Why is Tavi not a low maintenance kitty?

While caring for Tavi is not super difficult, it is time consuming. I love this tortie to bits, but she can be a bit high maintenance. And it’s all thanks to her having to lose weight.

Personally, I am anti-diet. If the Diet Industry actually produced products and eating plans that worked, they would not be raking in billions of dollars every year. Also weight does not equal health. Check out Heath At Every Size by Linda Bacon and Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch for more about that.

Tavi has gained weight over the years since I got her back in 2010. At ten years old, she’s a senior in cat years. The only reason I went long with the vet wanting to put her on a diet is because I could tell the added weight was making it hard for her to groom herself and jump up on our bed at night. I want my girl to live her best life for as long as possible.

Prescription diet food is not cheap. Thankfully Tavi seems to enjoy it well enough. She certainly snarfs it down. Plus they make treats to go with the food so she doesn’t miss out. I’ve already started scoping out non-prescription dry foods that look like they will help Tavi keep the weight off once we’re done with our monthly weigh-ins at the vet.

She’s about half way to where the vet would like her to be. I can already tell a difference. She has an easier time grooming herself. She doesn’t fail to jump up on the bed as much as she was before we started this diet. She’s playing more, way more. That last one makes me so very happy.

I started the diet following exactly how much the vet told me to feed her. But Tavi started begging all the time for food. Then she groomed a bald spot on her butt. So I upped how much I was feeding her a bit. That seemed to help settle her down some. Because I had stuck to the vet recommended amount for most of that first month, she went down a little over a pound. Because I refused to drop back down to the vet recommended amount again, Tavi lost about half a pound by the second weigh-in. And that’s the rate I’m going to keep her at. So what if it takes us longer to get to the desired results.

So, her high maintenance status is partially from her getting special food and treats. But it’s mainly from the fact that I have to keep Parker from eating her food. This is not an easy task.

At first we had to adjust where we fed Parker because even though Tavi will normally never touch wet food with a ten foot pole, she started trying to eating Parker’s wet food. That puzzle was solved by my Sweetie figuring out that if we put Parker’s food bowl up high on the cat tower in the living room, Tavi wouldn’t get to it because she’s never made any effort to get past the second level on any cat tower we’ve ever owned. So now Parker gets breakfast and dinner with a view.

Parker enjoys both wet and dry food. She doesn’t care if it belongs to herself or her sister. If it’s available she will try to eat it. Both girls are also grazers. In the past they both ate the same dry food, so we could just leave their food bowls out all day. That is no longer the case. Tavi has her prescription diet food. Parker eats a special non-prescription dry food to keep her poops from being so big they hurt her butt.

The solution to keep Parker from eating Tavi’s food? I stand there while Tavi eats and then pick up the food bowl as soon as she starts to walk away. It usually takes 2-3 feedings like this for Tavi to eat all the food in her bowl for each meal. The girls get fed twice a day. I’m having to play cafeteria monitor 4-6 times each day. Sometimes more, if Tavi gets distracted or startled while eating.

Theoretically the girls get breakfast at 5am and dinner at 5pm. I’m usually woken up by Tavi crying and patting my face between 3 and 4 in the morning. There is no getting back to sleep until I’ve fed her. Trust me, I’ve tried. She can be incredibly pushy with purrs and head butts that slowly change into sad cries of how I never feed her. And if Parker decides she also wants her breakfast right now, she starts knocking stuff off my nightstand. I have no idea how my Sweetie sleeps though all of this every morning.

I get up, dole out breakfast, make sure Parker doesn’t shove her head in Tavi’s food bowl as Tavi starts to walk away, and then head back to bed because I am not a morning person and need a few more hours of sleep. In a couple hours, Tavi will wake me back up for Second Breakfast. Sometimes she even waits until my alarm clock goes off.

Tavi starts campaigning for dinner usually around 3 in the afternoon. Some days it can be as early as 2pm. It depends on when she finishes off her breakfast. The closer to 5pm, the pushier she gets. There’s a lot of hopeful running towards the den where we feed her. She also gets very talkative while moving progressively closer and closer to me.

I’m so glad I’m a stay-at-home cat mom because it allows me to stand there guarding Tavi’s food bowl from her sister. I’m able to take time out of my day to feed her multiple times instead of her being forced to eat each meal all in one sitting or go without. Yes, it’s time consuming and I do keep eyeing some of the smart electronic feeders online, but she’s worth it.