Fat cat needs a home

The morbidly obese cat was surrendered at the shelter in Mesa on Tuesday after being shuffled from home to home over the years.Shelter spokesman Melissa Gable says Meatball is 'the biggest cat I have ever seen' and that he 'doesn't move too quickly'.Meatball's last owners took him in from someone else and had cared for the cat for about six months before he started 'having accidents around the house' so they gave him up.They said he was that size when they got him and they didn't know why he was so fat since they had only been feeding him cat food. But Ms Gable says she doesn't know how accurate that is 'because cat food isn't typically going to make a cat this large'.She says eating human table scraps, or being left food out all day can make a cat that fat but Meatball's weight could be a result of an underlying condition like a thyroid problem. She doesn't know if that's the case with Meatball since they haven't done any blood work yet.To take off the pounds, the shelter has now put Meatball on a restricted, low calorie diet - feeding him a little bit of wet food in the morning and at night. Meatball isn't too interested in the food however, further proving Ms Gable's theory that he hasn't been on a regulated diet.'Most cats, if you give them canned food - that's heaven. So when I opened [a can] I thought he'd some right over,' she said.Instead Meatball picks at the wet food, eating a little now and coming back to eat some more later - never eating the full portion in one sitting.Because of Meatball's size, he can't stay in any of the normal cat kennels so he hangs out in the administrative offices at the shelter's Phoenix location. While Meatball is extremely friendly, due to his health the shelter will not be putting him up adoption.His weight puts him at risk for serious medical problems and he already has glaucoma in one eye. Instead they are looking to find Meatball a spot at a rescue organization that specializes in overweight cats.The sanctuary they are currently looking at would carefully monitor Meatball's weight loss, and since he should be 12 pounds it's going to take some time. This isn't the first hefty car that the shelter has brought in. Last year the shelter took in a 28-pound stray. Meatball also happens to be the name of the famouly-fat cat in the film Anger Management, starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. (dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az