My cat has a ‘poge’ on his stomach, even though we feed him as it says for his age and weight. Is there a reason for

Question: My cat has a 'poge' on his stomach, even though we feed him as it says for his age and weight. Is there a reason for this?
- Keywords:
  belly,
  cat,
  podge
Asked by KimJongGrifin to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 6 Mar 2017.
- Carrie Ijichi answered on 6 Mar 2017:
  
  Cats can have quite a flabby looking belly (not just cats!) and that’s ok. It would be a really good idea to get a good body score and look at your cat from above and run your hands over him to get an idea. most important, ask your vet if you’re not sure. You could be feeding him the right amount but he’s lazy boy and isn’t burning off the calories or he just puts weight on easily.
  
  Really great to head someone checking their cats not too fat because that’s a big problem with pets at the moment.
- Ellen Williams answered on 6 Mar 2017:
  
  I can’t comment on the reliability of this website and I am not a vet (just a little disclaimer ;)) but I really like the picture that came up when I had a little google so I read on http://news.petmeds.com/news/common-pet-conditions/why-do-many-cats-have-a-saggy-belly/.
  
  It seems that cats have basically a little pouch (I have seen this on my own cats and always believed it to be something to do with them having been neutered). It seems all these years I have been wrong and in fact it might be a historic thing and it is present in cats ranging from domestic moggies to tigers. It is called a primordial pouch, which has lots of functions including predator evasion and an adaptation to allow the belly to ‘stretch’ when they gorge themselves after a kill.
  
  Hope that answers your question – and I also hope that is correct! Let me know if you find out anymore information though 🙂
- Ines Goncalves answered on 6 Mar 2017:
  
  I’m glad Carrie and Ellen have answered already. To be very honest I had no idea what “pogue” was and had been scratching my head since yesterday trying to figure out what your cat had. He has a bit of belly! 🙂 If you’re worried about it, take it to the vet as Carrie said. But if he acts normally and doesn’t seem in pain or anything, try to get him a toy that he really likes to make him exercise more than usual and see if that makes a difference in a few weeks.
- Cedric Tan answered on 6 Mar 2017:
  
  Oh cool! There might be several reasons for this, as described by the other scientists. Pregnant? haha just kidding.
  
  Perhaps you could check the food label of the food you are giving him, sometimes, it could be there’s a high fat percentage although you are feeding him at the correct times and with the right number of times.
  
  It could also be that your cat is eating what he finds in the wild when you let him out, that would be additional calories. 🙂
- Rupert Marshall answered on 6 Mar 2017:
  
  Sorry, I’m not an expert on animal health – I’ll leave the others to answer. If you’re worried about it’s health, do ask a vet.