My Fat Cat

Yesterday we made a trip to Target and picked up a bathroom scale. My general opinion of scales is that they are evil - and this one particularly so. Not only does it offend me my telling me how much I weigh, but it also informs me of my percent body fat. I hate it already.

This morning I put our two cats on the scale. I've often wondered how much they weigh. It's no secret that Galileo and Helix are polar opposites in both personality and body composition. Galileo is shy, flighty, easily frightened, vocal, but not a purrer, very athletic and skinny. Helix on the other hand is pushy when it comes to being petted, stubborn, purrs loudly but almost never talks unless to demand food, has trouble making it to even the mid-level of the cat tree because he is so incredibly fat. So what did they weigh in at? Galileo: 10.4 lbs and Helix: a whopping 18.5 lbs.

We have a problem. You see we know Helix is an unhealthy weight, but we have problems putting him on a diet, because Galileo is so skinny. Any attempt to restrict the amount of food Helix gets, results in Galileo also getting less (Helix is a real food hog). We have not been able to stick to feeding them separately. We have placed their cat food dish on a desk, which at least requires Helix to jump up to the food dish prior to chowing down, but then he just sits there and eats the ENTIRE bowl and jumps down. We have often entertained thoughts of making a box with a small hole for Galileo to enter through and obtain food that would exclude Helix's fat belly until he slims down, but we have never actually made a prototype to test this idea. I worry that Helix will end up with a cardiovacular disease, diabetes (assuming felines suffer from these ailments) or some other weight-related issue that leads to an early death (previous posts have pointed out the fact that Helix has already used up 2 of his 9 lives).