She went on at great length about just how bad this is for cats. Talked about how they get less and less active and it's a downward spiral of more lethargy, more food, more weight...leading to less activity, which leads to more boredom, which leads to even more food...and more weight.
The vet said when you look down at a cat they should have a waist. She told Michael off about it.
At length.
In front of people.
She then took a plastic food scoop, dramatically swiped a line on the side of it with a Sharpie, (in front of everyone in the waiting room), handed it to Michael, and explained the line indicated the shockingly tee-ninetsy amount of food she felt Ella should eat in a day.
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This is all very very bad for more than one reason.
The one that hit me as the worst wasn't involved with Ella's health and well-being. Ella's weight hadn't gone up since her last few visits. She goes in twice a year. She sees whichever vet is on duty that day and none of them had ever said more than a passing: "She could lose a little."
My first thought was utter dismay that Michael had such a bad experience at the vet because it was his first time to take Ella in.
We've had Ella for more than a decade and it's always been my job to take her to the vet.
He always said: "Wish I could...but I've gotta work." And, though I knew he wasn't sorry about the fact, I really couldn't argue. He had a 9-5 job and was at work for most of the vet's hours. It was easier for me to take her when I had a midweek day off.
But then he retired.
When her appointment was coming up that first year of Michael's retirement I gushed on and on about how he must be so excited about his upcoming daddy-daughter day with our sweet, precious, little Ella. (Who, on a completely unrelated note; turns into a howling, yowling, maniac when you put her in a car.) So I was truly thrilled by the idea that Michael would take her on at least one of her two regular visits (aka soul-killing torture-rides-through-hell) per year.
So you can see how the vet yelling at Michael was not making it look good for further fun-filled outings of this sort.
After discussing how wronged Michael was for getting chewed out by the vet for pet-abuse, we got around to the actual topic of Ella's weight.
We were in complete denial. "Ella? Fat??? No way! Not Ella? Impossible! She looks fine. Besides, she's way too busy with her exciting globe-trotting* cat celebrity life to have gotten fat. It can't be!"
We'd both seen lots of cats a heckuva a lot heavier than Ella. Cats with a waist? That's crazy. What cat has a waist? I never noticed that. Clearly that vet has her own issues that she's working out through the external means of our poor cat. Probably tells everyone this. She won't stop until all cats are anorexically skinny!
And (in an indignant and ongoing huff) we moved on with our daily lives.
But, ya know, once doubt is introduced into a situation, things sometimes begin to look different.
Suddenly I started to notice that Ella did have an extra...thing in the belly area that she never had before. That sort of flap of skin under her belly. When she runs, which come to think of it she doesn't do quite as often as she used to, it sort of swings back and forth under her.
It's actually a little bit gross.
We thought it was just a sign of an aging cat. Could it be that it was a sign of an...enlarging cat?
Maybe she could stand to lose just a tiny little bit.
But, here's the thing. You know how I said she's a maniac when it comes to the vet? Well, she's also a maniac when it comes to food. She'll wake us up crying. Woefully. Like she hasn't eaten...ever. Even though we know she had more than enough the day before.
The problem was she always scarfed up whatever we gave her and, no matter how much she got, begged for more. Begged loudly and often. Begged like her very life depended on it.
She'd been waking us up earlier and earlier for food. Plop, she'd land on one of our chests. "Meow!" "Meow, meow!" "Meeeooooowwwww!"...and on and on it went until one of us would drag ourselves out of bed to feed her.
We knew we were rewarding her for bad behavior...but, there is a point where you just want to sleep a little more. (Ya know...past 5:30 a.m.)
We couldn't imagine how we were going to lessen her intake without a Cat Protest being held at our house 24/7 for the rest of our lives.
I googled and searched and read suggestions until I finally stumbled upon that fabulous gadget featured at the top of this post.
Ahhhhaahhhhhhhhh!!!! (That is the sound of angel's choirs that accompanied this arriving into our lives.)
I set the thing up to distribute her paltry food 3 times per day. Just a little bit at a time. It has a voice recorder and I recorded a message to call her to the feeder. Just a simple and dignified little message: ("Ellie! Ellie-beNellie! Bellie-bellie-girl. Time to eat! Come have some dinner! I love you!") In a high-pitched, sing-songy coo that I would have denied doing if I didn't have to hear it ringing through the house three times per day.
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So, the feeder was set up. That's when the real test began.
We then swore, to ourselves and each other: no feeding the cat. She would have to adjust. From then on her only source of food (okay, other than just a very few treats from time to time), her only source of actual daily meals, would be this feeder.
And it worked. Like a charm!
We were now completely out of the mix. No need to cry to us 'cause we had nothin' to do with her food. She gradually got used to the hours the feeder went off. She gradually got used to the fact that we didn't get up and get her any more. And she gradually grew accustomed to the smaller amount.
She now sometimes doesn't even get up from her nap when she hears it go off.
And it turned out; the vet was right. (Not to yell at Michael. That was very, very, (very), wrong!)..but that Ella was overweight. We didn't realize how much she'd slowed down, and bulked up, until she started getting a bit more streamlined and waaay more active. She was tearing around the house, up and down the stairs in a way she hadn't done since she was a kitten.
We felt terrible we hadn't realized before. We were cat abusers and didn't even realize it.
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Now we're thinking how cool it would be if they had human feeders to mete out our daily allowance and withhold all the stuff we consume that, maybe, we really don't need. If it weren't for our opposable thumbs it would totally work.
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