My big, fat, technophobic cat

My cat Pablo is a voluptuous boy. His primordial pouch, originally thought to protect cats’ squishy insides, hangs low and wobbles to and fro. Once, when he was five or six, a vet sternly sat my spouse and me down, gravely stating, “He’s simply too young to be this fat.”

Pablo didn’t care, but we were traumatized. Now that he’s 10, the vets have repeatedly scolded us. All 20 pounds of his rotundity, they say, cannot continue. The specter of diabetes and kidney problems, and the fact that his obesity combined with a too-small pee-pee hole increases his risk of urinary crystals, mean that a diet is urgent.

I hear this every year. I keep saying “We are trying!!” The vets say, “Try harder! There are plenty of gadgets and toys you can use to stimulate enrichment, manage food, and encourage exercise!” What I don’t think the vets understand is that the state of pet tech is simply no match for Pablo.

As with humans, the key to weight loss in cats is a strict calorie deficit and increased activity. The problem is diets can be notoriously difficult for felines. Their small bodies don’t require that much food, spaying or neutering alters cat metabolisms, and they are famously finicky creatures. They’re also reliant on routines and, in Pablo’s case, can be heavily resistant to change.

Pablo’s war on pet tech and diets all started with a Litter-Robot 4. We initially got it because Pablo’s poops were olfactory crimes. Manually scooping them was causing marital strife. (“He’s YOUR cat,” is what I’d say early on in our relationship. “He’s OUR cat,” my spouse retorted once we got married.)

Meanwhile, lifting Pablo onto one of our scales to monitor his weight would earn many yowls and skippity paps to the face. The Litter-Robot seemed like a clever solution because (1) automated scooping and (2) there’s a built-in scale. Whenever he does his business, I can log into the companion app to see how much he weighs (as well as monitor his bowel movements).

For a time, Pablo allowed us our folly. He was not a fan of the Litter-Robot. He eyed the spinning, globe-shaped bonnet with suspicion, but as a sophisticated, fancy boy, he wasn’t prone to pooping just anywhere. But then we moved to a four-story row home. My spouse and I viewed the three flights of stairs as a good chance for us, Pablo, and our other cat, Petey, to get in more steps. Three of us agreed. You can guess which one of us did not.

For logistical and cleaning purposes, we were not schlepping the Litter-Robot 4 up beyond the second floor. The thing weighs 24 pounds empty, and the thought of repeatedly carrying that up and down three flights of stairs to hose it down was too much. (It’s already bad enough that any litter box on an upper floor requires regularly carrying 15- to 30-pound bags of fresh litter up and down multiple flights.) In our previous apartments, we’d always put the Litter Robot, automated feeders, and pet fountains near the kitchen. But cats are territorial creatures. Before moving, Pablo and Petey shared spaces and litter boxes begrudgingly. With more space, they each established their own kingdoms. Pablo claimed the top floor — the bedroom. Petey claimed the second, where the Litter-Robot and the comfy couch reside. With the resulting borders settled into law, Pablo promptly stopped using the Litter-Robot. He also refuses to venture downstairs, except at 10PM each night to yell and enforce bedtime. We tried to encourage him to use the expensive poop robot anyway.

In protest, he began shitting on the carpet right outside my third-floor office door. The turd war continued for three weeks before we caved.

I’m not rich enough to buy a second Litter-Robot. The newest model costs $800, and while I enjoy a workout, the Litter-Robot 5 is even heavier at 28.7 pounds empty. So I bought a $20 stainless steel, not-very-smart litter box — and a smart pet scale designed to go under it. To save our noses, we put the litter box into one of those stealthy litter box enclosures that look like a regular credenza.

Pablo did not appreciate the new setup. At first, I thought he objected to his new pellet litter. We switched to an ultrafine microcrystal litter for his sensitive paws. He continued shitting outside my office. Turns out, he didn’t like that the under-box scale made the litter box enclosure feel cramped.

We removed it, and now I’m back to weighing him manually every few weeks.

