ViL: The cats are fighting
Me: They're probably hungry
ViL: Have you fed them again?
Me: Not since this morning.
ViL: Do you think that's enough?
Me: Probably not, but they're supposed to be on a diet.
Well, we've tried to have our cats on a kitty diet, but I don't think it's working out too well. They look hungry, they look sad, and they are begging for snacks. And we are very weak.
We bought two big bags of "light" or "senior" cat food as the first step in our kitty diet. The first bag we served up was French and appeared to have a high proportion of hay. During the Bible reading of the carol service we attended on Sunday we heard "and the lion shall eat straw like the oxen". I thought of our poor little lions at home eating French hay.
Trouble was, the kitty cats actually liked the French hay and I think they worked on us separately to get us to refill their bowl more frequently. "Miaow, miaow feed me," they said. And we would. Or we'd say "Aww, it's Christmas - let's give them a little more." We were not very consistent. We were bad pet owners.
But they've eaten all the French hay now and they're on to English diet cat food. I thought that England was a nation of animal lovers, but I guess the traditionally shoddy approach to English food has overridden that natural love and the poor kitties don't find their new food quite so tasty. In fact, they've eaten a lot less of the English food and begged for more human treats since we opened the new bag. This isn't the end of the world - because the really fat cat, the one who actually needs to lose weight - isn't allowed to eat human food because she has a whole series of weird food allergies that cause her to itch and scratch until she literally bleeds. So even though I do love to see cats dance on their hind legs for treats - it's not really worth having a disgusting scabby cat as the price.
3 comments:
I was wondering the other day how that was going! It must be so much easier to manage the diet thing when you only have one cat or dog. The one time I tried to put one of mine on a diet, everyone else starved in protest because they hated the food. My sympathies for your little black not-needing-the-diet one.
I'm guilty, too. Last night I told The Hater we should probably give Zoloft her Friday treats early, since we won't be in town, since it's Christmas, since she's precious, etc...
We have three cats. One is reasonably chunky, but I wouldn't call him fat. Really. Ok, maybe.
What we ended up doing is cut out wet food entirely, buy a dry food they like, and feed them strict portions of it. 1/3 cup in a bowl for each, twice a day.
(We used to just always fill their bowls when empty). This started with some argument but they settled in quickly and fatso hasn't gotten any fatter, for sure, although I don't know if he has lost any either.
Still, they are cats. As long as they can still play and get around and do their cat thing, I figure let them enjoy their food, as long as you do moderate it.
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