Cute kitties :) Little plump, but very cute :)
Have you tried getting them to play more often, to exercise? Once mine grew up, I need to encourage them to move around...

Most of my cats (I have 10) are on the chunkier side...Not enough for me to put them all on a diet, but some do have "substance" to them :)

Good luck :)
Olya

Adorable!

I'm sympathetic about the feline dieting. 2 of mine are overweight (The Big Petunia is now up to 21 pounds!) and it seems like we are constantly trying to slim them down. It's not easy and you do have to put up with pitiful crying and begging. We slip a little extra food to the one skinny cat if he asks for it, but for the other cats it's monitored amounts and no snacking. We don't feed any wet food at all.

Good luck!

At one time I had a 22 pound cat. He would eat everything in sight. We tried the different 'diets' the vet recommended but nothing worked. That was many moons ago and he is long gone. Like Solstice, I now only feed my kitties dry food. (Purina Urinary Tract) and they stay trim, happy and have much less furr ball probs then whan it was a 1/2 and 1/2 wet and dry food. Smudge, my smaller cat, used to gobble up all the dry food at once, burp it up and ask for more. She was abandoned as a baby and I think this was just insurance to her. Over time she doesn't scarf anymore, and she will never leave their bowl empty. She begins to ask for more when it's near empty. Tootie the big girl could care less.

Your cats are adoreable, too. Real lap cuddlers! The nose and face on the last photo of kitty is enough to make me want to grab her up and hug her/him.

I probably wouldn't be so insistent that Koneko loose some weight if it weren't for the fact that she can no longer reach her bottom to clean it. Instead she has taken to dragging her rear across my floor! I try to clean her up with baby wipes but her response to that is to try to claw me. Sometimes she succeeds, too!

I only give each cat a small spoonful of wet food in the morning on top of their dry food. If I took their wet food away from them now they'd probably go into shock! lol One can of wet food can last over a week. The only snacks they get are the occasional tarter control or hairball remedy treat.

Olya, both Khyssa and Koneko are spoiled rotten when it comes to cat toys. They have wands with toys on the end, strings, balls of all kinds, a battery operated wand holder that spins and jerks a toy around for a cat to chase, and a laser pointer. They run around and wrestle a lot. Occasionaly my soon to be three year old nephew comes over and chases the 2 of them around the house. Both of them adore my nephew and run over to greet him as soon as they see him.

Both my babies can be real cuddlers but only when they want to be. If they aren't in the mood to cuddle they stiff arm me and wiggle until I let them go. Khyssa, the one in the last photo, loves to sprawl across my stomach purring up a storm when I go to bed or lay on the couch. She also hates to let me out of her sight, following me from room to room or around the garden when I'm home.

I hope I'm not butting in here. I've been a vet tech/ER vet tech for many years.

Commercial cat foods are causing the vast majority of health issues in cats.

Cats are obligate carnivores. They are desert creatures, evolved to get moisture from their food -raw prey- small animals. They never evolved(changed in any physical way) to eat cooked, grain-based dry diets.

Pet food companies spend millions to flavor inferior foods that get cats addicted to a certain brand. Then they make billions in profits, because the cats won't eat other foods. The spray-on flavors cause a burst of flavor in every bite, so cats refuse other foods because they seem bland to them.

A "normal" cat will eat/try/taste nearly any food. What they need is **raw** foods. But few people will feed rats/mice/birds/lizards/insects. So, we are brainwashed into feeding cooked beef, lamb, fish/shellfish(have you ever seen a cat in the ocean catching shrimp??), chicken, turkey.

Cats that eat diets with grains, will be hungry all the time. They will get fat easily, develop diabetes, hyperthyroidism, bladder infections/blockages, cancer and kidney disease from the crappy diets that are promoted as being healthy. **Never*** feed Science Diet products- reading the list of ingredients should repel you!!

Diet foods are useless. They are full of fillers and cellulose (sawdust) which are totally wrong for carnivores. You get a hungry cat that produces huge poops.

Fat cats need high protein,low carbs, exercise and raw chicken necks/backs to keep them busy and satisfied. If you can do it, lock your kitty in the bathroom with a mouse. Great fun for the cat, a perfect meal, and hours of exercise.

A healthy cat should look sleek, muscular, shiny, with none of the fat bags that hang under the typical kibble fed cat.

If you must feed commercial, go with canned food. Wellness is a good brand that is made from quality ingredients. But, it is cooked. Cats have not evolved to cook their foods, it is us that force them to eat the wrong things.

Do you know that the only creature on earth that cooks is mankind? And we are unhealthy! We should eat fruits/veggies-raw.

Cats have a lousy thirst trigger. They don't drink enough to offset the dry foods, thus the high incidence of kidney disease. Dry foods do not clean teeth at all. That is a myth. We do dentals on kibble-fed cats every day, and they have horribly diseased mouths.

Please look at your cats as the smaller versions of Lions.

Try offering a hunk of raw meat as a treat, and see how they respond. Most cats will accept raw chicken or beef as treats, and it really helps the hunger pains! Cats can live 20 years or more. Kidney disease and cancer are the top killers. Both are definately diet related. Cancers feed off sugars, from carbs. The cancer diet from Hills (Science Diet) is all protein and fats. The fact that they have a diet designed to help pets, that have cancer, caused by their other foods, really ticks me off. Either way, they profit.

Lisa

P.S. I've fed my dogs raw for the past 14 years. My breed median age is 6 (giant breed, lots of genetic problems). Mine routinely live 12 years. They have perfect teeth, never needing dentals, from the raw diet. They are active, muscular, sound and cognitive until very old.

