My cat doesn't put weight on.

by Steffy
(Pittsburgh, PA)

Shadow my cat

Shadow my cat

I have 2 14 month female short hairs. One is normal weight, but the other has been worrying me lately. Shadow eats, uses the restroom, and plays normally, but since the summer, she only weighs about 4 pounds. She takes vitamins and her coat is shiny and smooth. It's her weight that bothers me. On the chart at the vets, she is about a 4 out of 10 when compared to the cat diagram. She is very active, and seems to be ok. I just don't know where she puts her food. I can feel her ribs, but I can not see them. I can feel her spine when I pick her up, but I can not see it. She just seems skinny to me. She is not skin and bones like some of the emaciated cat photos that I have seen online. She does not have fleas and she does not have worms. It bugs me that she is so skinny. What could be her problem? I'm worried about her. Thank you.


Reply

Hi
Well i have the same issue myself. I have two brother cats who are two.

One is a normal cat shape and weight maybe even a little over weight s he does like his food.

However his brother has always been thin. He eats but not as much as his brother and he is very active. His weight was 4.3 last time we took him to see the vet. You can feel his backbone but not see it too.

As far as the vet is concerned he just is one of those cats who burn off their calories and are naturally thin.

I know how worrying it is, I am always trying to coax him to eat more but he just is the way he is.

If you are really concerned all you can do is ask your vet to do some blood work tests to make sure he hasn’t got some condition which keeps him thin. But as I say she is young and very active and kittens even from the same litter can have very different biological systems.
Shadow looks like a beauty from the picture very regal too.

Here are my two cats https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-photos-byron-shelley.html

Kate

Comments for My cat doesn't put weight on.

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Be safe
by: Gizmo

I was doing so research and came across this. I dont want to scare anyone, but I also dont want anyone to hurt like myself.
Gizmo was 1 and a half, handsome, healthy lil guy. He didnt like dry food, so he ate only wet. Well he seemed to be getting longer but not wider.
We asked the vet. She said he looked great. He seemed to eat his food, loved his treats, drank water. Well finely we realized something else. He wasn't gaining and one day he looked lethargic. We rushed him to out vet. He had kidney failure at 1 and half. He was born with one working kidney. He couldn't gain because of this. We had to let him go, he was suffering and no way to help to stop this. I would take your cat in for a blood test to be safe nothing else is going on.
Steffy
by: Chris, Evansville,In

When I saw the pic of shadow I had to look twice your pic looks just like my KitKat she is exactly the same and Zi have had the same eortied as you. I myself have 3femsle cats Amby is a torishell, Adeline is gray and white and fat, she does eat alot and fast, she is probably the one I should be more worried about as she is over weight but KitKat too is only about 4 lb but she's very long lean your Shadow is the spitting image of her. I'll try to she pics of all of them my KitKat is solid gray. I'm sorry I can't figure out how to post the pictures
My Cat
by: Gary

This month will be two years that I Found my cat. He was crossing the street and kept falling down. He was hairless, no nails, no whiskers, had buckshot in his leg and weighed 1 1/2 pounds. Today he is full of hair, nails and whiskers are back, weighs 11pounds. He is a diabetic and had eight teeth pulled. I have spent over $23000 to keep him well I was to have him put down three times. I couldn't do that. I know that God sent him to me as I needed him as much as he needed me. He is losing mass around his backbone. I use Hills A/D. He will only eat gravy from cat food as he is unable to eat much with very little teeth. He is a very handsome Devon Rex. He spends once a week at Banfield. Are there any other ideas on how I can put more around his backbone? I will be looking at more Hills Prescription foods. He can only eat pate food if I spoon feed him, which it is still hard for him to eat. no idea on how old he is because of loss of teeth. I appreciate any ideas on my issue. Thank you so much
cats burn fat like humans
by: Fox

hey i have 5 cats (crazy cat lady eh) each are completely different. starting with the eldest Grampy cat he is very lean and muscly and slender. pickle the fat clumsy one is lazy and likes to finish off the left overs the others leave. perdy is my worry she is so slinky i can feel her ribs and spine but she is super actactive climbs trees and the mouse catcher. she eats little but often and prefers dry food with supermeat. treacle is a tubby pretty girl who phantom pregnancies often so her weight flutuates (she was dumped after having more than one litter of kittens and she homed herself at my kids school until she followed perdy home one day :) and Tig the domesticated feral is chunky built super active alwys eats but stays indoors most of the time but it doesnt stop her running about the house like a loon. cats bur fat the same as most humans. we all have different metabolisms and so do most animals.
Thank you for responding :)
by: Steffy

Your cats are wonderful :)
And thank you so much for answering my question.
Yes it does worry me how she seems to not eat her food unless shes in the other room by herself with the bowl. I even tried separating them when they eat, Smokey seems to want to eat it as soon as he sees Shadow eating. I even put Shadow in the pen with her food bowl and mix wet food with dry. I was thinking that maybe it was that she didn't like the dry food.
It makes so much sense about her metabolism.

Here is a photo of both of them as kittens :)

http://s1108.photobucket.com/albums/h414/Steffy_Levina/?action=view¤t=babykiddeds.jpg


And a recent photo of Smokey :)

http://s1108.photobucket.com/albums/h414/Steffy_Levina/?action=view¤t=0812110200.jpg

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