How do I get my overweight cat to exercize?

Question

He's nine years old, and we brought him to the vet last week, and she said he's overweight, and needs to loose five pounds. She suggested we switch him to low-cal cat food and encourage him to excercize more, but he won't eat the food, and when I try to play with him, he just gives me this "are you crazy?" look. Please help!

His twin brother died last month, and we just got him a new little kitten (6mo.) but all he does is hiss and growl at the cat.

Answer 1

You're going to have to make him if he won't do it himself. For starters, just get him to move for 30 seconds twice per day. You can build on that. As for what to do, you need to find a toy that he loves above all others and play with him. Or make up a new game. For instance, Poppy is obsessed with string. I use a cat teaser and make her chase it around the house and make her jump for it. Or Sophie loves her laser pointer and will chase that around.

If nothing else, find some nice smelly food or a treat that you know he loves and make him chase that around - let him know you have it and make him come to you for it, and/or make him jump up on something to get it.

It may be best to do this prior to feeding, so he won't feel weighted down with food. Plus it mimics what they would do in the wild before eating - namely chasing down the prey!

Now as for the food, toss the diet crap. It's probably inferior food anyway and many cats don't like it.

Answer 2

What food have you switched to? Cats often turn up their noses at a new diet, they're fussy creatures. You might need to wean him on to it - mix just a small amount of the new food with the old (like a 1:10 ratio) and GRADUALLY increase the amount over a period of at least 5 days. There are many different diet foods, so if he really is that stubborn you could try this method with other kinds.

If the cat is so overweight he needs to lose 5lb I'm not surprised he's not keen on exercise - neither would I be if I had lots of extra weight to lug around!

It's perfectly possible for a lazy cat to lose weight. You just have to find the right balance of food/activity level. If his activity level is almost zero, then he only gets the basic food allowance. I suggest a diet food like Hills r/d or Royal Canin's Obesity Diet - what you do is, feed him the correct daily amount for the weight you want the cat to be, not the weight he is. Your vet should have advised you on his ideal weight, but 7.7-8.8lb is average cat weight.

You could try a laser pen, these are fairly irresistable to cats. I also had one client who used to throw her cat's food around the room and hide it on the counter to force him to move if he wanted to eat! You'll find he'll become more active the more weight he loses.

Chalice

Answer 3

Hi
If you want your cat to lose weight the best thing you can do is feed a proper diet which doesn't happen to be the food the vet sold you. Dry food for cats is like feeding potato chips and cutting them down won't help much. Pllease consider feeding canned foods that don't contain gravy.

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

Answer 4

I've had this problem too. it breaks your heart when you switch food and then they get all weird and refuse to eat it. This will not last. he'll eat when he gets hungry. You could put a little new food with the old and gradually decrease the old and increase the new food to get him used to it.

As far as exercise goes he'll be more active and apt to play with you once he's been on a diet for a few days and he has more energy. Before long, he'll being bouncing all over the house like a kitten. When this happens he'll play with anything. My cats love a simple ball of crunched up paper.

It's very good that you are putting him on a diet.

Answer 5

Don't worry if he doesn't seem to eat the food at first. He will when he is hungry enough and you don't offer him anything else.

As far as playing goes, I've never seen a cat able to resist a simple little toy called a Cat Dancer. You can pick one up at a pet store for less than $3.

Answer 6

To get my obese and lazy persian cat to exercise I used to put a cardboard box over him and then shake a bag of cat treats like "Whisker Lickins" or something and then run around my house. Might not be a good idea if you have stairs... afterwards, reward him with a couple treats. I'm sure you can think of some more creative ideas as well!

Answer 7

Hi,the laser chasers are good I got one for my kitten a few weeks ago from"pets at home ". I feed my kitten with " Hills Science Plan" it was recommended by my vet,they do different ranges of meals for different ailments and they do one for overweight cats. You can by this over the counter from any vets.

Answer 8

My older cat will play if cat nip is involved. Its worth a try. Another consideration is giving him a younger playmate.

Answer 9

Pay near awareness to her complete caloric consumption. I could suppose that a unmarried (6oz) can, divided into two or three foods, will have to be lots. (My boys every get it is easy to one million/two within the morning and one million/two at night time. My vet absolutely helps the rainy meals vitamin that my boys are on.) Canned meals is way higher than dry meals. Especially for those who feed a prime first-rate, grain unfastened canned meals (comparable to Wellness or Innova). Cats are obligate carnivores and will have to consume a vitamin of MEAT—now not grains and by way of-merchandise. Read the elements on a bag of dry meals, so that you can inform you which meals is higher (trace: corn will have to now not be a aspect of a cat's vitamin). The 3 key bad problems related to dry meals are: one million) kind of protein - too prime in plant-established as opposed to animal-established proteins two) carbohydrate load is simply too prime three) water content material is simply too low I used to suppose that dry meals used to be higher. Then I spent a fortune on vet costs treating my cats for diabetes, CRF, and different wellness problems that might were have shyed away from if I were feeding them a higher vitamin. On dry meals best, they each wanted dental cleanings by way of the age of 4, and certainly one of my cats needed to have four tooth eliminated whilst he used to be best three years historic! (So a lot for the declare that "dry meals is higher for his or her tooth"!) If you suppose you need to feed dry meals, opt for a GRAIN FREE meals like Serengeti or Wellness Core. Please learn the hyperlinks on tom cat vitamins that I've supplied, I suppose you'll be able to discover them to be very useful. (The first 2 are written by way of vets.) Also, if you'll get her to play and be extra lively, you'll be able to be in a position to upgrade her wellness extra swiftly. When my Siamese used to be chubby, I taught him tips and performed fetch with him. (Just preserve in brain that treats are further energy, so plan as a result. I use the unmarried-component, freeze dried treats like Pogos rabbit treats and Whole Life bird treats.)

Answer 10

we use a laser pointer. some cats go nuts over them, chasing them everywhere. others, are onto it. the first time we turned it on, both cats chased it as if their lives depended on it.. they were even panting.