Now 25 percent less Pumpkin!

Look at those haunches!

Yesterday I took the beasties to the vet for their annual checkup -- is that septannual in cat years? I was keenly interested in how much weight Pumpkin has lost. He weighed 17 pounds when I adopted him in fall of 2007, but during the process of moving to Virginia he gained some weight. Last January he weighed 19 pounds, 8 ounces. I received a stern scolding from the vet. Giselle's feeding cage was soon created, and I switched both of them to high-quality foods with no grains.

Last fall I had to take him to the vet for his eye, and I was hoping that he had lost significant weight. The scale disagreed: 18 pounds, 3 ounces. I told the vet I had been working on it. "Keep working ..." he said. "Look, he has haunches now!" I said. Looking at me over the tops of his glasses, the vet said "Uh, those are slight indentations. Not haunches." Time to decrease portion size even more.

Yesterday's weigh-in was 15 pounds! Look at those haunches now! He still has another three pounds to lose, but he has so much more energy now. He can run a bit, which I don't think pleases Zellie. He is much, much more playful, and the fur on his back is softer because he can now reach it to groom.

Over the past year he has lost four-and-a-half pounds -- a quarter of his body weight. But he is definitely not happy about the food restriction and has not given up on asking me for food whenever I am in the kitchen. He is a stubborn and persistent little fellow, and now that he can move around better I can't leave any food at all on the counter! Not even bread still in the wrapper.