Pablo doesn’t enjoy any form of movement that doesn’t end in a cuddle or treat. Ball tracks? Not a fan. The extremely cute Enabot robot? Icily ignored. We tried robot vacuums so he’d be forced to at least move rooms. Eventually, he started sitting on tables and chairs, watching disdainfully as the robovacs jammed themselves into furniture. Wand toys are viewed with snooty disgust. After a few half-hearted swats, he flops on his back and declares playtime over. He took one look at a cat tower and went, “Nah.” Pablo’s primary amusements are his catnip squirrel, pancaking his emotional support Squishmallows, and sometimes, if the mood strikes him, chasing a laser for three minutes. All he really wants is for me and my spouse to sit quietly with him on the bed, give him chin scratches, obey his strict sleeping schedule, and feed him on time.

Case in point, I sometimes test smart alarm clocks. But as I wrote in my review of the now-defunct Amazon Halo Rise, Pablo is an “affection eater.” This may seem absurd to non-cat owners, but some cats genuinely insist on company at mealtime. Pablo requires a witness, someone to sit on the floor next to him as he painstakingly eats each kibble bit one by one. (And to guard his meal from Petey.) He insists breakfast is promptly at 5:30AM, so when the automatic feeder goes off, I must sit with him for 10 to 15 minutes as he eats, occasionally redirecting Petey’s greedy face to his own bowl. He obviously doesn’t like any gadget that may encourage a variable wake-up time, such as a smart alarm clock that gently glows depending on sunrise times. He has knocked plenty off the nightstand, viewing his method of smothering me with his fluffy belly as superior.

After viewing some TikToks of cats enjoying walking pads, I called in a smart walking pad for review. Healthy for me, potentially healthy for my cats to get more steps in. Alas, this too ended up being a bust. I got stressed out by the smart features. Even the more mischievous Petey, with his one brain cell, could not process the concept of himself walking on the pad. All he did was bat at my feet while I walked on it. Pablo rolled off the belt when I tried putting him on it at a very low speed.

In case you were wondering, Pablo also doesn’t consent to the pet surveillance state. He’s a handsome boy, but he hates getting his photo taken. Every single photo taken for this piece required bribes and cajoling. Most of the photos I have of him on my camera roll are of him sleeping, belly up. He’s learned to turn his head away from smartphone cameras. Petey now also does the same. So much so that my main use for smart glasses cameras is to get cute cat videos. (They have not yet learned what a white recording light is.)

I installed various pet cams because I was curious about how often Pablo was actually eating and moving around. I can also be a helicopter pet mom whenever we travel. But whereas Petey will purposefully mog for the pet cam, rolling around on the living room floor at 3AM like a demonic potato, Pablo will slink off into closets outside the camera’s field of view. I thought we outsmarted him by buying a fancy Petlibro automatic feeder with a built-in camera before a two-week vacation to Italy. Nope. We’d only just landed in Rome when, after checking in on the feed, we saw that the feeder had been knocked over.

I had to immediately call my pet sitter to go and cater to his whims.

Pablo 7, Tech 1 (I count the smart glasses as a win)

After eight years of technological warfare, however, there are two gadgets that Pablo tolerates — likes, even. One is the Petlibro cat fountain. He loves a fountain. The other is our Eight Sleep smart mattress cover. Like all cats, he loves a warm surface. So now, instead of climbing into a toasty bed every night, I have a staring contest with Pablo as he dares me to move him from my spot. I always win because I can just shove him over. But it’s not without some irritated meows and a lot of sass.

As for Pablo’s weight loss plan… The next obvious step would be RFID feeders to be 100 percent sure that Petey and Pablo aren’t overeating when we can’t supervise meals. You stick a collar with an RFID tag so that the feeder only allows a specific cat to eat. The only problem is they’re expensive, our current feeders aren’t broken, and Pablo hates collars. I have debated sticking a pet fitness tracker on Pablo. Ultimately, I decided against it because not only does he hate collars, but I already attempted it with my elderly Yorkie before she passed. The data tends to be more wellness-focused than actually useful for encouraging exercise.

Frankly, we adopted Petey because we thought a younger cat might encourage him to move around and play. Petey adores Pablo. The affection remains unrequited. My spouse has given up. Pablo is just destined to be round, they say. They constantly remind me that we already strictly control his food intake, and the pounds ain’t coming off.

I happen to think that maybe this is a Petey-and-tech problem. Perhaps a third kitten might do the trick.