Ready for adoption: a tabby that's tubby

Mercury News ^ | 9/13/02 | S.L. Sykes

[NormsRevenge]

Four-year-old Kate Holland, who weighs about 35 pounds, looks in at Diamond at the Peninsula Humane Society.

No one at the Peninsula Humane Society in San Mateo knows how the adoptable cat called Diamond came to tip the scales at 30 pounds.

[NormsRevenge]

DUMP DAVI$ & the Den of Socialists



GO SIMON

[LibWhacker]

Did they call these people?
Maybe he's theirs.

[Mr. Lucky]

Children are adopted.

Cats are bought and sold.

[Grut]

"There's good eating on one of those" - Alf

[browardchad]

We've got a cat that size. He displays symptoms of autism (not a joke), and generally mystifies vets. Had to teach him how to eat without climbing into the food bowl and how to use a litter box (usually a natural instinct) as a very large abandoned weeks-old kitten. He's not well socialized, eats like a pig, is fairly obnoxious, barely squeezes through a cat door, likes to spar with our 130-pound dog, but in general doesn't bother humans if they don't bother him.

One's enough, though.

[Lady Jag]

What's his name? Is it something tough like Rocky or is it a misnomer like Snowball?

[afraidfortherepublic]

Well my Ragdoll cat, Kitty.com, is getting to this size since we adopted Max, a large Golden Retriever. Max is a perfect gentleman with her, but she will have none of him -- preferring to spend her time on a counter in the laundry room. She hasn't come down since April, except to use the litter box. I had to get her a "step pedastal" to get up there because she's too fat to jump by herself. She's just getting fatter and fatter because she gets NO exercise.

Max would like to be friends, but she's just being nasty!

[LibKill]

That's one fat cat!

He can't be a stray/feral cat. Someone had to be feeding him on a regular basis, and way too much.

Enough about cats.

If you want a real friend who will lay his life down for you, think Dog.

[Black Agnes]

cat ping!

[Dog]

Is that a cat....or a Lion on steriods.

[LibKill]

Is that a cat....or a Lion on steriods?

It is a common housecat that has been fed too much for too long. The camera angle makes it look like The Cat That Ate Detroit.

[valkyrieanne]

Uh oh ... is this what a high-carb diet does to a cat?

[piasa]

The litter box is not a natural instinct...that is something cats have to be taught. Cats that were taken from their mother too early very rarely learn to cover their stuff. Cats that weren't, almost always do. I had a mother cat who would pick up here kittens before they were coordinated enough to walk well, and carry them to the litter box. She'd keep it there until it went, then she would bury it as they feebly mimicked her ... then she'd carry the kitten back and get another kitten and repeat. She would do this for a week or so until they were big enough to do it on their own.

Purring is also 'taught' and isn't an instinct. Kittens that are taken from mom before two weeks don't learn how. I had a coupple who lost their mom to a car at two weeks and they never did learn how to purr. Others report the same thing.

Most kittens are given away about two weeks before the minimum readiness, while their eyes are still blue; sometimes this results in cats who don't fully bury their stuff, and less-than-perfect hunting skills. For a cat to learn proper tree climbing, stalking, hunting, kiling, etc, they should remain with their mother for at least six months. Unfortunately, it's easier to pawn them off while they're still cute so they seldom get that time.

:-D

[browardchad]

The litter box is not a natural instinct...that is something cats have to be taught.

Perhaps, but a few weeks before I brought this one home, we recued a kitten of about the same age, abandoned, as the second one was, at a construction site near my job. He knew what to do with the litter box after one introduction; this one needed constant coaxing, leading, etc. Ditto for eating; we had to manually hold him back from climbing into the dish for many weeks (the vet put him on a mushy formula, and it took a long time, and many painful scratches, to teach him.) The first kitten, after a while, took over his education, and frankly, I don't think he would have progressed otherwise (my arms and hands were fairly torn up by then).

Actually, the vet thought he was blind at first examination. He wasn't, but the neurons weren't firing correctly then, or now.

If I didn't have another kitten of about the same age, the difference/developmental deficiencies wouldn't have been as obvious, I guess.

[Frohickey]

One's enough, though.

One is never enough. ---www.bonsaikitten.com ;)