After checking in at a hefty 9.6 kg, 11-year-old Charlie has lost 2.4 kg and is back leaping to high perches in his Cats Protection League pen.
There’s no room for fat cats round here. After four months of dieting, rescue cat Charlie has dropped 25 per cent of his body weight.
The 11-year-old “gentleman” came back to the Cats Protection League in May weighing in at 9.6 kg when his elderly owner could no longer care for him.
Cattery manager Joyce Latham has been in charge of Kitty Weight Watchers, and proudly shows off the slimmer Charlie who dipped under 7.2 kg at weigh in last week.
With a goal weight of under 7 kg, Charlie is well on his way back to a fighting weight, and is now ready to look for a new home.
His new owners will need to commit to keeping him on track with his diet, Latham said.
Charlie’s special diet relies on a vet-prescribed feed that gives lots of bulk to make him feel full, but fewer calories. Once he gets back to a good weight, with the vet’s blessing, Charlie will be able to go back to normal food, Latham said.
At his heaviest Charlie couldn’t reach around to groom himself, but the dedicated Latham spent a week washing him with a warm flannel to remind him and now the trim tom can reach around to do it himself.
Since returning to the cattery in May, Charlie has fortnightly been put into a carry cage for weighing. Latham said she has “never had a scratch or a bad word from him”.
“I thought of him like Jonah Lomu,” Latham said, of the big black and white cat who used to charge at her in a straight line. Even taking him to the vet created difficulties. The tom developed a urinary tract infection, and had to be taken to the vet shortly after arriving at the cattery. The nearly 10kg cat in a carry cage was almost too much for Latham to carry.
His weight also initially determined where in the cattery he would live, as the pens with high beds were out of the question. “At first there was no way he could get up,” Latham said, so he was resigned to sleeping on a bed on the floor.
Now Charlie has the premium pen with room to run and jump, toys suspended from string to keep him entertained, and beds at two different heights. During the day he naps close to the ground where he can keep watch on the neighbour’s chickens that wander through the cattery grounds, but at night Charlie leaps to the top bunk to catch up on his beauty sleep.
For now, the pen will keep him busy while he waits for a new owner ready to give him a home to see how his elderly years, this time maintaining his new slim figure.
See cats available for adoption from the Cats Protection League website.
_Sarah-Jane O’Connor
