Color fat-ography
It’s surprisingly difficult to take a picture of Little Joe that gives a realistic idea of his sphericality. …No, not because you have to take the pictures from space, although I understand why you might have answered thusly. I don’t actually know why. I took oodles of pix, and in most of them, he looks kind of big, or sort of round, or blurry because he’s trying to bat the camera strap, but not as big or as round as he really is. And he is very big and perfectly round. And fat. Very, very fat.
I’ll keep trying — he looks extra circular from above, but it’s tough to capture without getting my frumpy slippers in the shot — but for now, you’ll have to settle for a sneak preview of our upcoming feature, My Head Only Looks Tiny Because I Am, As You May Have Heard On The Internet, Quite Fat. Photo after the jump.
Tags: feline fun times
Yowza!
We have these tiger-striped throw pillows on our couch, and he looks kind of like you stuck a head and tail on one of them.
I dunno. Maybe it is because I have had cats but I can believe that he is tubby. I know he’s trying to disguise it but it ain’t working. : )
That’s a meatloaf in a cat suit! WO!
Good luck with his diet & all.
(He’s adorable, but don’t forget to lift with the legs, not the back!)
That’s not A meatloaf. That’s…Meatloaf.
He does look quite fat in the picture, but nice and solid fat, in the way that boy cats get. My girl cat? Is lumpy, mushy fat. As in, she has udders. So she looks totally normal until you get to the area just in front of her hind legs, and there’s a mass of fat. My boy cat, on the other hand, is fat like Little Joe- nice and plump and squooshable.
to tell the true size of a fat cat you need something to judge it by. Relative perspective… that’s why catsinsinks is so hilarious. We all know the relative size of a sink and a faucet and can make the comparison. Can you get something else in the photo? A coffee cup, watermelon, small child, horse?
But, man, that is some kind of belly….
I thought you said it was difficult to get a picture of his largeness? Kinda fat or sorta round? Umm, no. That’s big and if he’s bigger in real life, I’d be afraid to fall asleep around him for fear of him laying on my chest and sufficating me.
He doesn’t fit on my chest. Or in a sink.
If THAT photo isn’t showing his true fatness, I can’t wait to see one that does!
Is his tail really as skinny as it appears?
Yeah, I don’t think his tail is skinny. I think it’s showing you how skinny he is not. LOL! Wowza. Yeah, I thought my girl was fat at 12lbs (which my vet said was ok as long as she doesn’t gain more and she hasn’t in years) but wow. That extra 6lbs is making more sense now. Hee! Maybe a kitty treadmill? Caesar gets dogs to walk on them! :)
Good god, I love this picture.
I think you’re getting used to the fat, Sars, because that cat? Looks really fat in those pictures. I still want to smooch him, though.
I really don’t want to throw a cold rag on all this adoration of the rotund, but I lost my “round cat” last week. My beloved Clay, was only 9 years old. Far too young to slip free this mortal coil. He had not been ill at all, just overweight for most of his adult kitty life (between 17 and 18 lbs). He hopped down off the sofa, walked across the room to the kitty door, took 2 steps to his food dish and dropped. I tried for several minutes to revive him, but he was basically dead when he hit the ground. And the only thing that I can imagine was that his heart just gave out. It could not support the strain of his weight any longer. I cannot tell you how devastated I am. He was a beautiful animal,and one of the best friends I’ve ever had. And I am convinced that his death was DIRECTLY related to his weight. I am not saying that all fat cats die like this. But it is so bad for them. I know everyone tries to do everything they can to help their pet, just be careful is all I’m saying. I tried to keep him on a diet for years. And all I keep thinking is that I didn’t try hard enough. It was my responsibility to protect him and I failed him. If I had just done more maybe he would still be with me.
Awwww, cute kitty! Yes, he’s fat, but he just looks so huggable.
Our cat/child Chester could give Little Joe a run for his money in a sumo match. He’s roughly 21 pounds and the most exercise he gets in a day is going from my bed downstairs to his food bowl. On top of that, he has an anxiety disorder and is afraid of EVERYTHING. You name it – air molecules, the TV, his own feet – he waddles around in a perpetual fight-or-flight state.
I’m surprised he hasn’t had a heart attack yet.
I am SO finding a picture of my fattest cat, because she’s like Joe’s long-lost twin, skinny tail and all!
Jen, don’t. Don’t torture yourself. I had a perfectly healthy, fit, trim, three-year-old kitty die of heart failure. It wasn’t fast like that, either. I’ll spare people the unpleasant details. Is it possible your kitty’s weight had something to do with it? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
I do know that when kitties get sick, they can lose weight before you even notice it. They can get scarily close to the tipping point of no recovery, in terms of weight loss, when ill. You did the best you could. Believe me, you didn’t fail him.
