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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • L’important n’est pas de guérir, mais de vivre avec ses maux

    Our first few days back under Catorzian rule have been quite strange, almost like living with another cat. I’ve even been wondering whether the vet gave us the right one back, but then I remembered that nobody in their right mind would want to keep Louis Catorze. 

    In all the years we’ve lived with him, Catorze has NEVER been silent, and his screaming is as much a trademark as his minuscule size and vampire fangs. Yet my morning wake-up, breakfast, being greeted when I come home from work, all take place in a chilling, soundless vacuum. 

    I didn’t know what to do about the vet’s casual medication instructions, so I have been giving Catorze a pain-relieving Buprenorphine syringe every day, to be on the safe side. It’s not been fun. It comes in ready-filled syringes, so at least I don’t have to do Maths, but the instructions state that the liquid has to be dispensed onto the gums/tongue and NOT down the throat. They are very specific about this. As you can imagine, this is absolutely impossible to do; Catorze may be running a reduced service at the moment but he can still develop the strength of ten angry bears when he doesn’t want to do something.

    The Cerenia was also more complicated than it needed to be, because the vet only supplied one pill with the instruction to cut it into quarters. Of course it doesn’t cut cleanly and, instead, splinters into irregular shards and dust, so gathering together the bits and getting them into Catorze is no easy feat.

    Luckily, he scoffed the lot after I mopped up some of the shrapnel and wrapped it in a piece of cheese. But, when I tried to do the same again the next day, he wouldn’t have it. So I had to schlep to Lidl to look for some prosciutto di Parma and luckily I found some in the chilled section, after initial heart failure when I saw that the ambient section only had jamón Serrano (which Catorze doesn’t like).

    We really hope that Catorze will be well enough to be his usual self as the Spooky Season unfolds. Yes, despite all our past complaining about the screaming and the mischief, now we’re actually longing for them.

    EDIT: Oh good grief, the screaming came back just as I was about to schedule this post. Holy hell.

    Portrait Mode is not Catorze’s friend.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • C’est la bonne nourriture, et non les belles paroles, qui me fait vivre

    What are your best healthy eating habits?

    I don’t know whether one could describe Louis Catorze’s regime as “healthy” when he eats the best food in the world yet also takes a shit-ton of drugs, but tant pis.

    I decided to change Catorze’s dry food a month or so before we went on holiday. Although he was doing ok on Orijen Original Cat, I felt that he quite liked it but didn’t really love it. And, after reading about Orijen Guardian 8 and its better suitability for older cats, I wondered if it might be worth a try. 

    Guardian 8 is so called because of the eight major benefits, as follows: 

    • Immune support (which Catorze desperately needs, as he’s always been a sickly little beast)
    • Digestive health (ditto)
    • Healthy skin and coat (ditto – his skin and coat look like shite)
    • Heart health (ditto, assuming his heart murmur is real and that he’s not faking just for attention)
    • Muscle maintenance (his muscles seem to be ok at the moment, but I guess this can’t hurt)
    • Joint health (he’s a bit rickety but, again, can’t hurt)
    • Brain function (I guess we don’t need to worry about this one) 
    • Eye health

    Upon opening the pack, I discovered that the pieces are smaller than those of the other Orijen variants. This has to be a good thing since Catorze himself is both small AND missing a few teeth. 

    Anyway, he has been eating the new food with no drama whatsoever, alongside his Cool Cat Club wet food in the morning. Let’s hope that we will soon see an upward trend in his post-pancreatitis weight loss soon.

    Catorze needs to chub up a little more.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • La nature hait la normalité

    How do you write what people actually want to read?

    I’m pretty sure that nobody really wants to read about two hapless Londoners being held prisoner by a psychotic black cat. However, when life is turning to shit, it can be somewhat comforting, in a “There but for the grace of God” kind of way, to learn that it could be much worse.

    So Le Blog is less about delivering what people want, and more about doing our civic duty by making people count their blessings. If you have a cat who is in any way normal (and there must be at least, erm, three or four of you out there?), lucky you.

    Psycho kitty, qu’est-ce que c’est?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le Roi est de retour, dis-le à un ami

    It’s autumn, a time of abundance and gratitude, and the biggest gift for which I am thankful right now is Louis Catorze being home. 

    At least, something faintly resembling him is in my house; I can’t be sure that they’ve given us the right animal because this one is skinny, with shaved arms, a shaved belly and the kind of jet-black eyes that you usually only see in films when someone is bitten by a zombie. It is also eerily silent. Not a squeak has been uttered by this beast since he’s been in our house, despite the vet calling Cat Daddy the day before and saying, “He’s meowing a lot – is this normal?”

    (Of course it’s not normal – nothing about Catorze is normal – but it would have been too complicated to explain, so Cat Daddy just said yes.) 

