicken to venison to chicken, turkey, duck is a good way to forestall any allergies that might develop to a single protein.

This is a life-time feeding program. No treats. Cats don't need them.

Exercise for cats is overrated. Lions and other felines in zoos don't get any more exercise for their size than your cats do and they are always well-muscled and trim from their high protein diets (raw meat).

Answer 2

All our kitties are kind of fat too. That's the problem with having indoor kitties. We give our kitties diet food and they are constantly chased by our foster kittens, but yet they are always chubby. They are happy cats and none or too over weight, but they probably could all lose about 2 to 3 lbs. My parents have some pretty fat cats too, and something they started doing because of Melvin's urinary problems was feeding the cats wet food. They buy Friskies Special Diet (they are only like 25 cents each) and for some reason they have lost a bunch of weight. So that might help.

Answer 3

Get a laser and a Cat tree.....also some catnip spray, and dried catnip. Spray the catnip on the cat tree and sprinkle some dried stuff on the ledges, this will make your cats super hyper and then you make them chase the laser up and down the cat tree. It is really good excercise and my cats do it all of the time...you should see 4 cats all climbing up and down the tree chasing a laser while under the influence of catnip...it is quite the sight! You could do this once or twice every day and it will keep them fit and healthy, I know with my cats weight has never been a problem because there are four of them to play together and I have a giant cat tree and another scratching post they play on them all of the time with each other and they are all quite fit. Also a good idea is to buy or make lots of different kinds of toys to leave laying around for them, they will play with anything and you can use something as simple as a ball of paper or a pakage of large pom-poms with catnip sprayed on them. This will help keep them active on thier own.

Answer 4

Playing with the toys and catnip balls are good ways of exercising. If the pounds wont come off you can get a "diet" cat food from your vet. (The foods are prescription only from vetinarians) Hill's has a good one called Feline R/D (reducing diet) and Eukanuba has some as well. The prescription diets are a little more aggressive than the "Lite" varieties. Ask your vet to recommend one if they feel they arent dropping the weight like they should, and the more activity and play the better. (have you tryed to get them to chase a laser pointer? sometimes they will chase them like crazy) :) Good luck.

Answer 5

Ohhhh poor kitties... my cats are always big fatties, but I think it calms them down. It's too hard for such a small frame to carry that much weight AND to climb the curtains.

In my experience with cats, I've always found that the hairball formula foods mess up their weight; however, every time I've used it my cats have lost weight so fast it scared me.

I would suggest finding a different food and (if you can stand their temper tantrums, I can't stand it from my cat) limit how much they are eating. I'd rather give in on this one myself than deal with my cat standing on my head in the middle of the night yowling for food.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Buy Cat Chow Vitality and feed each 3/4 to 1 cup a day! It worked for my cat.

Answer 7

I agree whole-heartily with old cat lady, kitties who eat more protien are slimmer. You may want to try and substitute 3 meals out of a week with raw meat, preferably chicken, duck, rabbit. As these are the closest to what kitties would be killing and consuming in the big bad world!

If they don't seem to take well to raw meat, and many won't - we all know how fussy kitties can be, lightly boil the chicken and with each feeding, cook it less and less. Don't go for minced chicken either, as it tends to have more bacteria etc because of the larger surface area exposed to contaminants!

Answer 8

You sound like the absolute "PURRfect" cat owner! You're using the best food and giving them the best care. One thing that might help is to feed them only a couple of times a day, and only a small amount.
You wouldn't want any more cats, would you? You take such good care of them and I have quite a few for adoption! :)

Answer 9

There are battery-operated toys that have toys, feathers, etc hanging from what looks like the frame of the hangman word game. It moves back and forth, up and down, so that the cat has to chase it and jump at it. Our cat loves it.

Also, our cat loves to chase light - track a flashlight along the floor, and he runs after it!

Answer 10

Try this toy, mine love it, and since it's a "fishing line" sort of toy, they have to chase it and jump for it. Also, it's a good way to spend time with them :)

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=11643&Ntt=bird&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&pc=1&N=0&Nty=1

Also, your vet should be able to tell you a specific amount of food to give them two or three times a day, just buy a cheap plastic measuring cup to use just for cat food and mark the amount with a permanent marker. It's a good time saver if you don't have to squint at the cup everytime you want to feed your cats.

They get big fast, don't they? :)