Herd your cats here

[geoteo]

I am glad to see you, drbrt!  I was just asking a mutual acquaintance the other day if Victoria had had kittens.  Has she?

[drbrt]

I am glad to see you, drbrt!  I was just asking a mutual acquaintance the other day if Victoria had had kittens.  Has she?

Victoria has not. She's not going into heat because I can't get her weight up. She's only 11 lbs, which is tiny for a rag doll. I have them free feeding on high quality dry and the canned food she will eat (friskies with cheez). She will also eat Tiki Cat but I can't deal with cat food that looks back at me when I open the can.

So far the pet sitter reports that they are eating the canned food and cowering under the bed whilst The Scary Human refreshes food and litter box.

[geoteo]

Genuine scaredy cats!  You may be glad to know that Kitty and Princess are still doing well.  They are beautiful, as soft as clouds, and Princess bosses everyone around.

[drbrt]

Genuine scaredy cats!  You may be glad to know that Kitty and Princess are still doing well.  They are beautiful, as soft as clouds, and Princess bosses everyone around.

I'm glad to hear it. Princess has a definite sense of how she wants things.

[tuxedo_cat]

Eigen -- thank you so much for restarting this thread!  And for taking the trouble to transfer my original post, that was awfully considerate of you : )

I have to say, I only just discovered the shuttering of the fora and I'm really heartbroken!  I had not been posting a lot recently, and also wasn't much in contact with a few of you that I know on fb, so I had no idea.  I really bummed that I didn't have a chance to say good-bye and to say thank you to so many people, especially those who have decided not to jump on over here.

I am using my original moniker, although with some sadness, because the original Tuxedo Cat passed away back in February.  I had posted with some questions for advice about food for him in light of his liver disease a bit earlier.  And Dangercat (whom I asked about in that very first post) passed away about a year and half ago.  I originally picked Tux as my moniker because he was such a good natured creature and got along with everyone––he seemed like a good example to follow.

Anyhow, I have found such kind company and wisdom in this community, so I am pledging to return to being a more regular poster now in our new home.  And I'm still finding out from fora folk IRL who put in the labor to recreate this site––which I am just very moved by!  If you all have any advice about where to post my thanks here and to whom, please let me know.

Finally, I did adopt a new kitty about a year and a half ago, although I don't think I've talked about her much.  Her name is Ella -- and she's a lovely creature.   She also has some personality -- I imagine there will be stories to post about her eventually!

In the meantime, I'm glad to see this particular corner of the fora reviving already : )

[Vhagar]

Hey Tux! So sorry about the original Tuxedo Cat. Glad you have someone to keep you busy. That was important for me when I lost kitties.

I am now in Italy through the end of July (yay!!). A friend of mine who loves cats but can't have them where she is living is house/cat sitting. Lorenzo LOVES her. Henry thinks she's fine. Which, really, is a big step for Henry. She is trying to figure out why they cry to go into the garage just to sit on the car. There are things that I just don't question. I am so glad she is there, though. I don't know that I would have gone away so long otherwise.

Glad to see the cat-herding board up and running again!

[mamselle]

Tux!!! So very glad to see you.

My condolences for the loss of your kitties; a warm welcome to Ella (Fitzgerald)?

-=-=-=-

I can't have kitties in my present digs, but one of my students, knowing my proclivities, asked if I'd like to see the two 8-week-old rescue kitties they've just adopted.

Of course I said yes.

They're tiny, very cute, have perfect little triangular faces with wide, (seemingly) innocent eyes (of course, we all know better) and they're orange-and-tan marmalade tabbies with a purr sixteen times their size each.

She told me their names, I'm going to call them Darien and Julien here (close but not identical).

And...they were doing zoomies in the upstairs bedroom while she had her lesson.   

I'm in love.

M.

[ktmkwk]

Sorry to hear about Tux Cat but glad to hear Ella is doing.  We've added two devil kittens (Peik and Lasse) to our clan and they have really helped to bring our older cats, Charlie and Betty, out of their shells.  We always told Charlie we'd get him a kitten...instead he got two!

[fast_and_bulbous]

Sorry to hear about Tux Cat

I totally read that as Tax Cut.

I am so sorry.

[ursula]

Anyone have tips for helping a fat cat lose weight?  Jules has been declared "too fat" by the vet. 

We've switched to having many small bowls of food scattered through the house, so he has to hunt for them.  We're also adding in extra play time.

How have you dealt with your hefty felines?

[drbrt]

Anyone have tips for helping a fat cat lose weight?  Jules has been declared "too fat" by the vet. 

We've switched to having many small bowls of food scattered through the house, so he has to hunt for them.  We're also adding in extra play time.

How have you dealt with your hefty felines?

Twin got an automatic dry food dispenser on a timer for his portly felines. It helped some.

