My partner and I rehomed Morag in October of 2020 and she had been living in a breeding home. Her days were spent with breeding queens and kittens and despite being an active bright cat she was a little rotund.
After advice from one of the SimplyCats nurses, we examined her food intake; before rehoming, she had been grazing from multiple bowls of different kinds of food so it was impossible to know how much she was eating per day and of what.
The only control we had was over what she was eating now that she lived with us. We discovered that one of the foods she had arrived with was a high calorie formulation designed for kittens and nursing mothers. This was not at all suited to her needs; we swiftly changed her food over to something with a more appropriate level of fats and calories.
When she first arrived she had a little extra weight on board
Easily seen from above – no visible waist!
Due to being a Sphynx, she has a high metabolism to maintain her temperature so needed a specific food. After discussion with the nurse, we decided on Royal Canin’s Sensible 33 dry formulation accompanied with a pouch of wet food daily.
A critical part of this story is actually weighing your cat.
She began to drop weight quite quickly and in fact became more active and playful as she trimmed down and was definitely more alert and willing to engage in play.
After a few weeks, she was already improving.
To ensure we are feeding her correctly the nurse calculated her daily allowance and we weighed it out at home. We have found a small cup that is exactly the right size for her biscuits which means we don’t have to weigh them every time, this makes things much easier.
We were also advised to try a puzzle feeder for Morag, as they can slow down eating and engage the brain in a challenging activity. She is fed half her daily biscuits in her puzzle feeder now and this stops her gorging it all down in the morning and she can make it last until tea time when she gets her wet food.
Further improvements are very visible on her stomach line!
My partner and I communicate clearly on a daily basis to make sure she doesn’t get fed two breakfasts or two dinners as that’s a quick route to relapse.
She’s lost nearly 600g now and is well on the way to her target weight.
Please contact us if you would like to learn more and possibly need help with your own cats weight.
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