So I'm doing the weigh-in last night. For the boys, this is easy. Zero the scale, wave a kitty treat under the nose of the cat you want, and make sure he has all four paws on the scale for the reading. The hardest part is keeping the other brother from helping.
Billy: 14 lb 6.5 oz
Whitey: 13 lb 5.5. oz.
Clearly neither suffered any ill effects from my absence.
Weighing Emily is a bit more involved. She's deeply suspicious of anything the humans want her to do, figuring it probably involves a trip to the vet, or medicine, or something else she's not going to like. To weigh her, you have to put her food on the scale, zero the scale, then studiously ignore her while she decides the coast is clear. (While being alert to chase off curious tiger kittens.)
So I do all of that, and the reading comes back: 5 lbs 11 oz.
Which is cause for panic. That's close to her lowest weight ever, when she was wasting away from her kidney problems. So we panic a little bit. Actually we panic a lot, since that represents more than a pound lost in just a few weeks.
And then we realize that she doesn't look or act like she's wasting away. She's had some stomach troubles recently, but her appetite seems normal, her coat is healthy, all that good stuff.
So I try weighing her again. And she must have had a paw off before, or maybe the scale wasn't level, because this time the winning number is: 7 lbs 4.5 oz, completely in line with her recent weights.
Whew!
In retrospect, it's clear that she's been feeling unappreciated and used her feline powers of levitation to de-weight herself temporarily.
I need to try that levitation bit next time I weigh myself.
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