My cat drinks water all the time. He even likes to drink *my* water. I think he prefers the ice cubes.

I do feed Science Diet though. I have thoughta bout the raw food thing but haven't gotten the nerve to try it. Both of mine are 12lbs-ish, but they are completely different body types. One is long and lean and tall, the other a rolly polly bunny.

Hi Kara-I feel you pain in dieting kitties! When my kittie, Tuffie, developed a tumor on his leg and had to have it amputated I had to get some weight off him to reduce the stress on his remaining legs. It was only 1 or 2 pounds but it was still hard. Currently we are dieting the house cat at the Vet Clinic I work at [he got up to 18 pounds!] and he is constantly meowing and begging anyone [even our clients!] to feed him!

But stand firm as overweight kitties are at a much higher risk of developing all kinds of bad issues from diabetes to high blood pressure! Did your vet do any blood work? Sometimes underlying conditions can lead to weight gain.

I know gcmastifs will "flame" me for this but I have fed Science Diet to all my pets, dogs and cats, for many years and like their foods. My oldest baby is a basset/lab mix that is 14 years old and has eaten Hill's R/D diet for many years. I started when he was overweight and when he reached his goal weight I just upped the amount he was fed to maintain him. When Tuffie had his leg amputated at the University of Florida they recommended Hill's Adult Lite to help him lose weight. I haven't had any major medical problems with any of my pets [other than Tuffie's tumor] and have never had to do a dental on one of my pets either. The closest I have ever come to feeding a raw diet was when we brought home some minnows from fishing and I put them in the water bowl to amuse the cats! They played for hours around the water bowl until I felt sorry for the minnows and released them in the pond!

Good Luck with your challenge, and know that by being firm with your babies now will get you more years of healthy life for them!

nova

I promise I'll never again write about something I feel so strongly about, late at night. Boy, did I sound grumpy! Sorry!!!!!

Mistiaggie, please let your vet know that your cat is drinking a lot. That should be a "Red Flag."

Nova, I won't flame you. It appears you animals are in the lucky 10% that have healthy teeth. Congratulations.

If folks don't want to feed raw, at least please consider feeding a good quality canned food.

Hmm, I think I'll go feed the neighbor's horse some steak. That makes as much sense as feeding grains to cats does(G).

I'll shut up now. Please forgive me for trying to get accross the point that cats are true carnivores. Feeding them grain-based foods makes them really hungry!

Lisa

Lisa - I realize you are passionate about your raw or B.A.R.F. diet[we have tangled over the subject before] but you, like myself [RVT with over 25 years in the veterinary field] are trained professionals aware of the pitfalls of the diets and how to avoid them. The average pet owner will only get as far as raw chicken before feeding their pets raw chicken legs and thighs, resulting in a lacerated esophagus, instead of the backs and necks the diet calls for. I have also been faced with the happy healthy lab, fed a raw diet, presented for euthanasia after being found to be the source of a Salmonella outbreak in it's family. Or how about the cat that was presented in complete renal failure after being fed nothing but raw beef for years? The excessive protein in the cats diet had destroyed his kidneys!

Yes, cats are true carnivores, but left to their own devises they capture and eat animals that subsist on mostly plant materials or insects [mice, birds, rabbits, and squirrels]thereby benefiting from the nutrients their prey has consumed.

Obesity and poor dental health are the two biggest killers of companion animals. However, I have found that when dealing with these subjects, a moderate rather than a militant approach leads to a higher compliance rate. Which in turn, is better for the animals who are the ones we are really working for anyway.

nova

Well, he has always drank "a lot", and we've had him 5 years now. I suppose he just likes water!

I do understand what you are saying as I have read it before. And my one cat does have some icky teeth.

Anyway, not sure what else to say other than I hear it, just haven't gotten around to it.

All three of my cats drink plenty of water but I don't believe it to be excessive amounts. Before I started the two youngest cats on this diet I was feeding them a mixture of dry meow mix and wet nine lives, usually the varieties with either chunks of beef or chicken in them and if I can find it the kind with liver in it. I usually avoid the seafood wet food since I read that a diet consisting of a lot of seafood can cause a cat problems.

I'm going to keep the cats on the diet that they are currently on for now but once they've gotten down to a good weight I'm willing to switch to a different type of food.

Lisa and Nova, I don't think I would be able to keep them on a properly balanced raw food diet but I would be willing to switch them to most if not all wet food. Do you know of a brand that has a better balance of ingredients in their cat food? I really dislike handling raw meat, even when I'm preparing to cook it for my own dinner. My family thinks it's hilarious when I have to handle whole raw turkey and chickens. Apparently I make the funniest faces! lol

As far as letting them chase around, kill, and eat live mice. That's not going to happen at my house. Khyssa won't chase after anything that could possible turn around and attack her. She is a true scardy cat! Koneko would happily chase a mouse all over the place and would even kill it but she doesn't eat what she kills. As shown by the dead bugs, lizards, frogs, and even a snake once that I've found laying abandoned on my living room rug. She catches all of them in the garage after they've foolishly wandered in through the gaps around the door and then she drags the critters into the house to play with until she looses interest.

I've never had any trouble switching foods with my cats, they'll eat any type of food cat food. I've had to get Khyssa's teeth cleaned once but Rascal's teeth have never needed cleaning and she's nearly eighteen years old. Rascal's past health problems came from either run in with a venomous snake or a bad fall (we never did figure out which) and the occasional rodent ulcer around her mouth.