When Big Bertha arrived at Jefferson County Humane Society in late February, the shelter staff members were shocked. Bertha was enormous for a cat of her petite frame and short legs. She weighed a whopping 21 pounds. The poor cat had so many issues plaguing her body, and it immediately became the mission of everyone at the shelter to get her healthy again.
“When she first arrived, we had to use our dog scale to weigh her because she was too large for the kitty scale,” Brandi DeNoon-Damewood, development manager at Jefferson County Humane Society, told The Dodo.” I have been working with shelter animals for over 10 years, and she is, by far, the most overweight kitty I have encountered. Don’t get me wrong, we have had obese kitties come into the shelter before AND some even weighed more than Bertha — but the difference is that NONE of them were as tiny as her. Bertha has a very dainty frame that simply can’t support the weight.”
The vet immediately placed Bertha on a weight management plan along with wound care and exercise, with the help of a sling, to help get her moving again. She had a long way to go, but everyone was rallying behind her.
Bertha’s owner surrendered her to the shelter after no longer being able to care for her properly, especially with all of the vet care she clearly needed. While the shelter staff can’t know exactly how Bertha got to be so big, they have a pretty good idea of what started her down that path.
“Her mouth was full of infected, loose, broken teeth,” DeNoon-Damewood said. “Most kitties with teeth this bad are very thin from lack of appetite and pain with chewing. However, Bertha only ate soft/canned food that she could easily slurp down, and as her pain increased, she ate more and more — just like humans, kitties can become addicted to the happy feeling we get with a full belly. It is believed that she was a street kitty prior to her owner, which also helps shed a little light onto her food guarding and overeating. She may have gone days without any food whatsoever, and those days are forever carried with her throughout the rest of her life.”
Bertha had dental surgery not long after getting to the shelter, a major step on the path to helping her feel better. She had trouble breathing and moving around, both due to her weight, and she was very quiet and scared. As the weight started to fall away, though, so did Bertha’s fears, and soon her bright personality began to burst through.
“She LOVES to ‘talk,’ and when she wants attention, she will call out for you to come over to her — I’m guessing this was a learned habit since she wasn’t very mobile,” DeNoon-Damewood said. “Before the weight started coming off, she seemed uncomfortable and complained — loudly — when we had to move her or get her up for her walk. As she grew stronger and shed more and more weight, her purrrrsonality has blossomed into a vibrant, social, loving kitty.”