BALLS!

[loonylupinlover]

My vet always said that the pet food companies -- no matter which one it is -- are out to make your pet eat more food than it needs so they can sell more. Case in point, the Purina rep at school said Charlotte would need 7/8 cup Overweight Management per day to lose weight. I gave her 3/4 cup per day instead, dropping it a little, and she gained

Comments

[loonylupinlover]

Yeah, I thought it seemed really high but I was like 'eh, I'll try it, there may be so much fiber in this food that it just seems like a much bigger amount, since it's lower calorie.' If you check on the bag, that's actually how much it recommends (see? all the pet food companies are evil! every last one! even Innova said I should be feeding 3/4 cup a day or something and that was also the weight loss diet)-- so just going by the book I see why she'd say that. Ugh. Why did I trust that? Now I feel like a tool.

Can I go lower than 1/8 cup BID? That's what I had her on before with the Innova weight management diet but even then she held steady at 12.5 pounds, 2.5 pounds overweight. She didn't lose an ounce after 6 months eating that. I don't know what else to do! She has zero activity because I live in an apartment and she doesn't do anything but sleep.

[loonylupinlover]

Oh, and she's not a fan of wet food, either. The rep said the wet does work better in cats, but whenever we've gotten her a dish of wet food for Christmas or something she just ignores it and goes and looks for her crunchies.

[loonylupinlover]

Ah, I wouldn't feed raw myself for a couple reasons:

1. Highly lazy
2. SO. MANY. PARASITES. sososososo many out there. And most of them both me and kitty can get. Salmonella too... it's one reason why I only cook meat once a week, I hate taking all the safety precautions and cleaning the kitchen. See reason no. 1. Reason no. 1 makes me not do a lot of things, actually.
3. Not enough fridge space for my own food (mini-fridge) let alone the beast's.

[loonylupinlover]

I can't buy bulk of anything. I can't even fit a 24-oz package of orange chicken in my freezer, my freezer's the size of a textbook. It's impossible for me to buy bulk for myself, let alone for my animals. I am constantly having to be careful of what and how much I buy because I can't fit everything in there that I would like to have on hand. It's just not possible

[pyraterose]

I have a question for you about my kitty =^_^=

She has had a full bowl of food for about a week or so now and it doesn't look like she's touched it once. I'm kind of getting worried about her because she's usually such a pig. I haven't switched brands lately at all and she doesn't seem like she's sick or anything, she's still as active and evil as usual. Any clue what could be wrong?

[loonylupinlover]

Anytime a cat doesn't eat for more than a day or so, we get very worried. Usually though they do have a decrease in activity when that happens, but still -- honestly, I would take her to the vet for an exam. Very little that's benign causes a cat to stop eating, but there are a lot of things that are Bad or Very Bad that do cause them to stop eating. If you don't think she's eaten for a WEEK, yeah, I would definitely get her to the vet ASAP!

[pyraterose]

I just saw her munching a few minutes ago and heaved a sigh of relief. Is it possible that she's been upset because of the boyfriend being over all the time all of a sudden? She seems to like him, but I think she may be jealous.

[loonylupinlover]

That's good! Yes, they can definitely get jealous or stressed out when a new person is over a lot, depending on the cat. Some cats are like 'whatevs,' others pee wherever the new person was! Sounds like your kitty might be in-between. I'd get a measuring cup and measure how much you're giving her so you can make sure that she's eating it, but yes, being jealous/afraid/angered by a new person isn't terribly uncommon with kitties, especially at first.

[zipis1]

7/8 of a cup! Jeebus! Is that twice a day or overall? Overall makes it a little less D:, though still seems awfuly excessive. I think at work we usually have them eat like...1/4c BID to 2/3 BID of their diet food (Hills W/D or ...crap. I forgot the name of the really diety food. Eukanuba Restricted Calorie! That's the one).

I need to make one of mine lose weight, but I need a battle plan. He's one of four, and will either flat out refuse to eat when seperated from the others, and/or make mornings/feeding times a living hell with waking up even earlier than I already do and screeching the whole time while trying to trip me (meal feeding is hard when you have four of the furballs). He lost a little weight when we switched to W/D, but then plateaud and refuses to go lower *sigh*

[zipis1]

Oh and the roundowrm piCture above? I'm having a love/hate relationship with. On one hand, yay! Awesome picture of something gross! On the other, THERE IS A WORM IN AN EYE! D: I've always had issues with eyes XD

[loonylupinlover]

No, that's per day. It's been a while since I sent someone home with a weight loss diet so I couldn't remember if that was usual or not. I know at work we fed 1/2 cup BID of house food to boarders unless the cats had special instructions on feeding given by the owner, so that didn't seem so bad.

Do the other cats not eat all their food at once and that's why he needs to be separated from them? Once we went to giving everyone little dishes of food they usually got pretty good about eating it right then to avoid it being stolen by the fatty cat.

[zipis1]

Nope. None of them eat it all at once (except him). They'll only nibble it throughout the day. And the fat one's aggressive, so he'll barrel them over and then eat their food too, even if he's got some in his bowl still. The ball thing someone linked up there looked cool, but then I figured my dog would just eat it. Blegh. i'll probably have to meal feed, I'm just not sure how yet!

[drkra37]

I cannot tell you how much this entry has offended me.

You have hung out and talked to me, and especially Ben, for HOW long now? And balls is only NOW becoming a frequent curse?

You disgust me :(