Side effects of buying a new scale...:)

Otrepsi

I just got a new scale because I wanted one that measured body fat. Well, it also happens to weigh in 0.1 increments (my old one weighed in 1/2 pound increments) which means.....my cat is now on a diet! The old scale always weighed the same amount of difference (I assume it was rounding or something) when I stepped on with her, then without her, so I thought she was staying constant. Turns out she's gained 0.9 pounds! Doesn't sound like much, but it's 10% of what she weighed, so it'd be like a 150 lb. person gaining 15 pounds!

Lucky for her, she doesn't have to count calories. Just means 1/2 cup of food per day rather than the 3/4 cup we've been giving her. Being a veterinary technician, I've seen way too many bad things happen because of obesity in cats. Did you know, that if an overweight cat stops eating for as little as 48 hours, his body will begin breaking down fat in such quantities that the liver will clog with fat and effectively shut down, and that if this is not treated in time, the cat will die?! My kitty got a tiny little infected ulcer on her tongue once and didn't eat for 3 days, so if she had been fat, she could've cost hundreds of dollars in treatment for her liver, rather than the $30 for the antibiotics for her tongue. I refuse to have a fat cat!