A purrfect 10: Tilly tips scales at 11kg

Debby Foster was surprised to see two people carrying a cat carrier into Cat Rescue Dunedin. She soon found out why.

Inside the carrier was Tilly, an 11.6kg behemoth.

When Foster took her to the vet the next day, she couldn’t lift the cat carrier with one hand.

Tilly was so large she struggled to clean herself and her rear was covered in dags. Her body fat prevented the vet from detecting her heartbeat.

‘‘She was the largest cat our vet has ever seen,’’ said Foster.

The vet used a chart numbered one (too thin) to nine (too fat) to determine her body shape.

‘‘She was a 10. Every girl wants to be a 10.’’

Tilly had been cared for by an elderly woman, but was surrendered after she kept getting under her owner’s feet and became a fall risk. The cat was on a weight-management food when she arrived.

Since then, Tilly has lost just more than 500g – the equivalent of a block of butter.

Tilly was adopted from the SPCA in 2020, weighing 6.9kg. Her notes from the time showed the vet recommended she shed 2kg. Instead she almost doubled in weight.

‘‘She must have been overeating, possibly some human food, we suspect,’’ said Brenna Gould, a Cat Rescue Dunedin vet nurse.

Cats with a regular frame like Tilly’s should weigh about 5kg, Gould said.

‘‘I can quite confidently say she is double what she needs to weigh.

‘‘People’s idea of a healthy looking pet isn’t a healthy pet.

Generally, we keep them overweight . . . You need to see more of a waist, you need to feel the ribs.’’

Foster tried to find a harness to take Tilly for some much-needed exercise, but cat harnesses were too small, and the dog ones too heavy.

‘‘She must be a relatively smallboned cat under all of that.’’

After Tilly initially shed weight at the Caversham-based charity, she put on weight again when her meal sized was increased by 5g. The increase was quickly reversed, and she now gets a wet-food pouch and one ration of dry food each day.

It is important that her weight loss occurs gradually as she faces potential health issues, including diabetes and arthritis. ‘‘She is surprisingly agile given how fat she is,’’ Gould said. ‘‘She is determined, but she has a fat-cat waddle.’’

Foster said Cat Rescue Dunedin planned to keep her at the premises until her diet was sorted and she lost weight.

The charity offered supportive adoption, which means they cover vet bills or specialist food for some adopted cats.

‘‘With Tilly the condition would be that we would have a lot of input into what she is eating and what she is doing . . . and keep her weighed all the time.’’

Despite the challenges she faced, Tilly ‘‘just loves all the cuddles and attention’’.

That attention is expected to increase as her Cat Rescue Dunedin documents her weight-loss journey.

Tilly is not the first feline to make headlines for heftiness. In 2012, Stuff reported on super-sized Meow, of Santa Fe, tipping the scales at 18.1kg.

And in 2020, Wellington’s own Mog Mog weighed in at 10.4kg.