How do you know if your cat is fat?

[StillMedusa]

Seriously.
Obie and Ophie are (over) due their jabs..going next week. Ophie is a delicate little 12 pounder Maine Coone girl. Eats just as much as she needs .
Obie is a greedy git. He only has to hear the hint of someone in the kitchen and he is there, chirping at me and then flopping dramatically to the floor!

He's a big lad... 18m old Maine Coon boys don't tend to be small. But I'm sure at his age Morph was long and lean. Obie isn't as long but he is solid..20 pounds solid! He also has THE thickest coat I have seen and it's very difficult to see what hs body shape is underneath but I think he's kinda square!

How do I tell if he is just a solid big cat or a fat bugger? We try very hard not to overfeed him but he is also a six dinner Sid... he eats at every house down the street despite me asking several nice neighbours to ignore his begging!

I don't want the nice vet to tell me off !!

When did you last actually weigh him accurately? He seems to have been 20lb for quite a while. (Despite being a young lad.)

Just last weekend :) so give or take a few ounces it's probably not fr off accurate. He lost weight when he got trapped in that house for 5 days and has taken a while to put it on (amazingly considering how much he likes to eat). He's not as big a frame as Morph was (sadly...I loves Morphs Lynx like shape!) but I've only had the tow MC boys so nothing else to compare with.

He just FEELS porky if you know what I mean ! However I may be misjudging him as Morph was also a food fiend! The cats are currently (much to my disgust as I like them on Animonda Carny or Almo) only wanting felix doubly delicious. He has a packet at breakfast, then dry Royal Canin is around if he's in, but he usually goes out, so then has another packet at tea time, another for supper, a few crunchies and then he mine sweeps anything the others haven't eaten. Weekends he has 4 packets I'm sure! Then he slopes off for bits of ham at the neighbours!

This is him tonight... not stretched out so looking short and stumpy (and annoyed !)

Vet can tell you, they know (can show you) places to feel the cat up and say "too much cat here".

He's still growing though isnt he? Ours went through long gangly phases and then chubby phases before just being a normal cat shape.

He's gorgeous!!! Sounds like a character too :o

Our boy cat (normal tabby) is twice the size of our girl cats who are both very dainty. He's very chunky and solid, lots of muscle and very thick fur. Vets never said he's overweight though.

Our ginger boy went for his jabs a couple of months ago. He's a chunky cat with very thick fur. The vet took one look at him & commented 'I bet he doesn't stray far from his food bowl!' When she weighed him she was surprised to find he was only about 5kg, so a solid cat, not a fat one

You know when the vet looks you in the eye and says "This cat is about 20% overweight" whilst holding a roll of cat fat in their hand

I wonder this too. The cats protection people warned us when we got our rescue cat that she needed to lose some weight because she was getting tubby. She's a small cat anyway (with thick fur!), but only weighs just over 6lb. Surely at that weight, she's very unlikely to be tubby?!

Our vet said when you look at a cats body from a birds eye view perspective, like when you stand over them, their body should be straight. So if the tummy curves out, they're overweight. If it concaves they're underweight.

Not sure that helps with your big fluffy lad..would you be able to tell with all the fur?! (he is gorgeous btw)

No idea how to tell if a cat is overweight (I just know that one of mine is a fat little thing, and the other is quite skinny, but I can only tell because of this comparison) but I just wanted to say that your cat is adorable! Such a cutie.

I've been told that H is chubby and needs to lose a little but it doesn't seem to be coming off. I've cut down his food and bought a laser pointer but he still looks the same. In his defence he has a pouch of loose skin under his belly (so loose it swings when he runs so I don't know what else I can do.

Medusa, Obie is beautiful!

"This cat is about 20% overweight" whilst holding a roll of cat fat in their hand blush

I'm afraid of this happening when I take Bibi for her vaccs. She's such a gannet. I attribute it to her early life on the street and going hungry. She has some kind of built-in food detector to a range of at least a mile. The problem is she is a legitmately biggish cat as well - much thicker leg bones/bigger skull than Zara, and lots of thick fur too. Even vets seem divided in their opinions as to whether she is fat or not. Our main vet had no problems with her weight (5kg, but she does have a 'rounded' look at times). Once she had to go to the out of hours with cystitis and he mentioned 'obesity' as a risk factor though :S

Royal Canin used to do an animated chart online that you could slide to find the image that matched your cat. I can't find it now but this chart is it in essence:

www.royalcanin.ca/index.php/Your-Cat/Adult/blogindex_catadult/Body-Condition-Scoring-in-Cats

There's a more detailed one on this page:
www.royalcaninhealthyweight.co.uk/pet-obesity