    Welcome, whoever you are.

    Poor Catorze. After two nights at the vet’s I wondered whether, perhaps, he thought his whole time with us had been a dream? And now, perhaps, he thinks that his time there was a dream? He spent much of his first night back pitter-pattering about the place as if exploring it for the first time, going in and out of the cat flap 978 times, all in absolute silence. But he’s also been super-cuddly, spending time on both our laps, clearly happy to be home. 

    The little sod has also come armed with an arsenal of medication, all unfamiliar to me: Buprenorphine (which the spell-checker didn’t seem to mind, so obviously it’s not uncommon) for pain, and Cerenia (which it didn’t like so much) for nausea. The vet told us to administer them to Catorze “whenever he was in pain or feeling sick”, and neither of us have the slightest idea of how we will know this. When Cat Daddy asked the question, they replied, “Just keep an eye on him” (?). 

    So here I am, with drugs that I have never seen before, and I’m to decide how often I given them to a cat who fights like a ninja when anyone attempts to drug him. What could possibly go wrong? 

    Never did we think we’d be missing Catorze’s screaming and desperate to hear it again, yet here we are. Let’s hope he will be back to normal (his normal, obviously, not most normal people’s normal) very soon.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le Roi est affaibli: vive Le Roi

    Louis Catorze has been very unwell. It’s been the worst few days.

    Our cleaning lady returned, despite the horror that she suffered at Catorze’s paws, and he greeted her with two piles of puke. This wasn’t unusual, because he is always chewing grass. Also, as you know, Catorze is the master of absolutely terrible timing, so to have him puke during someone’s visit was shocking yet not surprising. 

    However, the puking took a really bad turn a couple of days later; it just seemed to be constant and, when I went to clean up one lot, I discovered/stepped in another lot that I didn’t know about. He just didn’t seem to be keeping down any food or drink, so off to the vet we went. And, worryingly, there was no fight when we shoved Catorze into the transportation pod, and deathly silence on the journey there, although he started screaming when Kira came into the waiting room. 

    After finding out more about her, I wasn’t surprised; Kira may well be the one cat in the world who is worse than Catorze, so he was probably screaming to her for tips.

    Me, to Kira’s mamma: “Aww, what’s your cat’s name?”

    Her: “Kira. It’s the Japanese name for the god of death.”

    Me: “…”

    Her: “And she’s actually tried to murder me a few times.”

    Me: “…”

    Her mamma then proceeded to tell me about how Kira waited until she was asleep and then WENT FOR HER EYES. And, naturellement, Kira, looked as sweet as candy. You see, Mesdames et Messieurs? Demons walk among us, on four paws. 

    We were then joined by a five-week-old black kitten called Salem, who was small enough to fit into his mamma’s hand yet set our eardrums alight with his screaming. It was quite disconcerting being in a room with other cats and Catorze being neither the smallest nor the loudest nor the biggest psycho. 

    I had to hold Catorze in a vice-like grip to allow the vet to examine him, and my effort was such that my Oura ring registered it as “Pilates”. After recording another new Lowest Weight Ever (2.5kg), I left him there for a blood test and scan. Cat Daddy went back later that morning with Catorze’s overnight bag just in case (a blanket, some Orijen, a few sachets of Cool Cat Club and his meds), and he and I then spent an absolutely awful day preparing ourselves for the vet to tell us that Catorze wouldn’t be coming home at all. 

    It turns out that Catorze has pancreatitis. Because he was severely dehydrated after all the puking, they decided to keep him in overnight after all, but – MERCI À DIEU – it wasn’t immediately life-threatening. After some anti-nausea meds and pain relief, Catorze was “a lot more cuddly”. And they called again yesterday afternoon to say that they need to keep him for one more night, but that he’s “eating, purring and demanding attention”.

    Cat Daddy: “Well, I hope he’s enjoying his spa hotel break. I can’t believe we had to provide the bloody food, though.”

    Cat Daddy again: “At least we’ve had some peace and quiet. Although it would’ve been cheaper to go to the Premier Inn.”

    Le Château sans Catorze is a very strange place indeed. We can’t wait to see the little sod again.

    We miss you.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le tigre qui s’invita pour le thé 

    A new species of wild cat has been discovered in the forests of Bolivia. The Tigrino – or Leopardus Tilcayo, if you are ever cross with it and want to shout at it using its full name – is an entirely new species to biological science. Humans have been aware of it for a little while, but originally misidentified it as a “lost kitten” (chortle).

    It turns out that our forests and jungles are teeming with tiny cats, most of whom remain below our radar on account of their tiny size and secretive ways. This one (below) is not a new species, but it’s rarely seen, and it’s so little that it could fit into the palm of one’s hand:

    This is Prionailurus Rubiginosus, the rusty-spotted cat native to Nepal, India and Sri Lanka.

