GoKawiilMy cat Pablo is a voluptuous boy. His primordial pouch, originally thought to protect cats’ squishy insides, hangs low and wobbles to and fro. Once, when he was five or six, a vet sternly sat my spouse and me down, gravely stating, “He’s simply too young to be this fat.”
Pablo didn’t care, but we were traumatized. Now that he’s 10, the vets have repeatedly scolded us. All 20 pounds of his rotundity, they say, cannot continue. The specter of diabetes and kidney problems, and the fact that his obesity combined with a too-small pee-pee hole increases his risk of urinary crystals, mean that a diet is urgent.
I hear this every year. I keep saying “We are trying!!” The vets say, “Try harder! There are plenty of gadgets and toys you can use to stimulate enrichment, manage food, and encourage exercise!” What I don’t think the vets understand is that the state of pet tech is simply no match for Pablo.
As with humans, the key to weight loss in cats is a strict calorie deficit and increased activity. The problem is diets can be notoriously difficult for felines. Their small bodies don’t require that much food, spaying or neutering alters cat metabolisms, and they are famously finicky creatures. They’re also reliant on routines and, in Pablo’s case, can be heavily resistant to change.
His Royal Rotundity really is a sweet boy when I’m not making him pose for photos.
Pablo’s war on pet tech and diets all started with a Litter-Robot 4. We initially got it because Pablo’s poops were olfactory crimes. Manually scooping them was causing marital strife. (“He’s YOUR cat,” is what I’d say early on in our relationship. “He’s OUR cat,” my spouse retorted once we got married.)
Meanwhile, lifting Pablo onto one of our scales to monitor his weight would earn many yowls and skippity paps to the face. The Litter-Robot seemed like a clever solution because (1) automated scooping and (2) there’s a built-in scale. Whenever he does his business, I can log into the companion app to see how much he weighs (as well as monitor his bowel movements).
For a time, Pablo allowed us our folly. He was not a fan of the Litter-Robot. He eyed the spinning, globe-shaped bonnet with suspicion, but as a sophisticated, fancy boy, he wasn’t prone to pooping just anywhere. But then we moved to a four-story row home. My spouse and I viewed the three flights of stairs as a good chance for us, Pablo, and our other cat, Petey, to get in more steps. Three of us agreed. You can guess which one of us did not.
For logistical and cleaning purposes, we were not schlepping the Litter-Robot 4 up beyond the second floor. The thing weighs 24 pounds empty, and the thought of repeatedly carrying that up and down three flights of stairs to hose it down was too much. (It’s already bad enough that any litter box on an upper floor requires regularly carrying 15- to 30-pound bags of fresh litter up and down multiple flights.) In our previous apartments, we’d always put the Litter Robot, automated feeders, and pet fountains near the kitchen. But cats are territorial creatures. Before moving, Pablo and Petey shared spaces and litter boxes begrudgingly. With more space, they each established their own kingdoms. Pablo claimed the top floor — the bedroom. Petey claimed the second, where the Litter-Robot and the comfy couch reside. With the resulting borders settled into law, Pablo promptly stopped using the Litter-Robot. He also refuses to venture downstairs, except at 10PM each night to yell and enforce bedtime. We tried to encourage him to use the expensive poop robot anyway.
In protest, he began shitting on the carpet right outside my third-floor office door. The turd war continued for three weeks before we caved.
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