#our cats get fed wet food morning and evening and then are free fed kibble throughout the dat. they are chonky. they are fine.

[hoppinkiss]

"the cat's puking because you waited 5 minutes to put out more kibble even though it's not their main food source!"

*inspects the cat puke*

mom, the cat is puking because she eats plastic.

[elderdoggo]

Usually my cat posts include Luna in them somewhere but today I wanted to talk about something a little different so Gideon is here. It might be hard to tell but Gideon is not at an ideal body condition for his size he's put on some extra weight(I've found out what was likely causing this and it should be solved and he'll go through the process of slowly losing that extra weight) Gideon is a relatively young cat he still plays with vigor when the mood strikes him and he has no issues with his mobility, but like many cats he will also eat well past being simply full if given the opportunity which is part of why neither he nor any of our animals are just given a bowl full of food. Luna might know to stop when she's full but we aren't banking on it. Another reason none of them get free fed is it helps us gauge how much they are eating we give them a measured amount of food to meet their needs and if they start eating less we know that there may be an issue we need to take into account (except in the summer months when Gideon doesn't have as much of an appetite due to the heat) and because both cats get at least one meal of wet food we can't just leave it out to eat at their leisure for their health. So make sure everyone in your household knows exactly how much to feed the animals just in case, a couple months of late rising led to someone else feeding the cats breakfast and while Peanuts was an easy quarter can Gideon got kibble up to a specific line on a scoop and he was getting easily double to quadruple the amount of kibble he should've been getting every single morning, and kibble in and of itself can at times be hard to keep a cats weight down when they eat it, for Gideon the benefits of his food puzzle far outweigh the downsides kibble can occasionally have especially since it is supplemented with wet food in the evening and he is one of those very odd cats who actually drinks water semi regularly. All this to say, keep an eye on your pets body condition, know what it should look like for their body type and if something's up problem shoot early it's far easier on you and your pets to reverse an issue early, Gideon is not on a diet he's being fed what he should be for his ideal body condition and we encourage him to play a bit more, he will still be getting treats for good behaviour and such it will just take time, pets loosing weight can be hard and take a long time Peanut used to be free fed when she was young until she started putting on to much weight on her tiny frame even with her high energy output so we swapped to measured meals it took nearly a year and a half for her to shed that extra weight. For cats it's a real concern it can mess up their joints which can cause pain getting in and out of the litterbox leading to them not using the litterbox at all and if they put on to much extra weight they can struggle to groom themselves leading to matting that you will have to brush out. All this to say we are responsible for our pets health and one of the easiest things we as owners can do is make sure to feed them the correct amount for their weight to keep them in good body condition especially with our smaller critters a couple of pounds on them can be the equivalent to tens of pounds on us so they have far less wiggle room.