An interesting trip to the vet...

We decided we haven't seen the vet enough lately or spent enough money on the vet. We thought it might be fun to take different animals other than Bella who goes about once a month (an improvement from 3 times a week). So I scheduled the boys' (cats) annual exam/shots. We get in there and after a 30 minute conversation about Bella, we move on to the boys.

Sidenote about Miss Thang (aka Bella): her bad tummy issues are back due to the fact that the surgery screwed up the balance/bacteria in her tummy. It has not been a pleasant few days with her in that regard. And now she is back to not eating, being lethargic...again. So we got a couple more medications for her to try to straighten her out...again.

Onto the boys...

The vet told us that our little guys are overweight. I just cracked up and could not stop laughing. Tim and I were both trying to avoid eye contact because it was just too funny. We both knew it because I gave them a bath the other day and they were definitely chunky. Anyway who has seen them would never think, wow, chunkard cats! Stop reading now and go here. This is a fairly current picture of both cats. They are not large...at all.

I have thought for a while that they eat a lot and it has become quite the pain in my ass to chase them away from their food (because we've always free fed them). But we've always free fed them because at first we pretty much had to because there was other cat food around and they were sort of sick so we wanted to make sure they ate. I've never free fed my cats before (they were always on meal plans) mostly because Berkeley my first cat lives for eating and she would be 30 pounds if we had let her eat whenever and whatever she wanted.

So I've always wanted these guys on a meal plan but they just never have been. It's been a little bit of a point of contention between Tim and I but because they are such small adult cats, I figured they were ok.

That is, until I saw them when they were wet in the bath. WOW. Buddha belly kitties.

And then the trip to the vet two days later.

We were told that the cats were obese...bordering on morbidly obese. As funny as I think this is for how small they are, I can kind of see her point as I have recognized it. And I felt slightly vindicated that Tim finally understood that we should have the cats on a meal plan.

Tyson (the gray cat) has gained a pound in a year. That is a TON in kitty pounds. He now weighs 11 pounds and should weigh about 10. Calvin (the black cat) weighs 9.5 pounds and should weigh 8 pounds. So Tyson has to lose a pound and Calvin has to lose a pound in a half. That's a lot for kitties. So they are going on a little diet consisting of twice a day feedings of only 1/2 to 1/3 cup each and they are switching to light food.

So far, so good. I actually think they seem happier and more relaxed now that the food is not always around. It's like it was a competition before. They also seem to have more energy. So, all in all, it was a great change. Not sure that I've seen a change in the weight yet, but we'll get there. It still cracks me up that we have obese kitties. I don't know why.

Also an update on Bella: I scratched all of the vet's medicines after a day (great waste of money-yes!) I wanted to see if I could make her better more naturally. So I bought a huge thing of puppy milk to give her as a supplement (it is used for baby puppies who are don't get the colostrum from their mom but can still be used for older puppies to help strengthen their immune systems) and I switched her to a 0% grain food (still) but this one is an all fish protein source. My thought was that after the surgery her body was weak so it developed a sensitivity to the protein sources in the other food (chicken). Well, guess who was right? Bella is doing great and is back to perfect after a week of this. I'm so happy. And I think I was right on the money about the other food- we ran out of the fish food and I thought I'd try the chicken food. Note to self: get rid of that food. It did not go well.

All right, enough about animals.