Monday, September 28, 2015

Our Bean is a Little Too Big.

A few months back, the folks at Royal Canin reached out to me to see if I would be interested in partnering with them and creating some content to share on my blog and their website, too.  We've been feeding our big cats and foster kittens Royal Canin for years, we're huge fans of their products  so,  I was thrilled at this notion.

They invited me and a couple of other bloggers to come visit them in St Louis and learn more about their company, their mission, pet nutrition, and their products. It was very interesting and informative and I enjoyed the whole experience.   

Today I'm sharing my first post for Royal Canin here on the blog.  It will also be shared on their website, My Pet Reference

DSC_2682

Whenever we visit the vet, I always hold my breath as I wait to see the results on the scale during Charlene Butterbean’s weigh-in. It seems each visit we see a few extra ounces on the scale. Our vet is very nice and never scolds us for the gain. She never says Charlene is overweight or chubby, instead, she’ll point at the body condition score chart on the wall which illustrates a range of cats from “underweight” to “obese”. While Charlene is not “obese”, the cat on the chart that her physique most resembles is ranked on the upper end of “overweight”.

About five years ago, Charlene was diagnosed with a condition called Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome.  It's also called "rolling skin syndrome" or "twitchy cat disease”. With this condition, whenever she feels stress, the area right above her tail ripples and twitches. Sometimes she’ll spin around and aggressively chew on the fur in that spot, then bolt as if something was chasing her.

 At first these episodes were minimal, but once our foster kitten Wylla became a permanent part of our family, they increased in frequency and intensity. Charlene loved Wylla from the start and seemed to enjoy her companionship, so we didn’t think the cat population increase was causing the stress. Besides Wylla’s presence, the other major change in Charlene’s life at that time was the way that we fed her. Prior to that, she was a very happy free-feeder and had 24/7 access to her dry food. But when Wylla moved in, she had digestive issues, a condition called Megaesophagus, and a diet of only wet food, so we started feeding Charlene “on demand”. If we didn’t respond immediately to her request for a snack, she would start getting twitchy and have one of her episodes.

As Wylla grew, her condition improved and she was eventually able to eat dry food too, so we returned to free-feeding to help reduce Charlene’s stress level. I know free-feeding isn’t the best, feeding the recommended measured amounts each day is a much healthier approach, but at that point, I felt I had to chose between having an anxious cat, or a chubby one, and after seeing how stressed Charlene was when we didn’t free-feed, I chose chubby.

And unfortunately, she got chubbier.

It seemed as though we couldn’t adjust how we fed her, but we could change what we fed her, so we switched her to Royal Canin Light 40 Formula dry food. After a month of this new diet, I noticed that Charlene’s shape had become a little less bulbous. Her activity level began increasing, and she was spending more time chasing her younger, more active sister.

Our next visit to the vet revealed that Charlene had dropped a half pound. Our vet was very happy to see this, as were we. We discussed plans to stay focused on getting Charlene to a healthier weight and have set a goal to have her lose another pound. We will continue with the Royal Canin Light 40 Formula, and work on getting her to be more active and try to incorporate more exercise into each day.

Charlene tends to be most active later in the evening, so we try to exercise her during those hours, usually around 10:00 PM, or so. She has her favorite toy, her feather wand, so we try to engage her with that first. If she grows bored, we’ll move on to another toy and try that for a while.

I try to keep her active for twenty to thirty minutes. Sometimes she’ll play the whole session, sometimes she’ll play just a little. Sometimes she watches me waving the feather wand for a half hour without lifting a paw to bat at it once, but I’m devoted to getting her healthier, so I’m going to keep trying. I want her to feel good. I want her to be her happiest. I want her to live a long life.

I know I’m not the only one with a cat in need of shedding a pound (or two), so I wanted to encourage those of you in a similar position to join us. Please have your vet assess your cat’s current body condition and weight to determine a healthy diet and weight loss plan and we can all work together to reach our goals!


To discover lots of informative articles on pet health, nutrition and care, please pay a visit to My Pet Reference.

