When placed on a scale, it weighed 17 kilograms (37 pounds), which is equivalent to the average weight of a four-year-old child. As a result, Kroshik was put on a diet and exercise plan at an animal shelter to help it lose weight.

Rescuers said Kroshik was believed to have been abandoned and somehow ended up in the hospital basement in Perm, a city near the Ural Mountains. There, the well-meaning hospital staff fed the feline with cookies and soup.

“The story is an extremely rare case where someone loves a cat so much that they overfeed it to this state,” said a representative of the Matroskin shelter in Perm.

Kroshik, who bears a striking resemblance to the cartoon character Garfield, is so obese that veterinarians couldn’t perform an ultrasound due to its thick layers of fat.

Currently, Kroshik is on a strict diet to shed the excess weight and is also using a treadmill as part of its weight-loss routine.

The cat needs to lose about 70% of its body weight to reach its ideal weight of 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds), according to the British tabloid The Sun.