2004:

This is how my Shadow got fat.  He would eat the others share, plus his
own. As a result, other cat stayed slim, he got fat.  I've had to devise a
plan to only leave enough (dry) food out for him that won't cause him to
eat more than his share, and then one jumps on the counter if he wants dry
food, and the third only eats dry when I'm around to pick up the bowl. She
won't eat it all in one sitting and she hasn't learned to jump UP yet to
find food. Shadow is just too fat to jump on counters these days.  He only
gets a strict 1/4 cup of dry per day (wellness lite, ~90 Kcals) and I'm
still trying to cut that down. The majority of his Kcals come from canned
(~180 Kcals). If he doesn't get at least a little to crunch, he is really
bitchy. 20 lbs; obese.

I think someone had posted before that a relatively sedentary adult cat
should receive 18.9 k/cal. per lb.of cat. Using that computation my 8lb.
Tigger should be getting around 3/8 cup (approx. 150 k/cal.) of the food
she's on. That's what we're feeding her now that she peeled off the extra 5
lbs. and she is maintaining on that amount. She won't exercise (probably
because of her arthritis) so we have to control her weight through diet
alone.

In article <1qe0109h1a25l8dhlhklqoftq8jij3abqd@4ax.com>,
Mitch@hotmail.com enlightened us with...

Well, that certainly seems like a lot of food (my dog only eats 2 cups
of dry plus 4 ounces of wet daily and she's 60 pounds), but since I
don't know what brand, kcal, etc (and don't know too much about
calculating if I did), I'd have to go with the old standby - if she's
gaining weight, cut down on her food by an ounce a week. If she loses
weight, stay there. If not, cut another ounce until she starts losing
and stay there while she loses. When she hits the target weight,
increase food by an ounce a week until she gains a little, then cut back
by that ounce and stay there.

I have found that it is much easier to control the feline diet when
there is only one feline in the house.  :)
I have 2 healthy-weight females and a fat boy. hehe

My 3 cats together go through a little under a cup of dry every day
combined with their wet food. The girls are 8-9 pounds each and my
overweight male is 12 pounds (he should be ~10 pounds, as he is a
slender tabby-type DSH and not overly long or tall).
My Mom's cat, who is a healthy-weight, large, 13 pound male, eats half a
cup of dry daily plus 4 ounces of wet. He's not fat; he's solid and
somewhat large (tall and long Maine-Coon-body-type DMH moggie).

So, a lot of this also depends on how big your girl is and what her body
type is. Maine Coons weight a lot more than Siamese. My 12 pound boy is
fat - my Mom's 13 pound boy is not.

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~kaeli~
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'idiot'.
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Atkins for cats now, too?  :)

I'll try the laser pointer.