Hobey and Little Joe are adorable! Good luck with the diet. If it succeeds, you’ll need to post details.
I’m so sorry about your cat, Jen — losing a pet is so awful. I hope my previous comment didn’t seem insensitive, I think we posted simultaneously.
Aw, Jen, I’m so sorry. But please, please, let yourself off the hook. It could have been anything, an aneurism, a stroke, any of a million things you couldn’t have forseen or avoided. You gave him love & a home, and that’s a kitty’s heart’s desire.
I’m sorry it was so sudden, but I’m glad he didn’t suffer. Rest in peace, Clay. Wish I could hug you Jen.
Whoa. I had heard all the “Little Joe is FAT” murmurs on the internet, but I had no idea he was that big. Cute, though!
Cats like that (and like mine) make excellent pillows.
Awww. He IS fat. But he looks really cute, and kind of like a boy version of one of mine. Her nickname is the fluffernutter because she’s nutty, full of fat but very sweet.
No worries, Sars, your pictures DO do him perfect justice. That is one of the fattest felines I’ve ever seen. And he’s adorable.
He’s not fat, it’s the horizontal stripes! Always an iffy fashion choice. :-)
“Little” Joe is very huggable, though admittedly, very fat. And I agree with the solid boy cat comments above. My mom has a cat like that. He’s fat, but in a really solid tiger like way. He even walks like a tiger, rolling his shoulders. But we call him “moose” cause he’s so big.
I love the *Eff Off, You* look he’s giving the camera. hee.
I agree we need something for reference to the fatness. Balance a coffee cup (empty) on his fat butt, and bonus! you can send it to stuffonmycat!
To Jen — try not to blame yourself for your kitty’s passing. My boyfriend had a cat who was just shy of 2, not overweight at all, pass in exactly the same way. Wandered up to the food dish and suddenly, he was gone. The veterinarian told us it was most likely an embolism, and not only are they are born with the predisposition, but it’s fairly random when it might affect them. You did your best and that’s all you can do.
He’s a veritable mountain of cat, and he looks very huggable. However, with the pissy look he’s throwing over his shoulder at being caught on tape, I’d sleep with one eye open…
Jen: Aw. I’m so sorry about your fuzzy buddy.
They’re back on their diet, because they’re getting older and I don’t want them to develop health problems that can be avoided, but I suspect the best I can hope for with Little Joe is “merely fat,” versus “gigantically, tides-affectingly fat,” because he’s…just fat. He just is. Always has been. When I got him, he’d been on the street for two weeks and he was still 12 blobby pounds.
The only thing I have in any of the pictures as a size reference is…the other cat. Who is 14 and a half pounds his own orange self. I’ll work on it. They’re so sick of me trying to take pictures of them at this point that they’re about to Cameron Diaz my ass but I will do my best.
Jen,
that’s so sad, and yeah, cat fatness is not that funny when you consider that much like human obesity, it comes at a high price for the sufferer. I don’t think you should beat yourself up over dieting not working, because I doubt that dieting works much better for quadrupeds that it does bipeds. If I were to go on a diet, I’m pretty sure I’d be miserable even as I understood why that had to happen, and I’d be thinking about the food a lot more than usual unless I kept myself busy. I’d much rather skip the dieting, and exercise, if that’s what I had to do. Why should it not be worse for cats or dogs we own, who we quickly make dependent on us as a food source, only to later deprive them of food for no reason, in the pet’s pov?
In the long run, it’s a lot better to provide tons of opportunities for activity. Granted, cats are not dogs, they prowl rather than run, but it can’t hurt to provide them with opportunities, i.e. incentives, to run around. And yeah, it’s pretty hard to do with an indoor cat (I have one, and the only way I could adopt him was by signing a contract that asserted I would keep him as that), but hey, the best we can do is keep trying to get them to stay active (added benefit – games that require owner to get their butt off the couch is also good for the owner).
“with the pissy look he’s throwing over his shoulder at being caught on tape, I’d sleep with one eye open…”
[insert joke about donut just out of frame here]
Now THAT is a whole lotta cat going on!!!!
And I thought my rotund Callie was fat…
Though her head certainly looks wee next to the mass of her solid, 15lb body, I have a feeling *she* would look wee next to Little Joe there.
My cat Nash topped out at 24 lbs, which was pretty apalling. The vet’s office treated me like I was pouring pudding down her throat or something (and she was NO FUN hauling around Brooklyn, let me tell you).
