Supersize Ollie in the making?? Opinions needed!

[Kittybabe (Ruth)]

  I wish Lexy shared it too Licia. I'd feel way better about her "voluptous" frame if she was 

I just got the evils. She wanted my food. I've learned that she only likes certain things so if I let her smell it she will go away on her own. I think its the whole: you have plate... I wants it peeees. Often she just sniffs, and goes away. My sister's Pippa is the same. It's all part of the process. My sister figures that if Pippa feels apart of the "no" and walks away on her own then they have a good comprimise and my sister doesn't feel guilt because she has very few "feed me seymour" looks.

Granted, Pippa is strange. She likes Oatabix!

Should really introduce her to Riley, I figure they would get on well 

[dolcetta46]

Yeah Jo you are right, it might well have been our fault for having exposed him for too much fine dining!!    And it is particularly hard for me as I can truly relate how miserable it must  be to be deprived of good food!! 

Amy,  at that cheeseburger kitty!!  I must say he is extremely adorable, I love chartreux and one of the reason is their wonderful "roundness", unfortunately though Oliver doesn't share their natural bodily structure!!

[Corporal Smokey]

  Licia everytime you talk about Ollie liking hamburgers I think about Happycat

[blackcat]

  why on earth would Ollie swap to salads when he is surrounded by all the wonderful food you keep mentioning - I am thinking of moving in and wearing a cat suit myself!

[dolcetta46]

Thanks Jo!  I think I really should invite Helen's Riley to stay with us for a while so he can teach Oliver to appreciate salads

[blackcat]

I think that is the right approach dolcetta. Small reductions are less noticeable than just cutting his intake in half. Gradual reductions over a few weeks should do the trick nicely

[dolcetta46]

Thanks again peeps, we have slightly reduced his food, cut down the dry food to 20g each time (seems like a tiny spoonful!), he does give a bit of wistful look at me after wolfing them down in a few second, but he doesn't seem to suffer too much and the energy level hasn't gone down at all.  We did some shopping rounds yesterday and found one of the larger petshop doing a big sale and got a 800g Royal Canin Indoor version for €5,20, and he did like it, so we may go back there and get a couple of 2kg bags which were like €10 before the sale ends.
We will hold off some fatty tidbits like cheese, bacon or hamburgers for a while though I may continue with a bit of tuna or grilled chicken.  He doesn't seem to care for yogurt too much, he does lick it off after a while but he doesn't jump at it like other foods. 
It IS really hard and makes me feel really evil when I don't give him what he wants, but he does have a waist with the wrong curve (to borrow Gill's excellent description, rather rugby ball like...) indeed the last thing I want is for him to turn obese and like you guys said it is better to take an action before it is too late.  I just have to try to make him happier aside from the food matters, I guess he took too much after us to be such a foodie!

[Kittybabe (Ruth)]

Does sound like a fair bit of food. If he's working it off I suppose its ok but I would cut down on treats off your plate so to speak. You'll notice a difference and if he doens't have a waist he will develop one. Lexy is just about getting hers back and that's really her urinary diet coupled with my not caving for the pleading looks I get. She can have her food down at the same time I get mine, she'll ignore hers and come to me for mine.

Its hard, but you'll find if you start now Ollie will probably not gain more weight and will enjoy a healthy young lifestyle. Lexy is five in April and the older they get the worse it is to get the weight off them. She's lost 30g in 6 weeks. That's all. 30g. Doesn't seem like a lot but for Lexy that's huge. Try it with Ollie, if you don't have a scale to hand weigh yourself on your own scale and then weigh yourself with him in your arms and you'll get a fairly accurate weight for him. And then try it each week after you reduce the treat food.

Oh, and get him doing some of your weights    That'll learn 'im!

[blackcat]

I have to say the only 7 kg cat I have ever owned was Bob and he was a large boned cat and of a heavy breed. I don't have any sense of scale on Ollie, but he doesn't look like the sort of body shape that would carry weight well. As Lynn says, it doesn't look like he is fat from the photos, but you do probably need to exercise a bit more self-restraint in the treats department ... When he is standing up, look down on him and see if he still has a waist ....

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

That sounds like a lot of food to me.  Jaffa has 300g wet food per day but no dry.  When he was on more dry, he had about 30g dry and 100g wet and maintained his weight.  He weighs 4.8kg and has a slender build.  Lots of people say he's skinny when they first see him but when he had his vaccinations and health check last autumn the vet said he was a perfect size and shape.

I would try and cut down on Ollie's food a little, because it's so difficult to get cats to lose weight.  The sooner you deal with a weight problem in cats (or a potential weight problem) the better.  Don't wait until he is obese.  I would reduce the amount of dry food you feed a little.  It's hard for me to judge his size as I'm used to cats with small bones.  Jaffa has always been tall and long but slender, and Mosi is very small boned under all his fluff.  So to me normal is quite slender. 

