That was some fat cat!

I have been house-sitting for some dear friends.  They are due back today.  Somebody tell me how to have a chat with them that they are killing their cats!

I try not to be obnoxious with friends and their pets.  If they ASK, I’ll give them some good advice, help them get hooked up on safer pet foods.  Otherwise, I don’t say anything.

But this was ridiculous.

They have a beautiful one-year-old tortie who is probably 20 pounds overweight!  Her feeding instructions?  “One full can of 9 Lives and one full can of tuna every morning and night, plus she free feeds 9 Lives dry.”   Arggghh!!  I can just FEEL that cat developing diabetes and kidney disease by the minute.  She is so sluggish and acts like she doesn’t feel well.  She’s so big she can hardly move. 

They think it’s cute.  I have to tell you, I do cat rescue and feed about 20 cats.  Many are long-term members of my household.  Not a single one, not in years, has ever been overweight.  In fact, we never get bladder problems, kidney problems, or diabetes.  No cancers, even.  I want to say to them, you KNOW this about my cats, don’t you know it’s about the food I feed them?!

Then they have a sweet little tuxedo cat, about nine months old.  Charlie, a very loving guy.  His feeding instructions?  “One pouch of Whiskas and ONE POUCH OF TREATS every morning and night, plus the dry”.  At nine months, he should be bouncing off the walls.  All he does is lay on the sofa.

I didn’t feed them as much as I was told, and Charlie most definitely did NOT get those treats every day.  Gosh, that’s like giving your children cake at every meal.  He fills up on the treats and then leaves everything else to get crusty and dry.

In the wild, cats eat mice, which nutritionally break down to being 3% carbohydrate, 40% protein, and 50% fat.

But most commercial dry foods are between 30-70% carbs (because they get their protein from carb sources like corn and wheat). 

And the canned foods found at the discount pet food stores and grocery stores have the same carb mix, a little flavor from by-products, and water.  (And oh, how I shudder and recall the great China recall when I see “wheat gluten” on the label).   They just don’t have the nutrients cats need.

I want to tell my friends, LISTEN.  Give me the money you spend every month on cat food.  For the same dollar amount, I can get you a super premium canned food (Instinctive Choice, the best on the market, or maybe one of the Halo Pets foods) and any of a number of super premium holistic dry foods (Felidae, Life’s Abundance by HealthyPetNet, Paul Newman’s cat food, or Halo), and your cats will love them.

It’s VERY DIFFICULT to help a cat lose weight but if we start now, we might have a chance.  They will feel better and become more active and they might live a lot longer.

For most people, I couldn’t take their monthly low-grade pet food expenses and make the switch to holistic, but these friends are just plain way overfeeding.  An entire bag of treats at every meal????!!  The holistic treats I give my kitties say “no more than 5 kibbles per day”.  For that $1 a day treat bag plus what they spend on way too many cases on 9 Lives Canned, plus the dry, I KNOW I can feed their kitties nice, holistic canned, dry, and treats, and they will be better off for it!

Argghhhh!!