A 30-pound loaf of a cat is what internet dreams are made of.

His name is Fat Cat Harvey, he has 57,000 Instagram followers and he won November’s Chonk of the Month by @WeRateChonks.

He lives with his owners, Lacy Dagerath and Scott Pena in League City with a horde of rescued dogs, including his best friends Cato and Blu.

The couple was working with a citizen rescue brigade in Dickinson during the hurricane for which Harvey is named, when they first spotted what they assumed was a pregnant cat stranded on a second-floor balcony.

“I walked up the steps, and he was on the left side of the balcony and the entire right side was covered in feces, so I knew he was up there for a couple of days,” Dagerath said.

The cat had been abandoned by his original owners. While neighbors had looked after him during the storm, no one wanted to take custody of the husky boy, so the rescuers decided to re-home him. But Fat Cat Harvey had found his home in that house full of dogs.

Now Playing:

On HoustonChronicle.com: A Houston CPA felt a slow-burning burnout, so she traded skyscrapers for sled dogs.

Most cats weight 8 to 14 pounds, and a bigger cat may weigh as much as 16 to 17 pounds, said Dr. Bill Folger, a board-certified feline specialist at Memorial Cat Hospital.

At 28 to 30 pounds, Harvey is obese.

“Americans are so used to seeing overweight cats as being a normal weight, but they’re probably not,” said Folger, who has worked exclusively with cats for more than 20 years. “Those are really hard things to figure out in cats just like they are in people.”

Cat obesity is primarily due to too many carbohydrates in the diet, which is not always the owner’s fault.

Cats are carnivores by nature and are not designed to eat a lot of carbs. Folger said most dry cat foods contain 35 percent carbohydrates when a cat needs no more than 2 percent. Canned wet foods that cap carbs at 7 percent is a better option, he said. But diet is just one part of he equation: As with humans, if a cat takes in more calories than he burns, he will gain weight.

Dagerath and Pena are trying to help Harvey lose weight. It just takes time.

At first, they tried different cat foods, with no luck. After they figured out his resting energy requirement, which is the least amount of food a cat can eat without organ failure, they moved to a daily 230-calorie diet. But he still has only lost about 2 to 4 pounds in two years.

Hydrotherapy appointments, in which a cat is partially submerged in water while he walks on a treadmill are an option. But it’s expensive, and must be done consistently to make long-term changes.

So far, they’ve only been able to afford one session. To fund future appointments, the couple turned to the crowdfunding site Patreon, where they sell Fat Cat Harvey greeting cards. Dagerath set up the studio the couple uses for their photography business, More than an Image Photography, and posed Harvey next to a bouquet of red roses for Valentine’s Day, wrapped in lights and wearing a Santa hat for Christmas and with a glittery green headband for St. Patrick’s Day.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Dexter and the Boy Who Had Never Walked a Dog

For now, the couple plays with Harvey as much as possible without hurting his joints. Some days they bribe him to walk up the stairs with low-calorie treats. And they make sure he’s safe with the big dogs in the house. Dagerath’s phone is always nearby to catch the action and cuddles, which led to the first viral Harvey video last year.

In that video which has amassed 90 million views, Blu, an Australian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix, looked like he was going in for a snuggle, but ended up pushing Harvey over on his back. And with all that weight and short little legs, Harvey rolled helplessly on his back and started fussing at Blu.

“I film them all the time because they’re just so interesting in the way they snuggle and play — I’ve never seen a dynamic like that between a cat and a dog (Blu),” Dagerath said. “I’ve seen cats and dogs be playful, but this cat is like part-dog and lover. He loves everything.”

Felines have been cornerstones of internet culture from the beginning, said Kalhan Rosenblatt, a reporter for NBC News who writes about internet culture and has researched why people love online cats. It’s not that we don’t love dog videos, but dog owners have been connecting in the real world forever, thanks to dog parks and dog-walks.

At the same time, cat parents have been in their houses — with their cats. The internet opened a door into their worlds that we hadn’t seen before, Rosenblatt said.

“They are emblematic of human emotion. More so than dogs, cats embody different feelings,” she said. “In these videos, we see cats acting goofy, getting spooked and falling off things, when they’re known for acting so poised. It’s peak early internet humor and it hasn’t ever gone away.”

The best part of Harvey’s internet popularity has been the interaction with fans, Dagerath said. She has received several messages that remind her that people are often just looking for one good thing every day.

“The amazing part about this whole viral thing is that people message us on a daily basis who say ‘I suffer from severe depression and your cat, your animals, your page, is saving my life,’” she said. “Or ‘I have been diagnosed with cancer, and I’ve been in the hospital all week and the only smile I’ve even had come to my face is when my daughter comes, and we watch videos of your dogs and your cat.’”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Adorable photos show Houston-area shelter pets meeting their adoptive owners

julie.garcia@chron.com

Twitter.com/reporterjulie

Renew Houston: Get the latest wellness news delivered to your inbox