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I am never quite sure when it comes to anything, myself any more than animals. I do try to find the best information. It is out there, sitting in piles of incomplete, obsolete, and incorrect information. I am not sure the internet is any more helpful than common sense, and it can be less helpful even harmful. Adding to that, how would you ever know? You can't go back in time and do it over, another cat or human is different. Perhaps what seemed to help really didn't and it would have been better to have done nothing, the exact opposite, or something else.
In any case, my deal is with Sassy, and to a degree Sam. Sassy isn't stroke ready fat, but she has a few extra ounces, to be sure. Further, with food on tap, and often the ability to whine me into feeding her a can of wet stuff (or cause that just by being cute), she has little incentive to go and hunt, be more active, and such. She has become my little commucat. To create change, I am not feeding her the wet stuff nearly as often. And I don't tolerate bad behavior for it, out the door she will go if she acts like a spoiled rugrat. A can a day, and two half cans (I feed the other half to Sam). I am keeping the dry food readily available, but she doesn't overeat that. To my chagrin, she is merely being less active, rather than going outside. Maybe she is still too young to be tinkering with her food like this? She is a little over a year old.
Sam, on the other hand, is skinny as can be. I have offered her as much food as I can. She loves both the dry and wet cat food, the wet preferred, and eats heartily. No matter how much I offer, and how much she seems to eat, she just goes out and burns it off. She is my capitacat. She uses everything she gets to gain more while keeping trim and slim. I would like to get a bit more weight on her. But barring putting her in a cage and feeding her up, probably permanently, I don't think it will work. Some sisters these two turned out to be.
Ah, but she is such a cute little beggar. If Sam wants back in, I'll feed them a half a can (then let Sam right back out so she can puke, saving it for later I guess). What was that? Oh, right. The problem with socialism is socialism. The problem with capitalism is capitalists. And, yeah, it sort of works. Even when they are cats!
Same cats with same feeding situation produces different weight cats. I can look around my house and see this. Character and personality. And genetics. They're different from each other.
ReplyDeleteBut you are right that you're creating a situation by rewarding annoying begging behavior. I reward my cats begging with attention, which they mostly appreciate and which is usually a two-way street in terms of what we each get out if it.
You could try tapering off the can food completely for a while, only saving it for special treats once in a while. I give out these special dry crunchy treats that come in a ziploc bag if I want to be generous from time to time. The only cats that get can food are those that are on meds--adding the meds to food is a great way to get meds down without a hassle. But those two cats are the loud annoying beggars of the bunch.