Wednesday, January 07, 2009 , terribly early in the morning

Feline Fat Farm

As I’m a soft touch, I agreed to foster two cats for a family who lost their home to foreclosure, and who need to live with family for a month until they can afford first/last/deposit on an apartment.  Then they plan to take the cats back.  I agreed to help because I liked that the family was exploring options to keep their family together, and didn’t just want to give the cats up completely.  The people brought the cats over on Saturday night and I was shocked and appalled by the size of the cats, the second I saw them.

Buddy weighs 26 lbs., and is roughly the size, shape, and density of an ottoman or footstool:

Wilbur is slightly slimmer at 21 pounds, and it shows in his agility.  He can jump up on the desk from the floor, but Buddy cannot.  When Wilbur jumps, his belly bumps into the edge of the surface he’s jumping to.

Perhaps their respective weights don’t sound outrageous, but these guys are so obese that it borders on cruelty.  If they were human, they’d need a special crane to lift them out of bed to take them to the hospital.  Neither cat can groom itself completely, and neither can do something as simple as scratch an ear—their feet don’t reach.  Both have matted coats on their lower backs because it’s another area they can’t reach, so I brush them for at least 10 minutes per day, trying to clean them up.  My guess is that they’d ideally both weigh about 10 lbs., and I know that won’t happen overnight, but I’ve started to change their food routine and I hope it will make a difference for them.  I also hope I’ll be able to convince their owners that fat cats aren’t cute.  Buddy, the fattest of the two, can’t do anything but walk three or four feet and then roll over onto his side, so their hearts must be under a lot of stress, too.  Let’s hope these cats drop some pounds and then keep it off, so they’ll live a long life instead of a half-life.

Thanks to Victor Tabbycat’s mom for the “Feline Fat Farm” moniker.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/07 at 03:35 AM
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