Guilt Kitty Owner

This mostly a repost from new kitties on the block.  The moderator suggested I post here for advice.

I hope you all can help reform me. I've always been more of a dog person, but one day we happened to acquire a kitten from the pound. She is a siamese mix. I'd always thought cats pretty much take care of themselves. You just leave abundant food and water out and they will be alright. And you feed a top quality kibble like Science Diet.

I'd been told that cats will not over eat, so here is what happened. When the cat was about five months old, I kept looking at her and thinking she looked weird. Like her head was wayyy to little for her body. You would think the vet would have known what was up, but not until he cut her open for her spay did he find out she was grossly overweight. So in passing when I picked her up they just happened to mention she was fat. ONLY when I questioned them further, was I able to weasel out of them just how much and what I did wrong. They did not offer any advice on how to proceed. So no wonder I always had the cat will take care of themselves attitude.

So anyway I drastically reduced how much kibble she was getting and she did drop to a "normal" size. She was always getting into things like she was starving to death. Thank God she did not get the fatty liver disease. You would think the vet would have warned me about cutting her food drastically.

Fast forward to Isabelle being four years old. When she was three and they took out A LOT of teeth (the vet blamed on table scraps), I was starting to wonder what was going on. Was this cat defective some how? I never had these kinds of problems with my dog. I was suspecting the much touted by the vet science diet. When she was four, she was reduce to eight teeth. PATHETIC. She had ballooned back in weight and looked like a basketball with a head and four legs on 1/2 cup of kibble a DAY. The vet said her metabolism had probably just slowed and prescribed the Science Diet, diet version. (and again no warning on FLD) I said no thank you. The one variable I could think of that was putting her in such horrific shape was the FOOD. She is well cared for and strictly indoors.

So here we are, Isabelle and me, to become more enlightened on kitty care. I will not rely on the vet or science diet for the informaiton we need, because where has it gotten us --SICK Toothless KITTY. So far we've made some pretty extroidinary improvements by learning from the internet. I switched her from kibble, to canned, and now she is on entirely home cooked. I'm not sure If I will go to raw or not. She does have to have her food very small. She is fed twice a day and receives solid gold supplement, ascorbic acid (started today since she was trying to get into the oranges), salmon oil, taurine and bonemeal.

In the first week, she lost a lot of weight. You know bloated water weight. What a drammatic change. She is like an entirely different cat. We are about a month into her transformation and today I bought a scale, so I can monitor and adjust for a slow safe weight loss. She weighed in at 12 pounds 4 ounces. I would say she has a petite frame. So I'm guessing I should shoot for ten pounds and try to get that off in the next year, so that would be a weight loss of about three ounces a month. Does this sound reasonable?

Her bowell movements no longer stink at all. She does only go once a day it seems for both pee and poop. Is this normal? There is a small amount of poop and a rather impressive clumped puddle of urine.

What words of wisdom can you give me? Please don't yell at me because of my ignorance. I already feel enormously guilty. I hope I can learn a lot here. Signed, one very guilt ridden cat mommy.

I'm not sure how much help I can be - but the tooth issues caught my attention. I have two kitties of my own (and a third at my parent's) who are toothless. Fafeena is 17 years, Twitch & Cow are 8 - 9 years. Fafeena lost her teeth 3 years ago, Twitch when she was just 2 years old (hers were pretty rotten when she was 7 months old!), & Cow lost his when he was 3 - 4 years old. Some cats just have crummy genetics when it comes to teeth.

They eat a mix of dry & wet food (monitored portions of dry & wet food meals 2x/day). They've been doing well on that. Every kitty is different. I measure a portion of dry food out for all my kitties in the AM & they can graze during the day with food left over at the end of the day. I haven't had any problems w/ any of them being obese, but I do have to monitor to ensure two of them don't just pork it all down. :lol3:

Science Diet is one of the bad foods that has a good reputation among people who don't know a lot about food, it's not your fault.  Don't feel guilty about her teeth problems either, she may just have bad teeth.  I have two cats one hasn't had problems with his teeth although when the vet checked his teeth this month she said he would probably need to have his teeth cleaned when I take him back in June.  He will be 10 this spring.  My other cat is a few months younger than he is and has had 5 teeth removed.  There are some cats on this forum that have had all of their teeth removed.  Some cats just have a lot more dental problems than others.  I really can't give you any advice as far as your cat losing weight.  You already know about taking it real slow and necessary supplements for a homemade diet.  You have nothing to feel guilty about.  You were taking your cat to a vet for care and buying a pet food with good advertising.

No need to feel guilty hun, and nobody will yell at you!
You should feel incredibly proud about these gigantic changes!!
And....... I posted on the other one - as as you see above from the others...... teeth issues are highly genetic......
Good luck!! With your girl - and remember - no drastic weight loss - steady steady..... Otherwise it can be dangerous.....

To do it safely, you can do it by calories two ways:

If her current weight is 12lbs, multiply that by 15 calories. That's how much she should get a day, to lose weight. So.... 180 calories a day.

or - you can calculate with her optimum weight: 10lbs - and feed her 20 calories per pound = 200

Basically, 15 calories per pound when you want to lose, 20 calories per pound to maintain (they are slightly different, so you can average out, or start with the higher one, which is safer, and see how she does.... If she doesn't lose, move to the lowest one). She should not, under any circumstances, eat less than 150 calories. That will ensure her safety.

Once she achieves her optimum weight, you keep her on 20calories per lb to maintain......