Last Updated on May 27, 2026 by admin
A white-and-gray cat the approximate dimensions of a small ottoman is currently confined to a bedroom in Mechanicsville, Virginia. He is recovering. He is also plotting.
His name is Patches. Three years ago he weighed 42 pounds. Today he weighs 17.
The numbers are real. Patches was surrendered to Richmond Animal Care and Control on April 19, 2023. The intake photo the shelter posted to Facebook that morning showed something closer to a beanbag chair wearing a face.
Kay Ford saw the post within hours. She drove to the shelter. She left with 42 pounds of cat in a carrier that did not entirely close.
That was 2023. Today, three years and twenty-five pounds later, Patches has 54,000 Facebook followers who track his progress in increments most people reserve for newborns. His goal weight is 16 pounds. His current weight is somewhere around 17. As CBS 6 Richmond noted in its three-year adoption anniversary coverage, the shelter still calls him one of its proudest adoption stories.
He has also earned a nickname from the Richmond press: Steamroller Patches. The name is not affectionate exaggeration. WTKR documented the incident in which Patches — at a respectable thirty-something pounds — used sustained, low-frequency headbutting to physically break through a closed pantry door. The wood gave up before he did. Ford still has the door.
The internet, predictably, lost its mind.
A cat the dimensions of small carry-on luggage who refuses to be told no plays well on every platform. Patches has been profiled by CBS 6, Fox Richmond, the Cole & Marmalade blog, and roughly every Canadian rescue page that found him algorithmically. His three-year adoption anniversary in April 2026 also ran as actual local news on NBC 12. The headline was about a cat. The cat was Patches. The pantry remains famous.
What surprises owners of round cats — and there are millions of them — is not the size. The size is honestly relatable. What surprises them is the personality math.
A cat who could barely walk in 2023 is, in 2026, an animal who breaks doors. The weight loss did not subtract anything from Patches. It revealed what was already inside.
This is the part chubby-cat owners recognize. The cat who can’t quite jump up to the counter is still the cat who would, if he decided to. He simply has not.
This spring, Patches did slow down — and not for the reason you would expect. After he hit a personal record for mobility, Ford noticed he was hissing at people he liked. She took him to the vet. The diagnosis, CBS 6 Richmond reported in March, was either a back injury or previously undiagnosed arthritis. Patches is now on gabapentin and an anti-inflammatory, confined to a single bedroom so he can heal without launching himself at anything.
He is reportedly furious about this.
Even confined, even on pain meds, even past the 25-pound milestone, Patches still asks. He still hears the kibble bag from across the house. He still positions himself near doors.
He has lost more than half his body weight. He is a different shape now — lighter on his feet, easier on his joints, less inconvenient to carry. But the part of him that decided to break through the pantry never lost a single pound.
What’s the most chaotic thing your cat has ever done? Drop it in the comments. 🐱