Day 49: Losing weight

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 49: Losing weight

Everybody knows that carrying extra weight is not good. There’s the risk of heart attack or stroke, diabetes, certain cancers, gallbladder disease, and quite a few others.

For people, there are various ways of losing weight. They can change their diet, reduce their intake of sugar and alcohol, and start exercising. But how does one manage weight loss in animals?

I have two male and two female cats, and while the males are of a perfect weight, the females are overweight. I talked to the vet about this and he said that there’s little or nothing to be done about it. Females, especially after being spayed, tend to get chubby.

This is Holly as a kitten ...

But as you can see, now she is on the chubby side. 

When I took her to the vet, he suggested feeding her by way of the catmosphere. The idea is that if the cat wants the food that is inside, she has to roll the sphere around and nibbles will fall out. Well, that didn’t work. Not only did my cats not roll the sphere around, they wouldn’t even go near it. When I showed them what to do, they took off. They were scared of the ball.

Adjusting Holly’s diet is impossible too. I can’t very well let her go hungry or present her with a salad. Cats need meat. So, in addition to canned cat food, I started buying weight management nibbles. It didn’t have any effect. Holly’s weight stayed exactly the same.

So now I’ve resorted to exercising Holly. We play with toys and whenever possible we take walks up and down the 11th-floor corridor of the condo building. It doesn’t always work though, as my neighbor has a large dog with a frightening bark. One woof out of him and Holly runs back inside.

So now we’re exercising inside. Running, jumping, and of late … sit-ups. You don’t believe a cat can do sit-ups? See for yourself …

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Cat toys ... are they worth the money

Yesterday I mentioned that Holly was at the vet with ingrowing paw nails. http://connymanero.weebly.com/blog/march-04th-2017 however, that was not the only problem. 

At 14 lbs the vet was of the opinion that Holly is overweight. I asked him what I could do about this. After all, it’s not like I can deprive her of food or feed her salads, carrot sticks and celery.

The vet had three suggestions: switch to weight management food, replace a bowl of food with a catmosphere, and increase playtime.

This advice was followed up right away. I switched Holly’s food, bought not one but catmosphere balls and ordered a toy online.

While the weight management food was a hit, the catmospheres and the toy was not. Mickey, Charlotte, Gabriel and Holly looked at the balls, didn’t know what to make of it and even seemed afraid of them. I demonstrated how to get the food out of the balls, but no, they wanted nothing to do with them.

As for the toy … I saw the 3 tier ball toy advertised on Facebook, the kittens had lots of fun with it, but my lot didn’t trust the newcomer.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BHWXHTPhmc

The pictures reflect their reaction …

Mickey ... what is this?

Gabriel ... what am I supposed to do with this?

Holly ... I'm not fat, I'm fluffy

Charlotte wouldn't even go near it.

That thing looks suspicious

Now it so happens that I received a box of chocolates tied up with a red ribbon. And this ribbon was the biggest hit ever. Mickey, Charlotte, Gabriel, and Holly took turns playing with the ribbon, picking it up in their mouth and dragging it away, or bringing it to me to play with them. They can’t get enough of it.

Conclusion … 

Catmosphere $7 (x2) … take it away

Ball toy $20 … afraid of it

Red ribbon $0 … loads of fun

The Catmosphere

Just the other day I warned that pet owners should think before they buy a cat toy. But but I don’t exactly practice what I preach. http://connymanero.weebly.com/blog/cat-toys-think-before-you-buy 

It all started with Holly licking her bum. Not once, not twice, but constantly.

When I had a look I noticed that her backside was rather dirty, and the skin around her anus red and swollen. With Dieter’s help, her bum got rinsed with clean lukewarm water. A few days later we repeated the process.

Despite our best efforts, Holly’s bum didn’t get better. She continued to lick so I decided to take her to the vet.

At the vet’s office, Holly’s backside got examined and as it turned out her anal glands were enlarged. She got treated and the doctor said that she should be better within a few days.

However, that was not the end of it. The vet said that Holly was overweight. This was not news to us, we knew Holly is on the heavy side, but we didn’t know what to do about it. She eats a normal amount of food and gets daily exercise.

The vet suggested switching her regular dry food to weight management nibbles, increase the exercise and get her a catmosphere ball. The concept behind the catmosphere ball is simple … instead of giving cats their dry food in a bowl, the catmosphere ball is filled with nibbles, cats slap the ball around and in the process it dispenses food. In other words, cats have to work for their meal.

It sounded like the perfect plan to me and I wasted no time getting Holly (and the rest of my cat family) not one but two such balls. The balls were filled with nibbles, placed on the floor and introduced to the cats.

And what do you think? If you think Mickey, Charlotte, Gabriel and Holly enthusiastically started slapping the ball around, think again. They looked at it, sniffed it and … ran away. And I do mean ‘ran’, they didn’t just walk, they backed away and took off like bats from hell.

Not wanting to give up that easily, I decided to demonstrate to the cats how to use the ball, and what their reward would be, but no, they wanted nothing to do it. I placed the two balls in two different locations, but wherever the ball was, they walked around it in a big circle. Eventually, I had no choice but to fill their regular food bowl with nibbles.

If anyone bought this ball for their cats, whether it’s a failure or a success, please share your experience with me.

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