20 comments:

  1. Bravo, and best of luck! We agree, we all want Charlene around for a long, long time so we can see lots of pictures of her and Wylla interacting with the kittens, and hear more endearing stories about her life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the description of Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome. My male Maine Coon often stops and frantically licks the base of his tail and then rushes away. I'll ask the vet about this.
    Glad to hear Miss Beanie likes the diet food and is working on her girlish figure.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We got a sample of Royal Canin Calm at the Dog-A-Thon- India has had severe kitty acne from eating salmon foods, we think it is from the oil in them. So we switched over to Calm, and it has made a big difference in her face scratching and break outs. That isn't relevant to weight loss, but we have been impressed with India's success with it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Beanie, I feel for you. Good luck with your weight loss!

    Peggy

    ReplyDelete
  5. thanks for the challenge! Miss Lily needs to drop a few pounds, i will try this food and see if it helps!

    denise

    ReplyDelete
  6. My little furry pal is a barfer, and a couple of times he has gotten into a cycle of barfing-refusing food-constipation-barfing: then off to the vet! Poor little dude.

    My terrific vet suggested the Royal Canin bland crunchies, and my Jinx loves them. I also started putting only the recommended amount in his bowl: between the restriction and the higher nutrition content, he eats less than he used to and dropped a couple of pounds, the result of which is only ONE barf in the past FOUR months! So worth it to pay extra and have Jinx be healthier.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I feed RoyalCanin kitten dry food to my foster kittens. The small bits are easy for babies to chew. Great product. Gail

    ReplyDelete
  8. The best thing we ever did for out over weight cat was get an automatic feeder. It drops just a 1/4 at a time. We have it set for the morning and the afternoon and once it is gone it is gone. It has been a huge help because WE are not associated with the restriction of food so it lessened anxiety and begging and helped the cat to regulate himself. We have one up stairs and one down for 1 cup total between two cats. It really is a huge help. They are a bit expensive but very worth it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A friend "donated" an extremely overweight cat to our home about 4 years ago. She was the most sedentary cat I have ever seen. Reducing her food to 1/4 cup a day still did not alter her weight. What did was allowing her to roam the house with the rest of the colony. She was initially in a bedroom alone because she is not very cat social. The good news is now she has lost weight and is much more active. The bad news is some of those calories go towards tormenting the other cats! Win some, lose some.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I had a pudgy butterscotch tabby that ate out of boredom. We didn't change her food, but I decreased the amount of dry food left out for her while I was at work.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I happen to think that cat silhouette chart is a bit extreme. My middlesized cats who only weigh 7 or 8 pounds look fat in silhouette because they have spay-baggy bellies. I would have to put even my 8 pound cat on a strict diet to make her look like the good-weight shape, and I don't think that's necessary, nor does my vet. I do have one who's 11 and gained half a pound in the last year so I have to watch out for her, but the others don't match the chart but are not overweight. Just my two kibbles' worth...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have been glad to see Charlene in every post and her enjoyment and interest in the Mittenfloss boys has been fabulous.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have a very pudgy kitty here at home. A friend gave me an automatic feeder, but to my dismay, I discovered it was dispensing random portions instead of what I'd programmed in. So, for now, I have to keep a close watch on my Esmerelda. I'm glad Charlene is dropping pounds! I hope she continues on that trend!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I've got the opposite problem. My Ted is borderline skinny. He eats a normal amount of food, so that's not the problem, but the vet says there's nothing wrong. He keeps saying to try to get him to eat more, which he won't. He's not a big fan of treats or canned cat food, either. It's frustrating, especially as one of the cats I had before him had ongoing problems with H. pylori and so I'm paranoid about cat weight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm certainly not a vet – but I can’t imagine a veterinarian “not being a fan” of a high quality canned cat food. Even feeding Friskies canned cat food is better for your cat than feeding an all dry-kibble diet…especially for male cats.

      Delete
    2. I think they're saying the cat is not a fan of wet food, not the vet..

      Delete
  15. With both the kitties free-feeding, does that mean that Wylla also eats the Royal Canin Light 40? My girls free-feed, too, and Harley needs to lose a few pounds, while Allie is the perfect size. I've been worried that switching them to a lighter food would cause problems for Allie....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, she does fine with it now that she is "normal". She gets wet food, too.

      Delete
  16. Good to hear Charlene getting better, It all because of your love towards Charlene.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Royal Canin provides great pet food products, I have also tried it for my pets and i can really see the difference.

    ReplyDelete

Linkwithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin