Well, it’s offi­cial; Dolly is approx­i­mate­ly 25% over­weight, with a mass of 12.6 pounds. The gut-pok­ing and bel­ly-teas­ing has­n’t been based on noth­ing. Sometimes I wish she could talk so that I could know whether she would rather live a life of glut­tony and go out like Chris Farley sans the cocaine, or whether she would rather live health­ily and restrain her eat­ing. I always leave a dish of food out and it’s obvi­ous that she does­n’t know how to con­trol her eat­ing habits. My deci­sion will prob­a­bly be to make sure that she’s a healthy weight, instead of spoil­ing her and let­ting her eat as much as she wants. That way there’s less chance of dia­betes, heart dis­ease, or oth­er health com­pli­ca­tions down the road. I could start cut­ting back on the amount of food I give her, or start buy­ing diet food, but for now I’ll just mon­i­tor her weight. 25% I can live with, but any more and I’ll have to take action. After all, I like hav­ing a kit­ty that has a bit of a paunch. I’ve come to iden­ti­fy the bel­ly sway­ing walk with her now. And as Aaron says, “A fat cat is a hap­py cat.”