What's the deal? Excessive meowing, sassy behavior

[vincent'smom]

Vince is a normally very mellow 4 year old male neutered Maine Coon. He's happy go lucky and fun to be around.

A month or so ago, while grooming him, I noticed a scabby bald spot near his tail. I rushed him to the vet who said that he'd gained 3 pounds in a year and a half (from 16 to 19 lbs) and that he couldn't reach back to his big booty to clean himself properly.

So, they knocked him out and gave him a bath, a lion cut, some vaccinations he needed, a dental cleaning and then sent us home with cream for the scab and told us to put him on a diet. Instead of the 1/2 C. of food twice a day, he was only to have 3/4 C. through out the day at the MOST. The scab healed quickly and he looks great.

So since then a few things: 1. he BEGS for food. Like, shoves his bowl around, howls and nearly climbs the walls in the morning for food, it's like nothing I have seen out of him before.

2. He has become very sassy. He's pawing at our feet, suddenly sneaking into our bed to sleep (he never did that before) and is beating up on the dog more.

So what's the deal? Any ideas? At first I thought maybe he was holding a grudge for the vet trip, but it's been over a month!

 

[skimble]

Just my thoughts, but maybe he is frustrated because he is hungry and can't communicate to anyone what he needs/wants (food).

There are many here experienced with nutrition. It might help to post in the Nutrition section about his weight gain and what the vet has done. What food was he on before the vet visit and what food is he on now? Some of the dry pet foods have many fillers that leave them only temporarily satisfied so they stay hungry.

Someone will come along with more help.

 

[arlyn]

He's hungry.
Just like humans, the key to weight loss is diet and exercise.
Play with him, lots, drag a string around, get a Da Bird toy and a Cat Dancer, laser pointers are also great exercise tools
Place his food high up so that he has to work to get to it.
Buy a treat ball to dispense some of his dry food.
And if you feed wet food he can lose weight and not feel so hungry.
If you can't switch him to completely wet, for whatever reason, then get him on a good quality dry without too many fillers.
3/4c of dry a day is too little, too soon.
If you have to cut back on the total amount, do it slowly, give his poor tummy a chance to shrink a little so that he can feel full.

Just a few suggestions, someone else I'm sure will have more, good luck