[dolcetta46]

Well the problem is the shipping can be very often more costly than the product itself if you order something from another country.  But you never know, we ordered different things from Germany with reasonable shippings in the past, I will have a look around!

[CurlyCatz]

dolcetta would it not work out cheaper for you to get the likes of hills/rc from somewhere online that does shipping to your country ?

ps again like i said about cody, long limbs & lean (nature of his breed) but his feline fat pad (the loose sagging tummy) is absolutely awful but that is just him & he's not overweight.

[dolcetta46]

I have looked around some websites and yes Royal Canins are also available here, too.  I shall do some shopping around, £30 for 10kg is not bad, but I think I would start with a smaller bag just to make sure he will like it!!  thanks again

[Corporal Smokey]

I know our vets over here charge a premium for foods like that. 500g (I think, but they might be 400g) bags of Royal Canin food, similar to Hills are available from some pet shops in this country from about £2.49 so I would imagine that you'll find it similar over there.

The quality foods are worth the extra though. When we became a single-cat household I decided Josh would only have the best and he still does even though we're back up to two. I buy it in bulk. I just bought a 10kg bag for £30 but it was off a friend who has an account with RC.

[dolcetta46]

Amy, yes I did read about the danger of onions so I take all the precaution to avoid them in his portion.  Umm, sweets, I was just thinking "well then, more for me  " but if you can come by real quiet not to wake him up, I can share with you too

It's always reassuring to hear your advice Lynn, he is indeed long limbed with elongated neck, and doesn't have the build of a "cobby" cat, which sort of accentuate the tummy and this led to the concern of Cris.  I think we need to look for a very choice selection of dry food which can be fed in small quantities with a high content of quality protein and low amount of fillers, which is sometimes hard to detect just looking at the "nutritional information" on the packages.
We could ask our veterinarian for suggestion but I am pretty sure they will push Hills Science Plan as they sell them at their counter.  They cost like 5€ for 400g bag (like £3,70 for less than a pound), not wanting to sound cheap but does this price justified?  Do they really make the difference? (Of course if they are indeed worth the price and truly better for him, I wouldn't mind it at all)

[Corporal Smokey]

I'd second that about cutting down on the human food. Maybe the tiniest bit of natural yoghurt wouldn't hurt while you're having your food but not much else. He eats better than I do and I'm overweight  !

Careful on the veggies and sauce too, it's so easy to not notice a little onion powder sneaking in, the stuff's in everything and is really bad for cats.

If you really feel the need to send sweet treats somewhere, I'll send you my address 

[CurlyCatz]

going by those pics he looks perfectly fine and bang on.  I note he has quite a long neck & long limbs so he may have more skeletal weight. (my cody is a good example of this as he's much heavier than he looks)

I certainly would advise cutting out the human titbits and watching he doesnt really put much more on but if he maintains the shape/size he is i think he's ok.  Perhaps think about swapping the dried food to a "light" version (cody has to have hills maintenence light)

[dolcetta46]

Well Gill he is now 9 months already, not 6 months, he only weighed featherly 4,5kg at 6months!!   
But it seems very much that we really need to go strict on dry, may also consider the low fat version at least for an experiment for now.  It is true Desley I know it is going to be very hard to slim him down once he gets too fat, that's why we wanted to get the situation under control before it becomes too late.
Cutting dry food, mercifully would be the easiest thing for him too, he is not THAT crazy over it, he eats them more like just because it is there, though we do also have to refrain from letting him eat sweets, this may not be as easy!!  
Thanks for all your advices and suggestions, we will take more precautions and shall see how it goes!

[Desley (booktigger)]

i think that is too much dry food with the amount of wet food he is getting - 20g is roughly equal to one pouch, so he is getting the equivalent of 5 pouches. The dry food I have up here says to feed 73g to a 6.5kg cat, and that is when they are eating purely dry, so just less than that plus two pouches would be too much - he does seem to be starting with a belly. i think Cris is right to be concerned - it is very hard to get cats to lose weight, and much easier to prevent them getting overweight in the first place.

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

6 kgs at 6 months does sound a bit high 

My giant boy Misa is just over 6kgs at 6 years and he did lose a bit of weigt last year. Sasa was about 5.5 kgs and rather a typical tortie being like a rugby ball. Of course any jelly bellys are disguised by all that fur 

My birmans are definately not overweight but I dont remember seeing a waist but again I blame it on all that fur 

[dolcetta46]

Oh geez tell me about it Bazsmum...   I should get him involved in my Body Combat and Step sessions...   I do give him plenty of exercises in the gym area as it has a good flooring for him to run and jump about, but the thudding noise he makes when he comes down from his jumps seems to be getting louder and when he runs around it sounds like a stampede of a bull.    and I thought cats were supposed to be light footed!!

