Treats for cats when one needs to lose weight

Two cats with different needs is one of the trickier treat situations — you don't want to buy two separate bags and manage who gets what, but you also can't just ignore the weight-management cat's diet. The good news is that cats respond best to strongly-scented, meat-based treats anyway, and the lightest versions of those — freeze-dried single-ingredient options — are naturally low in calories, high in protein, and free from the fillers and sugars that do the most damage. Before I point you in a direction, can I ask: how different are the two cats in terms of how many treats they're getting? Is one being treated frequently for training or enrichment, or are these occasional rewards for both?

That's actually a really manageable situation. A couple of treats each in the evening is a small enough quantity that calories almost take care of themselves — especially if the treats themselves are lean. What I'd want to avoid for the dieting cat is anything with added starch, gravy, or sugar, which rules out most soft treats and a lot of the commercial 'light' options that compensate for fat reduction by adding carbs. Does either cat have any protein sensitivities, or are they both fine with chicken?

Perfect — then I'd go with Zeal Free Range Naturals Freeze-Dried Chicken Cat Treats. They're 100% New Zealand free-range chicken, freeze-dried, nothing else added. The calorie count is genuinely low — around 3 kcal per treat — which means even the cat on the weight plan can have a few without it mattering much. They're also quite intensely flavoured from the freeze-drying process, so both cats tend to find them very appealing. One bag, one treat, works for both — you're not managing two separate routines or worrying about the wrong cat getting the wrong thing.

They're on Amazon UK, and reasonably well stocked — you can usually get them in 30g or 100g bags. The 100g is better value if both cats are getting them regularly. One thing worth knowing: because they're freeze-dried and not soft, some cats take a day or two to figure out the texture. If either of yours is hesitant at first, crumbling one over their evening meal usually does the trick.