fat cat help?

I have a 5 year old male neutered overweight cat. He has really foul smelling stool but not runny. Are there any illnesses that causes this? He is around 20 lbs and he has been over weight for a few years now. It is my fault for a while I was feeding him Purina indoor cat sensitive stomach formula because it seemed to be one of the only ones I tried that he wasn't throwing up. At the time I didn't know it was garbage and wasn't familiar with ingredient labels.

A few months ago I switched him (gradually) to Blue Buffalo weight control but I haven't seen any changes in him yet. His stool stunk badly prior to the diet switch. He also sheds a lot and has dandruff issues on his back end which I attribute to him being overweight and unable to properly groom himself. I am trying to get his wight under control with his diet.

I try to get him to play and he does just only a few minutes at a time. We have a puppy that tries to play but after a couple minutes his idea of playing is to flop down on his side and swat his paws at the puppy.

I'm wondering if he's sick or if the foul smelling stool is just from all the years of digesting crappy food? He acts normal no other problems that would lead me to believe that he is sick. Any ideas what could be causing the foul smelling stool? Any ideas how to get him active or any better food recommendation would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, you are doing great and on the right track to helping your cat. First thing I suggest you do is go to www.catinfo.org and look for the section on obesity.

The takeaway is that food overloaded with cheap carbs instead of protein is a culprit. These pet food companies are very crafty marketing machines. So they offer weight-control options that lower the calories but do nothing to improve the quality of the protein and still are loaded with cheap carbs that lead to smelly stool. To end the stool problem consider a commercial raw food. It will magically dissappear. Catinfo.org will spell it out for you. Good luck!!!!!!!!

Welcome! Has he been to the vet recently? It's a good idea to have him seen before making big changes so you have a baseline (and determining whether there are tummy problems that would require any special care within a diet) and your vet can advise you on where to start, especially in establishing what an ideal weight for your cat would be.

Here are some resources and success stories that you may find helpful:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245236/mickey-my-27-lbs-foster-and-his-journey-back-to-a-healthy-weight

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2010/03/03/weight-loss-for-fat-cats.aspx

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity

I would ditch the weight control foods. I find they're nothing but gimmicks, and you'll do much better managing your cat's nutrients yourself. Dry foods are notorious for being high carb, which contribute to obesity and don't contain enough moisture for cats, who tend to get most of their moisture from their food.

Even the most expensive dry foods are quite high carb and grain or starch, which isn't necessary for cats who are obligate carnivores. Blue Buffalo's weight control formula (chicken and rice, at least) is anywhere up to 44% carbs, whereas some of the better dry foods can be closer to 10-20%, but it's still no match with wet food's 2% carbs - even the cheaper brands of wet like Friskies and Fancy Feast tend to be lower carb and higher protein.

If you haven't seen them yet, these articles can help too:

How Much Food Should I Feed My Cat?

How to Compare Cat Foods & Calculate Carbs: Dry Matter Basis

Transitioning Free-Fed Kibble Kitties to Timed Meals

Transitioning Your Cat from Kibble to a New Type of Food (Canned, Raw, or Homemade)

Obesity in Cats

A lot of food labels will suggest overfeeding your cat, so rather than following the instructions on the bag or can of food, you may want to look into counting calories. The Cat Info page about feline obesity has a general formula (albeit still rather generous) which is 13.6 * cat's ideal body weight + 75 as the number of calories that should be consumed per day, whereas some people say for weight loss, less than 20 calories per pound is better. Of course, make sure the change is gradual. Cutting back calories too quickly can starve a cat's body and put it into hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) which can be fatal. I use this tool to check the calorie and carb counts of each food I feed: http://fnae.org/carbcalorie.html

If your cat is willing to flop over and swat, that's still good. It's a defensive position, so while I may not recommend it for play with the dog and certainly not for hands, if you can dangle a string and get him to roll and swat or bat from side to side, or flip up and chase after the string in different positions, it's still play and it's still exercise. Sometimes it just takes finding the right toy too. Our cats love chasing and batting around foil balls, tape balls, black licorices, straws, especially these Sproket straws, and wand toys with string or a fuzzy toy on the end really get them going. I've heard great things about Da Bird. One of my cats loves when I actually chase her around the apartment.

To rule out any of the unusual parasites or bacteria I would get a PCR stool test run.  It has to be sent out so it takes a few days to get back.  Has he had full blood work run lately, if not I would go ahead and get that done.  If everything checks out I would try to get him on a high protein low carb diet.  http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf  is a chart that shows protein, fat and carb percentages for most of the commercial foods available in the U.S.  You want to go by the dry matter percentages.  

Watch the portion sizes and calories.  You don't want to go below a safe number of calories for avoiding fatty liver disease.  The safe amount is at least 15 calories per pound of his ideal weight.  If his ideal weight is 12 pounds then he would need at least 180 calories per day.  If the food doesn't have the calories on the label then the foods web site should have it.

Thank you for all the nutritional advice. I'm going to look into getting him off this dry food since now I know it's so high in carbs even though it is marketed as diet food. It is really misleading not to mention expensive. My only concern is his teeth. I always avoided the wet foods because I thought that the dry food was good for their teeth?

As for blood and fecal tests I'm in the process of finding him a new vet. I do not trust the vet I was seeing. I live in a small town and nearby vet options are slim pickings around here. The vet I was seeing has developed a bad reputation for sloppy work and misdiagnosing for purposes of financial gain. I know it is important that I get him into a vet for testing so I'm looking around nearby towns for recommendations.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to get him to eat his food slower? Hes a bit of a gobbler! My other cat can barely get a bite in until he is done.

Dry food doesn't help a kitties teeth.  http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/does-dry-food-clean-the-teeth/    Kitties swallow a lot of the kibble whole.  The part that they do manage to break with their teeth is crushed at the top of the teeth so there is very little if any scraping done near the gum line.

Many kitties are gobblers.  With dry food, which if your kitty balks at wet food you may have to continue for awhile while transitioning, you can put something like a ping pong ball in the bowl with the food.  That forces him to slow down because he has to eat around it.  With wet food you can use a plate and spread the food out on the plate so he can't gobble it down as fast.