Got her weight down to 15-17 pounds when I stopped free-feeding her and gave her food for “less active” cats, i.e. fat. Kept her at that weight for years.
Missed all that pudge when she went into renal failure a couple of years later. She was only 8 lbs when we finally put her to sleep after months of treatment (and that thing about them letting you know when they’re ready? she totally did).
Jen, you didn’t do anything wrong. Just mourn her loss, but don’t blame yourself.
Sars,
We should totally set Joe up with my little-head-fat-body Beatrice.
They would make mountainous babies….Yeah yeah she’s fixed. Let a girl dream about rolly-polly kittes OK?
Awww… he’s so cute; I just want to reach through the screen and rub that tummy!
That said, he is a big, big, boy — good luck with the diet program. I don’t suppose you can put a harness and leash on him and walk him up and down the stairs of your apartment once a day?
Holy chubby kitty!
But cute!
There’s a kitty in my extended family who is 28 lbs of cat. His belly has no fur due to permanent carpet burn. If you make fat cat comments, he totally gives dirty looks; he has been known to accidentally knock over people when he rubs against their legs in a friendly manner.
Oh, sweet kitty!
I have a Maine Coon who weighs 28.5 lb. He looks like a badger and scares everyone who comes to visit. (Even though he has NO idea how big he is. And he’s a *cough* pussy.)
I don’t want him to get diabetes or die waaaaayyy before his time, so yeah, a diet. Oh. Joy.
Sweet fancy Moses, that’s a loooot of caaaat. I think Robert Earl Hughes’s wandering soul has found a new body to inhabit.
I’m also reminded of Sideshow banter, talking up the Fat Lady:
“It takes a freight train to lug her, ten men to hug her! Her Bermuda shorts are big as Bermuda!”
To get the full (heh) effect, you should shoot him next to a known-sized object, like a kitty police line-up (‘Roll to the left, sir! Roll to the right, sir!”) Do you have a breadbox, perchance?
He doesn’t look “kinda big” or “sorta fat”. He is a big fat whale of a cat! Although he looks incredibly cuddly and warm. Is he extra bitchy in the summertime because of the heat?
No, he’s fine — scrambly and pesty as ever. He is *really* furry, though, I will say that in his defense. Not that he’s not fat also, because doy, but although he’s not a long-haired cat, he is very very densely planted in the fur department, which gives him an even more dandelion-esque figure.
He’s attacking an origami bird right now. Not the smartest butterball in the freezer case, that one.
However, if you put him on a sit-com, he’d have a totally skinny, hot kitty-wife. I’m not saying, I’m just saying…. King of Queens, World According to Jim. Whatevs. Although he is making me reconsider the whole vertical stripes give the appearance of thinness theory.
I love your stories about Little (“not so much”) Joe and the Hobe. Your pictures are impressive–they resemble the foothills in Kentucky a bit .
I had to write because one of our cats, Houdini, has recently decided that the only way to gain dominance over the other three cats is to become the largest cat in the house, and therefore she is doing her level best to aspire to be like Little Joe. She is also a meatloaf, but she’s not The Meatloaf–that isn’t from lack of trying. How have you survived the attempts to thwart cat dieting?
Is little Joe the “dominant” cat?
Shonda, that’s not a completely outrageous weight for a Maine Coon! Those babies are HUGE! I have a half-Maine Coon/half tabby & he’s 18 pounds & fit as a fiddle. Please ask your vet before putting yours on a diet, he may not need one. And hug him for me? I love ’em! (‘Specially that little trill in the way they meow, I’m a sucker for a talky cat!)
Hey thanks to everyone for their kind words. I am very thankful that my kitty didn’t suffer, but the suddenness of the whole thing left me no time to get used to the idea that he was “going”. I guess I’m still just kind of reeling. Coming home every day without him there is just not getting any easier. And my other cat, Gabriel, is positively discombobulated. He’s part Siamese, so he just roams through the house mewing. He so doesn’t understand where his buddy went.
Most vets reccomend that even Maine Coons must not top the scales at more than 24 lbs. But yeah, having the vet check the individual cat out for fitness before ordering a diet.
Jen, if you’re in a position to, and if you’re up to it, you might want to find another buddy for your Gabriel (as if the thought hadn’t occurred to you already). For those who are used to companionship, it really is better for them to have a furry friend.
It’s even better for those who hate the idea, a la Hobey, to have someone else to hiss at, and chase. It just is.
I know it’s probably early days for you, but it’s not something Gabe can do for himself (I think; mine used to bring home kittens to me).