[Conjugate]

When I first moved to Current State, I had an elderly (~9 yr old) cat with me who'd been with me through jobs in three other states.  He was suffering from insecurity (in part due to open hostility from my (now, happily, ex-)wife) and would crawl up on my chest at night to ensure I wasn't going anywhere without taking him along.

When I got to Current State, I remarried to an excellent (sane!) woman who came with her own cat. This cat immediately let my cat know that my cat was HIS ROLE MODEL, and new cat wished to subscribe to my old cat's newsletter, so to speak. My cat tolerated this surprisingly well, and when he eventually passed away, my wife's cat decided that he was now Senior Cat With All Rights And Privileges Appertaining Thereto.

He now will climb up on my chest. The old cat would, when the door was opened, go outside a bit, bite some grass (not because he needed or wanted to, but just to show he could), and then calmly come back in.  My wife's cat now makes a habit of this. It's kind of funny.

He is black, with bits of white underfur showing through in a few places now. (He's 9 years old now; how time flies!) Since then, my wife has acquired two other cats, including a beautiful gray cat and a large, plump orange cat.  The latter came to us by sitting on a bale of pine straw that we were going to use for mulch. He blended in beautifully, and my wife at first could only tell that something was different about the bale of pine straw, before it moved. 

The orange cat was going to be an outside cat, we agreed, because our house would be crowded for three cats (we'd already acquired the gray cat at this point). We sat on the porch, getting to know our new boy, as a truck went by on the road near our door.  We played with him a bit as a motorcycle zoomed by the road near our door.  After two more cars and a large truck went by, we looked at each other.  No, he can't be an outdoor cat any more; it's too damn dangerous. So it's crowded, but mostly they get along okay.

[the_geneticist]

Hurry for acquiring new cats!  The new orange kitty must have been observing you and decided you would make acceptable staff :o)

My advice for slimming down a plump cat is to measure their food, know if they supplement their diet (begging treats from the other human/pretending they have not been fed to get second breakfast/sneaking human food/etc.), and encouraging more play.  That being said, I measured Buddycat's food for YEARS and he was determinedly plump for years.  I joked that I was feeding a cat that was "12 pounds of cat and 6 pounds of lazy" because feeding him less made him sleep more.  He only slimmed down when I moved somewhere with a large yard to explore.

[tuxedo_cat]

Agreed on the "hurray for new cats" narratives!

I have two suggestions for trim down kitty plans:  one is to use a plastic kibble ball which prevents a cat from bolting their food and perhaps allows them to feel full sooner?  I don't know if it's necessarily more fun for them that way or not. 

The other advice that I got from a vet was to eliminate all dry food entirely, since it was likely to be full of carbohydrates and to feed the cat an all-protein, wet food diet. I think my Dad used to be put on this diet occasionally by his doctor, probably some version of the Atkins.

That advice obviously contradicts, but I guess you could see if either of those works!

For exercise, perhaps having some kind of cat tree would help on the exercise front, since the cat would using his own body weight going up which would require more exertion?

[miss jane marple]

The other advice that I got from a vet was to eliminate all dry food entirely, since it was likely to be full of carbohydrates and to feed the cat an all-protein, wet food diet. I think my Dad used to be put on this diet occasionally by his doctor, probably some version of the Atkins.

I adopted now 7 year old Ms. Tortie last August out of a cage at Petsmart. She looked like a soccer ball ready to explode and weighed 13 pounds. I've gradually learned that her weight was probably due to a combination of factors including the boredom of being confined, inappropriate diet before going to the shelter, and an old mobility problem/injury (pelvis or lower spine). She doesn't climb or play as one would expect for a cat her age. I came to the same conclusion as in the quote about dry carbohydrates vs wet food that's mostly water after reading pet food labels, and was surprised I hadn't known this before. She ate wet food twice a day with only a few bits (maybe half a teaspoon per day) of dry for about 7 months. Now she gets wet food twice a day and has a small amount of dry food in a dish 24/7 - she only nibbles at it a few minutes each day. Interestingly, she has been a picky eater, not the glutton one might expect. Many times I bought the "value packs" of 12 or 18 cans and had to give most of it away because after one or two cans she decided BLECH.

I also tried to increase her exercise, with limited success. She has visibly lost weight and gained strength and mobility over the past 11 months, although she is still overweight. Now she can do things like raise a hind leg toward her head and lick the ankle (cat yoga) or turn completely from one side to the other when rolling on the carpet without squeaking in discomfort. Her profile now includes visible legs all the way to the elbow/upper thigh. Adopting Mr. Tuxedo (15 years old and agile as a kitten, he jumps everywhere) in March as a playmate for Ms. Tortie did not work at all to increase her exercise, but I'm enjoying his company - he's the sweetest, snuggliest cat I've ever met. She has only recently stopped hissing and growling at him after 4 months. I'm not a very good toy animator, evidently. I can't hold the attention of either cat with feathers/strings on a stick for more than a minute.