More about fat cats

BY NICK BARNETT

"Repugnant". "People like you shouldn't own pets." "Stuff, this should be removed." "You must never, ever have children." Some people got very tense over my post about my chubby cat.

I must be constituted differently from those people, because honestly I don't take it all so seriously. I wrote about a mildly overweight cat, with obvious exaggeration, and ran some file photos of obese cats to show a distinction between my chubby cat on one hand, and unhealthily huge cats on the other.

I didn't expect an onslaught from gimlet-eyed obesity wardens riding their rake-thin high horses, but I chalk that up to experience.

But okay, let's stop smiling, pull up our socks and touch all the required bases.

One, I did not advocate overfeeding. I did talk about some of the obstacles to controlling the weight of a pet. My cat sometimes gets overfed unintentionally, and seems to have that faulty "remember switch" that one commenter mentioned.

Two, I didn't imply that grossly obese cats are cute. I thought I was making the opposite point, actually, distinguishing them from benignly well-padded cats. I'd find it hard to keep smiling if I saw a 20kg cat.

Three, I don't believe that obesity in cats is no concern, or a laughing matter.  But I plead guilty to being insufficiently grim about the subject. Please take it up with my Japanese lawyer, Yawanasumi Sosumi.

My cat Merrick is big, and I joked about his bigness. He was big in SPCA care, he was big after his diet, he's big now. But he's half the size of the cats in the photos.

The reality is, he goes to the vet at least once a year, and no vet has ever shown any concern for his condition. He's in great health, catches mice, can tightrope-walk along our deck handrail, and can scale our stairs in a fraction of a second.

If he couldn't do these things at his age (about nine years old), then I'd be taking his size more seriously.

[Update: I've just weighed Merrick, and I was waaay out. He's not 10kg at all, but 7.3kg - though when he jumps on your lap he feels much more. I wish I'd weighed rather than guessed, as it might have saved some of the conniptions my blog post caused!]

As for being a heinous failure at owning a pet, I say in my defence that I also own a dachshund with a figure so spectacularly slim that breeders and dachshund fanciers stop us in the street to exclaim over her enviable "top line" and condition.

In the case of dachshunds, it's especially important to prevent obesity because it can literally paralyse them, so my partner and I attend to her nutrition and exercise with great care and almost obsessive communication.

So I'm not a slob when it comes to pet care. I just love my big, laid-back, luxuriously upholstered cat. I've got my eye on him, but I don't think he's in danger. Some of you think he is. Please be reassured that he's being taken good care of.

I'm evidently not the only unashamed owner of a big and well-loved cat. Lots of people have been sending their big-cat photos to Stuff for us to publish on this blog. So here are some of them below.

Tomorrow, on to other things.

Warning: if the sight of chubby, even obese, cats might offend thee, stop scrolling here.

Another warning: Publication of these photos is meant neither to endorse nor to mock any pet, pet owner, petfood or feeding practice, living or dead. It's just a bit of fun.

Cam's owner says he's 6.8kg, extremely cuddly, like a little kid, needs affection all the time, and never got angry.

This is Chicken. His owner says he was a normal size until he disappeared for three days and returned with half his tail gone and some random injuries. He was hesitant about going outside, and the weight piled on. "We know we should put him on a diet, but he is one of five cats in the household (all the others are normal weight) so we'd basically have to isolate him to diet him...we love him though."

 

Griffy fills a chair.

Louie at rest.

Apache Yuma spills out of a basket.

Buffy reclines. Someone once wrote that cats "sleep fat but walk thin". A cat's build will often look quite different when it's moving.

Ginger weighs 17kg. That really looks way too much.

Muffin later developed a hyperthyroid condition. Again, gorgeous but it'd scare me.

This tabby is a lot like Merrick, though a bit wider.