Cat weighing 18kg in the running to be the world’s fattest moggy

Meow is in the running to be the world’s fattest cat after tipping the scales at 18kg (2st 9lb).

The greedy two-year-old is four times the weight of a normal cat after gorging on rich and fatty left-overs.

Now he is too big to be taken care of by his 87-year-old owners, vets have taken over and put Meow on a diet.

They say he weighs the equivalent of a 273kg (43st) human and displays ‘all the health risks that you would see in a morbidly obese person’.

‘There is extra pressure on his heart from all that extra fat he’s carrying around,’ said Dr Jennifer Steketee of the Santa Fe Animal Shelter in New Mexico, US. ‘It’s also tough on his joints. He has a stiff little stilty walk.’

Shelter spokesman Ben Swan added: ‘He’s very sweet. But he loses his breath and tires easily. We got him a scratching post with a carpeted ring attached but he couldn’t even get his head through.

‘He had no interest in the super-sized toy mouse we gave him either.’

Himmy from Australia was the last recorded heaviest cat who weighed 21.3kg (3st 4lb). He has since died. Guinness World Records has now scrapped the record over concerns it would encourage people to overfeed pets.