The owner of a severely overweight feline that many have dubbed the world’s fattest cat is facing accusations of animal cruelty for allowing his pet to get so big.

Lyznia the Cat, an Instafamous feline whose adorable face and unenviable figure have earned it over 10,000 followers on the popular social network, recently landed her owner in hot water. After photos of the obese cat started doing the rounds online, her Russian female owner started receiving criticism online for overfeeding her pet and not caring about her wellbeing. However, the woman has since hit back at her critics, saying that Lyznia has been having weight problems ever since she first became pregnant a few years ago.

Photo: Lyznia the Cat/Instagram

“There are some misunderstandings. So let’s make them clear. We have never tried to overfeed Liznya,” the cat’s owner wrote in a post. “Some people wrote we do it on purpose. How do you imagine that? She even refuses to eat any other food than her diet food. It is true that our cat was pregnant and spayed after it, but we do not claim this is the exact reason for her to become obese.”

The woman went on to explain that Lyznia ballooned after her first pregnancy, and despite repeated visits to a vet, there was no stopping her weight gain. The feline was prescribed various types of food, but she continued to pile on weight until she was put on just 29 grams of Royal Canin per meal.

“She seems to have stopped gaining weight with her current plan, but still there are problems with losing it,” Lyznia’s owner said. “We can’t show her to a vet too frequently, but we will definitely do it again and again if needed.”

Although comparing recent photos to ones posted when Lyznia’s account was first opened, in 2020, clearly shows that the cat has gained a lot of weight in recent years, her owners insist that she can still walk, play and even pretend to hunt. They do however admit that she needs to be more active.

Despite all the explanations, accusations of animal cruelty kept coming in in the comments, with many accusing her owner of slowly killing Lyznia.

“Why did you let her get this big?” one Instagram user asked.

“It’s gonna die any day,” someone else wrote.

“Stop abusing animals morons, imagine feeding an animal, almost killing it, just to make it look cute, you people are sick,” a third person vented.

In an attempt to calm everyone down and clarify things, Lyznia’s owner posted footage of herself feeding the cat only the 29 grams of diet cat food, hoping to convince those who “do not believe” she is on a diet.

Although Lyznia may very well be the world’s fattest cat right now, she is most likely the fattest cat in history. That title belongs to a Tabby cat that weighed a whopping 21 kilograms.