Biggest Loser: Tucker Edition

Any of you who have been to our house know that our beloved cat Tucker is a little plump large fat obese. He's also been that way for many years. Our little friend turned 12 years old a few weeks ago. Technically we don't know his birthday since we adopted him, but we adopted him on Feb 21, 1998 and were told that he was about a year old when we brought him home. So we're estimating that he's about 12 years old.

Over the past few years we've had him on diet cat food with little to no success. We've tried canned diet food which was supposed to be more successful, but after several months of Tucker eating Owey's canned food and vice versa we gave up. Owey also has to be on a special diet food due to some issues with her bladder and I am not about to take her off of that because we spent several thousands of dollars on surgery for her about 2 years ago and have been told the problem can come back. The problem with them eating each other's food besides that it's not good for either one of them is that it also upsets their stomachs which leads to little piles of cat vomit all over the house. So I gave up the canned food and put them both on Owey's dry food for a while.

I took Tucker in for his bi-annual checkup on Friday and basically left feeling like such a bad kitty mommy. Basically we've got to get some weight off of him or he's at risk for diabetes, fatty liver, arthritis (which is already starting to show) and everything else. His vet told me that he really needs to be on the canned food so that he's getting mainly protein and no carbohydrates (atkins diet for cats?).

The good news is that they've had success with putting cats on kitten food for weight loss. So for the first time in at least 5 years, I was able to purchase non-prescription cat food for my kitty! If you knew how much money I have spent on cat food (for two cats) over the past few years, you'd be shocked. So Tucker's new diet consists of one can of Iams Kitten food in the morning and one can of Iams kitten food in the evening. That poor cat was meowing at me by 10am for his 2nd can! He was so hungry all day long. The bad news is that Owey apparently managed to get some of the food. So I once again have little piles of cat vomit all over the house. Although maybe that explains why he was so hungry. She must have eaten half of the can. And tonight, I once again fed him and I guess as soon as he walks away she sneaks over there to get her fair share. She just threw up again...in my bedroom...twice.

Owey is going for her check-up on Monday. So I guess I will switch her over to canned food once again. Then maybe she'll leave Tucker's food alone. You'd think she'd be the one with the weight problem...

As of yesterday Tucker weighed 19.7lbs. We go back in 30 days for a weight check. I'll keep you posted. This photo was taken this evening as he was finishing up his dinner. He really wasn't hissing or scowling at me. He had just licked his lips and that's the only shot I could get of his face.


My other mistake today was letting the kids stop by PetsMart to look at the dogs up for adoption. There was an Austrailian Shepherd mix that was so calm and so sweet. I started to read the sheet on the dog and it met almost all of my criteria - good with cats, good with kids, housebroken, crate trained, black and white (not really a criteria, but it would fit in with our cats!) and then I stopped myself. The major criteria is that we are not ready for a dog in this household. In fact, that is the last thing we need right now. So then Katie goes over and asks to hold a puppy. It was super sweet and only about 5 weeks old. Peeling her away from those dogs was awful. She is such an animal lover. We joke that she'll grow up to either be a veterinarian or work at the zoo. I paid the price for my mistake all the way home. She cried as though I had ripped her heart out. She was wailing for "Twinkie", the older dog that we had looked at first. But in reality she was just crying for a dog. Someday my sweet, someday.