Mike Wilson and Megan Hanneman work for a small private firm that makes special cat wall seats, shelves and ladders.
All this is done to make pampered and lazy house cats more comfortable and interesting to move around the apartment.
To «test» all the facilities, Mike and Megan have two cats living with them. But about a month ago they decided to get another cat from the shelter. When they went to the local shelter, the first cat they came across was a cat of incredible size named Bronson.
The cat was so fat he could barely walk and lay down most of the time. Mike and Megan didn’t take anyone from the shelter that day, but when they got home, all their conversations were about that fat cat.
The shelter administrator told them that Bronson is a very gentle and calm cat and that he is only 3 years old and that he came to the shelter after the death of his elderly owner, who most likely fed him greasy scraps from his plate.
Mike and Megan went back to the shelter the next day and they were determined to adopt Bronson and help him get his weight back to normal.
«Bronson turned out to be very affectionate and immediately started purring and pawing us when we started petting him. And then we saw that he had large extra toes on his paws. Bronson turned out to have polydactyly. His soft paws with those toes looked like mittens.»
The guy and his girlfriend immediately took Bronson to the vet for a checkup. There they were told that it is very important for fat cats to lose weight as slowly as possible, since rapid weight loss can be fatal for them. They developed a special diet for the cat, and he gets 375 calories a day, of which half dry food and half wet food.
«At the vet clinic, Bronson charmed everyone, too. To see our giant, all the doctors and nurses took turns coming into the room. They admired his thick ‘mittens’ and strong body.»
Bronson lay on the floor most of the day, but now they played with him for at least 20 minutes a day with different catnip toys. They also came up with the idea of carrying him away from his favorite pillow so that he would walk back to it on his own.
Then they came up with the idea of taking him to the top floor to go down the stairs. But when they saw that it was very difficult for the cat to do this, they left the stairs for a later stage of weight loss.
His original weight was 33 pounds, and now a month later he weighs 31.3 pounds. At this slow and careful pace, Bronson has a good chance of getting back to normal in a year.
