"Your cat is obese." The veterinarian had animal print glasses on the tip of her nose and a look of disapproval in her eyes. Aaron looked like he was about to say something, and I was relieved because I certainly didn't know how to explain Lucy's extra poundage.
(...well, I guess the fruit roll ups, cheese poofs and whip cream didn't help matters, but I really didn't feel like telling this lady the reason my roly poly cat was so chunky was because I'd been loading her up with high fructose corn syrup...she was already openly judging me and she didn't even know how bad I really was yet, and well, I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have to go down that road so...)
"Do you see how small her head is?" We stared at Lucy's melon and she stared back. After a minute, she meowed. I think she was saying, "So I need to lose a few pounds! Who doesn't!?"
Now the vet was grabbing Lucy's haunches. "Have you noticed how big she is back here?" I heard Aaron mumble, "How could you miss it?!" The vet didn't hear him and continued, "It's not very proportionate to her small cranium... now is it??"
I looked from Lucy's head down to her tail with exaggerated neck and head movements (I wanted the doc to know I was taking this seriously...).
"Ah...I see what you mean." I nodded my head and cupped my chin. "I guess I just thought she was 'pear shaped'...you know...bad genes??" The last of this came out as a squeak.
"When I took her in the back room, we wiped down her backside with a warm wet rag and that seemed to take care of the situation back there." The vet lowered her voice as she said this. I looked around and it was still just the three of us.
Aaron was picking wayward cat hairs off his jacket as he said, "Yeah, we were wondering about that. Is there anything we can do? She seems to get a lot of stuff stuck back there if you know what I mean..."
"You can take a warm washcloth and just wipe her down back there. That should do the trick. She's such a sweet girl. When we were cleaning her hiney, she was just licking away at her little paws, trying to do her part." She patted Lucy. "A lot of the bigger girls will try to groom where they can when we clean them up."
Aaron was mulling over what the vet had just shared about Lucy's hygiene. "You mean to tell me we gotta wipe her butt for her because she's too FAT to reach it herself??"
"Yep." The vet acted like everyone followed their pets around, waiting for them to defecate so they could wipe them. I was considering the logistics of this new responsibility myself. What kind of washcloth were we going to use?? How would we get it clean? Would we use a brand-new one each time? How often would we need to do it? I had MILLIONS of questions, but I felt like it made me seem uncaring to balk at the idea of cleaning up my own cat's back door.
"There's something else I wanted to ask you about." The vet was looking from me to Aaron. I leaned in, hoping she wasn't going to ask me what kind of treats we gave Lucy (Aaron would rat me out for sure!). "There are two scars on her back. What are they from?" Aaron looked uneasy as he shifted his weight from foot to foot and scratched Lucy under the chin.
Shit. I was hoping this wouldn't come up. The vet at the emergency animal hospital had made me feel like a criminal when we had taken Lucy in a couple of months prior.
"Oh...those. Well, I...er, what happened was..." Aaron saw me floundering and stepped in.
"She cut Lucy on accident. She was trying to give her a haircut and didn't realize part of her skin was mixed in with all the hair. We had to take her to the ER. She needed 8 staples!"
I interupted him, exclaiming, "I didn't know! Her hair was so long, and I couldn't get her into the groomer and I was working a lot of hours and it's been so hot and I didn't even know I was hurting her! Honest! She PURRED through the entire thing!!! What kind of animals purrs while you chop up her back?! I felt terrible...I still do! Lesson learned! No at-home haircuts for cats!" I was talking a mile a minute and I had started sweating.
The vet sighed. I was starting to feel a little nervous. How had I become a dead-beat pet owner?! When did this happen??
She was treating me the way I'd seen burned-out teachers treat clueless parents in meetings about their failing kid that was bringing firecrackers and nunchucks to school. I could tell she was very close to her breaking point, and I started to wonder if there was an animal cps.
"Look, I'm going to say this nicely." She paused and took a long, slow drink from her "Dogs are wooftastic!" mug. I swallowed, on the edge of tears. This was not me! I didn't have my pets taken away! I was responsible! "You might want to buy a book and learn a little about your cat. Cats purr when they are happy, but they also purr in times of distress as a means to calm themselves down."
"Oh." I said this with a rising and falling intonation to indicate to the doctor that I had received her message. I wanted her to know that I was having an 'a-ha" moment.
She didn't seem to notice as she scribbled something in Lucy's chart before shutting it abrubtly and hugging to her chest.
"Rhonda has some diet cat food for you in the reception area. Please make sure she has 8 small meals a day and try to get her to be more active." Immediately, I thought, Who the hell is going to feed Lucy all these times per day?? How do other people do it? Are they stay-at-home cat people?? That can't be!
As if reading my mind, the vet said, "You can get an automatic feeder. It will dispense just a small amount of food every few hours. We're going to give you some low-carb food. She'll be on a kitty version of the Atkins diet."
Ok, I thought, but how am I supposed to get her to move? It wasn't like I hadn't tried. I had! I got her a harness and made an attempt to take her on walks, but she just rolled over on her back trying to attack the leash. Even when I'd tugged, assuming she'd pop up like my childhood dog would, she didn't. I dragged her for a few feet before I gave up.
Other people must have the same difficulties, I thought. After all, she had told us about the automatic feeder. Maybe she knew how to make Lucy get fit. I cleared my throat and said, "Do you have any suggestions on how we can get her to move more? I tried to take her on a walk, but she wasn't being very agreeable."
The vet looked at me for a full minute which I'm sure, probably seems like a short amount of time to you, but when someone is staring you down, it feels like forever! She sounded aggrevated as she shook her head saying, "Cats don't go on walks. Dogs do. You can try dangling yarn or feathers. You can get a laser pointer. Go to pet smart. Take a look around."
I nodded, feeling like an idiot.
We picked up our little sausage and headed to the check out area. She nuzzled into my armpit, hiding her beetlejuice head. (If Lucy can't see you, she assumes you can't see her either...)
We paid the bill and headed home with our fatty patty pet.
For the record, we bought not one, not two, but all of the toys the vet had mentioned. We were hopeful when Lucy seemed excited to explore her new exercise equipment. She worked on eating each item for a full three minutes until she discovered they weren't actually food. Then she went and took a nap for the rest of the afternoon...
...and I got busy eating the rest of the cheesy poofs and fruit rollups that were left in the house to get rid of the anxiety I was having about facing our vet at the next appointment (Lucy and I are both emotional eaters).
I'm not sure how we're going to get Lucy to do some cardio. I wish there was a Biggest Loser Fat Camp for cats...
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