Your idea of cutting down the meal sizes is also a good suggestion, he does need to learn to eat his food in smaller portions.

[Bazsmum]

Dolcetta I am shocked!  All them piccies of him in the gym too.....maybe he should put the weight's down and do some aerobics!   

Id gradually cut his meals down in size that way he wont notice and think meowmy is being cruel! 

[dolcetta46]

Thanks Dawn, Lottie and Clare!  Well it does take some squeezing to reach his ribs... viewed from above, yes he looks rather like a sausage so this probably means he needs a little weight control.  I will try increasing the wet food as he prefers them anyways, and less treats, probably need to cut out the sweets though that would deifintely make me feel like a cruella deville as he has such a sweet tooth, that could have contributed to the issue as much as I take care not to give him too much, he is much smaller so a little according to me could have been too much for a cat...  well I guess we will have to have our desserts on the sly while he is sleeping, very quietly!!

[clarenmax]

My boy Max is pretty large, and when he weighted in at 5.6 kg the vets wanted me to slim him down a bit as we had a belly on him.  He's now 5.2kg.

It would defo be an idea to cut out the treats and reduce maybe the dry food intake, as although the amounts of dry may look small, they are much more likely to add weight to our furries, and often without us really noticing either, I certainly didn't see Max as being overweight, but then again I see him every day 

[Team Svartalfheims]

It does seem a lot of food. I'd cut out the human food and treats straightaway as he doesn't need them and it's just extra calories.

You should be able to only feel a very thin layer of fat over his ribs, spine and hips and easily feel these bones. When viewed from above you should be able to see a definate waist (going inwards not outwards!) and from the side you should be able to see an abdominal tuck.

Try increasing the amount of wet food he has (maybe look at a lower calorie one like Hills Light) and decrease, or cut out, the dry as dry food is calorie rich. Most people find their cats lose weight much better on wet food than just reduced amounts of dry. Adding extra water to the dry will help Ollie feel full quicker as well. Don't worry if the amounts look small. What looks a small portion to us isn't to them!

Edited for typos!

[Dawn F]

don't they say that if you are looking down on them from above you should be able to see a waist and if you can't they are a bit ahem large

[dolcetta46]

Since he joined us last September Oliver has been growing by leaps and bounds and continues to do so.  Recently Cris has noted that he is getting a little too heavy and says perhaps we need to reduce his daily food intake a little.  I, being a typical doting mummy, had been thinking he is just of a stocky built and looking quite robust and cute, but now that he pointed it out I am not so sure.  It is true that he is NOT flabby, he is pretty solid and does have very nice muscular tones around deltoids, quadriceps and glutes (or feline equivalent of those areas), however he does look rather like a little snowman when he is sitting up, his tummy is getting more and more ample (which is I must admit is very lovable..), and generally looking extremely pudgy and hefty.  At nine months he weighs 6kg, and he has an enormous appetite.  For an indoor cat however, he is quite active, he gets plenty of play time and he always get those moments of mad dash for no appearant reason every day, and our flat has a fair amount of space for him to run about.

This is what he eats daily (approximately)

200g of wet food (tinned), 100g each breakfast and dinner (Friskies or LeChat--I would think LeChat is pretty much the equivalent of Friskies or KiteKat)
60g of dry food, 30g each in the afternoon and late night  (Purina One or Affinity's Brekkies)
Then he has some tidbits of our dinner (for example sautèed chicken or grilled fish, bits of hamburger, cheese or ham, some spoonful of cheesy creamy sauce, with a bit of veggies inside etc.),   he usually gets a small bite of croissant or buttered toast at our breakfast, and once or twice a day a small dose of temptation type cat treats.

Is this in any way excessive?  It doesn't seem so, at least to me, a couple of things I started to take care for the past week or so is that I try to measure the dry food every time, as it is a surprisingly small amount and when I just pour I tend to give him too much.  Also Oliver does particularly like saucy wet food like Friskies, but it seems that the extra gravy and less chunk makes it less filling and leaves Oliver wanting for more after the proper portion.  I have been giving him a little bit more biscuits but I have been trying to refrain from it.

Now I would like your opinion... please look at these pictures taken yesterday, and see if he seems to you a bit too overweight, and if these recent precautions for feeding will be enough or more action will be needed....








Obesity is an issue close to the heart of Cris as 2 of his 3 children are, so perhaps he is much more sensitive about it than I am.  As much as I like chunky cats with lovely tummy I definitely wouldn't want him to become obese and if this is becoming a possibility I need to take an early action before the problem gets too serious.  therefore any advice and opinion from the more experienced folks like you guys would be much appreciated!!