Notes from a flat shared with two very large, very lazy cats: Bublik and Masha.
He has a perfectly good bed. It is soft, it is warm, it cost more than my shoes. He ignores it. Anything fresh out of the dryer, though, is his within a minute. The vet says big cats like warm, enclosed spots, and clean towels are both. I have stopped fighting it and now fold around him.
Masha weighs seven kilos and most of it is fur, which makes it hard to tell when she is gaining. What helped: weighing her portions instead of guessing, splitting food into three small meals, and a puzzle feeder that makes her work for the evening snack. Running your hand along her ribs once a week tells you more than the scales.
Three posts, three weeks. The short carpet one was ignored. The tall sisal one by the window won easily: big cats want something that does not wobble when they stretch to full length. The sofa has been left alone since, mostly.
Summer shedding means a short brush every evening. A wide-tooth comb first, then a soft brush, five minutes, always with a treat at the end. Masha now comes and sits by the comb at nine o'clock. Bublik still pretends he has never seen it before.