Magic tops out around 20 lbs, which is way too fat. After he completely disgusted Anna this weekend by letting out a long and loud — and very stinky — fart when she picked him up, Anna decided it was time for him to go on a diet.
Unfortunately, Magic got to his tremendous size by over eating. Not necessarily because we overfeed him, but because he eats all the other cats’ food. So the only way to prevent him from gorging is to remove the food after 30 minutes to an hour. But neither Madeline nor Augustus are comfortable with this regime. Madeline may have an extra ounce or two around the belly — what spayed female cat doesn’t? — but she definitely doesn’t need to diet. Augustus is lean and lanky, especially after his summer training regime of squirrel chasing.
Because Magic and Tim (another whopper at 16+ lbs) will wake us up at or before the crack of dawn if there isn’t any food, we feed all the cats their last meal at 11 pm. Even with this diet regime, we always leave their last meal out overnight. However, this morning at 5 am, Augustus woke me by howling his little lungs out. He was hungry.
Surprisingly, Magic hadn’t eaten all the food. So I collected remnants from all the bowls and made one reasonably full bowl for Augustus. I went back to bed. Not ten minutes later, more howling.
I went out to find that Magic had muscled Augustus away from the food and was gobbling it down. After kicking him in the ass, I stood over Augustus while he ate his fill.
Of course, no more than 45 minutes later, I had to get up and feed everyone…