Cat Sitter Fed Woman's 2 Cats 1,507 Greenies Treats In 6 Days — ‘I Gave Pretty Specific Feeding Instructions’
She's a vet tech and claims that the cats "weren't eating enough."
Nils Jacobi / Shutterstock When it comes to hiring a pet sitter, you want to choose someone you can trust to watch your fur babies and treat them with the utmost care.
Unfortunately, one woman got more than she bargained for after her pet sitter decided to give her cats copious amounts of cat treats.
The sitter claimed that the cats weren’t “eating enough” and had to fill up, while the woman pointed out just how dangerous it can be to overfeed animals.
The woman’s cat sitter gave her two cats 1,507 cat treats over a 6-day period.
In a TikTok video that has been viewed over 260,000 times, the woman who goes by Murph claimed that when she left her pet sitter in charge of her two cats for 6 days, the sitter fed her pets over 1,500 “Greenie” cat treats.
If you’re a cat owner, you are most likely familiar with the cat treat brand that our pets go crazy for every time they hear the bag open. The recommended serving size for one cat is a maximum of 16 treats per day.
However, the woman’s pet sitter, who is a vet tech, determined that her cats needed more than that.
“I gave her pretty specific feeding directions,” Murph wrote in the caption of her video.
The woman also claimed that the sitter let strangers into her home without her permission and that she only found out when she saw her Ring camera footage.
In a follow-up video, Murph shared that her pet sitter believed that the cats needed more food than she was instructed to give them since they 'didn’t eat enough.'
“She said, ‘They don’t eat enough, so I fed them as much as I feed my cats,’” Murph said.
However, as a vet tech dubbed “the neighborhood cat lady,” Murph noted that she should know better.
“I told her a can of wet food EACH (with some water) and like 6 treats a day. I DON'T feed my cats kibble because my younger cat just had a blockage,” she explained in the video’s caption.
Murph added that she has always had her cats on a wet food diet and occasionally gives them treats to keep them healthy.
Many veterinarians recommend wet food over dry food for cats to keep them hydrated. "The water content of dry cat food is typically around 10 percent, which means that 90 percent of the food is providing nutritional value for your cat," Florida-based veterinarian Catherine Barnette told Martha Stewart.
"Canned food, in contrast, usually contains about 75 percent water."
Wet food provides cats with the hydration they need and contributes to improved health. Its nutritional benefits protect cats from urinary tract infections, kidney disease, and dental problems.
Greenies treats, on the other hand, are not something you should be giving your cats an excessive amount of each day.
The recommended serving size for most cats is 16 treats per day, but you may have to give them less depending on their age and weight.
Believe it or not, most vets agree that an appropriate amount of Greenies can be beneficial for your cat’s dental health.
larisa Stefanjuk / Shutterstock
"If you are looking for something for dental health, the cat treat should have something called the VOHC seal on it, which stands for the Veterinary Oral Health Council. That just means that it has proof that the treats may have some dental benefits," veterinarian Dr. Lippman told Good Housekeeping.
Greenies have had the VOHC stamp of approval since 2005.
However, like any pet treat, Greenies are a great way to reward your cat for good behavior, but they should not be the main portion of their diet.
Just like you would not let your kid have ice cream for every meal, you wouldn’t allow your pets to have treats for every meal.
It is especially important to keep this in mind when you are looking after pets that are not even yours and you are given specific instructions on how to care for them.
It doesn’t matter if you are a vet tech or considered “the neighborhood cat lady.” You must respect an owner’s directions they have for their pets.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.