Pam and Corey  on February 27th, 2009

My older cat will play if cat nip is involved. Its worth a try. Another consideration is giving him a younger playmate.

Isaac W  on February 28th, 2009

we use a laser pointer. some cats go nuts over them, chasing them everywhere. others, are onto it. the first time we turned it on, both cats chased it as if their lives depended on it.. they were even panting.

porcelina_68  on March 3rd, 2009

Don’t worry if he doesn’t seem to eat the food at first. He will when he is hungry enough and you don’t offer him anything else.

As far as playing goes, I’ve never seen a cat able to resist a simple little toy called a Cat Dancer. You can pick one up at a pet store for less than $3.

Odin G  on March 4th, 2009

Buy a lap dog that hates felines. That’d get me moving….

barking_snail  on March 6th, 2009

I’ve had this problem too. it breaks your heart when you switch food and then they get all weird and refuse to eat it. This will not last. he’ll eat when he gets hungry. You could put a little new food with the old and gradually decrease the old and increase the new food to get him used to it.

As far as exercise goes he’ll be more active and apt to play with you once he’s been on a diet for a few days and he has more energy. Before long, he’ll being bouncing all over the house like a kitten. When this happens he’ll play with anything. My cats love a simple ball of crunched up paper.

It’s very good that you are putting him on a diet.

Chalice  on March 9th, 2009

What food have you switched to? Cats often turn up their noses at a new diet, they’re fussy creatures. You might need to wean him on to it – mix just a small amount of the new food with the old (like a 1:10 ratio) and GRADUALLY increase the amount over a period of at least 5 days. There are many different diet foods, so if he really is that stubborn you could try this method with other kinds.

If the cat is so overweight he needs to lose 5lb I’m not surprised he’s not keen on exercise – neither would I be if I had lots of extra weight to lug around!

It’s perfectly possible for a lazy cat to lose weight. You just have to find the right balance of food/activity level. If his activity level is almost zero, then he only gets the basic food allowance. I suggest a diet food like Hills r/d or Royal Canin’s Obesity Diet – what you do is, feed him the correct daily amount for the weight you want the cat to be, not the weight he is. Your vet should have advised you on his ideal weight, but 7.7-8.8lb is average cat weight.

You could try a laser pen, these are fairly irresistable to cats. I also had one client who used to throw her cat’s food around the room and hide it on the counter to force him to move if he wanted to eat! You’ll find he’ll become more active the more weight he loses.

Chalice

Ken  on March 11th, 2009

Hi
If you want your cat to lose weight the best thing you can do is feed a proper diet which doesn’t happen to be the food the vet sold you. Dry food for cats is like feeding potato chips and cutting them down won’t help much. Pllease consider feeding canned foods that don’t contain gravy.

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.

Foresta  on March 13th, 2009

To get my obese and lazy persian cat to exercise I used to put a cardboard box over him and then shake a bag of cat treats like “Whisker Lickins” or something and then run around my house. Might not be a good idea if you have stairs… afterwards, reward him with a couple treats. I’m sure you can think of some more creative ideas as well!

Kerry  on March 14th, 2009

Hi,the laser chasers are good I got one for my kitten a few weeks ago from”pets at home “. I feed my kitten with ” Hills Science Plan” it was recommended by my vet,they do different ranges of meals for different ailments and they do one for overweight cats. You can by this over the counter from any vets.

RuneAmok  on March 17th, 2009

You’re going to have to make him if he won’t do it himself. For starters, just get him to move for 30 seconds twice per day. You can build on that. As for what to do, you need to find a toy that he loves above all others and play with him. Or make up a new game. For instance, Poppy is obsessed with string. I use a cat teaser and make her chase it around the house and make her jump for it. Or Sophie loves her laser pointer and will chase that around.

If nothing else, find some nice smelly food or a treat that you know he loves and make him chase that around – let him know you have it and make him come to you for it, and/or make him jump up on something to get it.

It may be best to do this prior to feeding, so he won’t feel weighted down with food. Plus it mimics what they would do in the wild before eating – namely chasing down the prey!

Now as for the food, toss the diet crap. It’s probably inferior food anyway and many cats don’t like it.