Cat Food on Lockdown

It was that dreaded time of year again—time for Bacardi to go to the vet. Just for his annual checkup of course, but again I’d have to witness the stern look on the vet’s face as I’m told that Bacardi is overweight, and I should do more to take control of it.

The thing is, I have a lot of control over Bacardi’s (and Smirnoff’s) food. Yet they manage to eat a lot anyway.

I should also mention that Bacardi has food allergies. He’s on a novelty protein, limited ingredient diet. Currently, he eats Blue Buffalo Basics for his dry food and Natural Balance L.I.D. for his wet food. (The Natural Balance dry food was giving him diarrhea for some reason, and the Blue Buffalo wet food is just too expensive, about twice the price of NB, which is already pricey.) Smirnoff eats the wet food with Bacardi in the morning, but their dry food is eaten separately because Smirnoff is on Science Diet w/d dry due to his tendency to get urine crystals.

It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. Each morning, my cats split a 6oz can of wet food, which they eat side by side. In the evening, they get 1/4 cup of their own dry food, which I feed them in separate rooms, usually in a food puzzle. Treats are minimal, because any training I do, I do with a few bits of dry food. (My cats are that food motivated.)

So everything should be under control, right? The problem is, both cats love food. They’d do anything for it. They wake me up every morning at 5am for breakfast, bolt toward the kitchen any time I get up, and demand dinner from about 6pm through 10pm (even if they’ve already eaten it). They are also thieves. 

Numerous times I have found the cat food broken into. Even when, in my old apartment, I kept the cat food in tupperware, in the cabinet above the sink, with two strips of duct tape holding the door closed. THEY STOLE THE FOOD. I would walk into the kitchen to find food spilled everywhere, and two sheepish cats who no longer wanted any dinner.

Then there was the time they broke into the freezer. I came home from work to find hot dogs and aluminum foil on the floor of my apartment. Confused, I went into the kitchen. The freezer door was open, all of its contents defrosted, and little scraps of meat were on the floor with their wrappers. Between the two of them, my roommate Cassandra and I calculated that they had eaten five and a half hot dogs and one steak. How they got the freezer door open, we have no idea. Smirnoff and Bacardi dozed the evening away.

So it was a lot of trepidation that I stepped into the vet’s office. It was a new vet, too, since I moved. Bacardi was nervous (as always) and displayed his fear by constantly purring and rubbing himself over everything in the room—the examination table, the garbage, my legs, the walls, and he even rolled all over the floor.

But the vet was super nice and as I held my breath, she weighed Bacardi. 11.12 lbs.

Bacardi is down from 12 lbs. the previous year!

I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been extra strict about his diet. But really, I think I’ve just gotten better at hiding the food.