31-Pound Cat Forced Onto Diet

A cat weighing 31.4 pounds has been forced onto a diet because of his dangerous weight.

The fat feline, who is named, Buddha, has been prescribed a serious diet and exercise because of his unhealthy state. The 6-year-old cat was put up for adoption by it previous owner, and rescued by a shelter in Nashville, Tennessee.

However, now that he has a new abode, Buddha has also been forced to develop a new healthy lifestyle too.

Chris Achord, a pet shop owner, is currently caring for Buddha at his shop, The Cat Shoppe, and they are now aiming to reduce his weight to around 19 or 20 pounds, so that he be adopted.

Photographer, Penny Adams, who originally found Buddha at the Metro Animal Care & Control before bringing Buddha to The Cat Shoppe, revealed, “I went there on Friday and saw him for the first time, and when I went back on Tuesday he was still there. I saw him in his little cage and I just thought, ‘You know, that’s not good for him.’ There had been a death in the family and they weren’t able to continue caring for him.”

Unfortunately, Buddha, who has already drawn comparisons to Garfield, TV’s infamous lasagna loving fat cat, would rather just eat people food and despises dieting. Buddha pines for pasta and even gets excited around lunch and tea time when humans normally eat.

Achord told the Tennesean, “We tried to give him the gastrointestinal food, the metabolic food, but he didn’t like it. Whoever owned him before must have been feeding him human food, and that is not good at all for a cat’s health. I’ve been rescuing for over 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

She then added, “A pound a month is our goal. In a year hopefully he’ll be down to 19 or 20 pounds. It’s going to be hard, though. It’s just really sad because he can’t even clean himself. We’re going to be working with Animalia in Franklin with the exercise program. We want to make sure we do it right.”