    This has tremendous consequences for us. First, the feline army is actually stronger in number than we had originally anticipated, which is bad news for humans when The Uprising happens. 

    Also, I have always had a feeling that Louis Catorze isn’t a normal cat, and this discovery means that I was probably right all along. How many more of us are living with these freakish halfling beasts, knowing full well that something feels off yet unable to prove it?

    Nope, Mothra can’t think of any suitable test subjects.
    All perfectly normal here. As you were.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Il n’y a ni mauvaises herbes ni mauvais chats

    I’ve been seeing a homeopathic doctor who recommended that I drink an infusion of fennel seeds every night. I rolled my eyes at first, but I’m actually enjoying it. However, Louis Catorze seems to be enjoying it more because, as the infusion brews, he approaches the mug and nuzzles it. 

    Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Catorze likes to get high on fennel, in the same way that most normal cats do with catnip. Once again, whilst we know that this isn’t normal, it’s probably still not the weirdest thing about Catorze. 

    Here he is, in the zone. (We don’t know which zone. Just … not the same one as the rest of us.)

    Apologies for the dramatic music, from whatever we were watching on TV. The fennel snort wasn’t that dramatic in reality.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le bizarre incident du chat pendant la nuit 

    Remember when giving Louis Catorze extra food at night made him behave himself? Yeah, well, it doesn’t work anymore. I had a feeling it wouldn’t last forever, but I hadn’t expected it to come to an end so soon. 

    Last night Catorze was an absolute hell-beast. First, he knocked over my water bottle and, because I hadn’t put on the lid properly, the contents spilled everywhere. Then he managed to find a plastic bag that I didn’t even know was in the room, and spent half the night thrashing around trying to get into – or perhaps out of – it. When I switched on the light there was no sign of him, nor of the plastic bag. Then, when I tried to go back to sleep again, the thrashing around would resume. 

    It’s starting to sink in that this is just the way he is. It’s not because of full moons or thunderstorms or Hallowe’en coming or Mercury Retrograde or any other such excuse. Our cat is just a massive shite, and age doesn’t seem to be wearying him. 

    Here he is, taking a brief break from his evil deeds and wondering what more he can dream up tonight: 

    Absolute bastard cat.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Ta maison reflète ton état intérieur

    Our cleaning lady has left the UK permanently (and, no, it wasn’t Louis Catorze’s fault, although it would be understandable for you to blame him after that other fateful incident involving her predecessor) so we had a new one start on Thursday. I was at work so Cat Daddy was left to show her around Le Château. 

    When the lady arrived, Catorze wasn’t around. But she saw his igloo (which we never put away after last winter) and excitedly asked about the cat. Cat Daddy warned her that Catorze could be a bit, erm, full-on, and she didn’t appear unduly concerned by this.

    Cat Daddy then popped out to the local bakery. When he returned, he discovered that Catorze had cornered the lady in the living room and was screaming absolute bloody murder.

    The poor lady turned to Cat Daddy and said, desperately, “What does he WANT?”

    We’ve been asking ourselves the same question for YEARS. We don’t know. Nobody knows.

    By the end of her visit she had progressed to picking up the little sod and cuddling him, but I wonder if that was part of her Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn survival instinct? (I always thought it was just Fight or Flight, but there are also Freeze and Fawn, the latter of which involves being super-nice to the threatening party in the hope that they will spare your life.)

    With Cat Daddy still not being fully recovered from his surgery, we really could do without another cleaning lady resigning and leaving the country. Will we ever see this one again? 

    Bastard cat.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Prête l’oreille à tous

    Louis Catorze’s morning dose of thyroid medication is relatively easy. Well, the Maths isn’t, but the application is, since 0.07ml isn’t drastically different from 0.06ml. 

    However, his evening dose is rather more difficult, because 0.11ml is hugely different from 0.06ml. In fact, it’s a surprisingly enormous amount. And, whereas 0.06ml could be blobbed onto his ear in less than a second, 0.11 requires a kind combined blob-and-smear move, otherwise it just sits on his ear and doesn’t absorb. And Catorze is not a fan of the blob-and-smear move. 

    This is not what we needed at all. That said, it’s either this or pilling the little bastard, and we don’t need that, either. 

    Let’s hope that it’s all worth it when he has his next blood test. 

    Matching tattooed forearms.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Grogner, couiner et piailler avec les animaux

    If your pet could talk, what is the first thing he would say?

    Oh, come on. As if he’d bother speaking to me.

    Who, indeed, Louis Catorze?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • La guerre de la planète des oiseaux 

    At the risk of sounding like a world-weary elder from a remote forest tribe, what a relief it was when the rains came. I was starting to think it would never rain again. 

    Obviously I couldn’t be more delighted that our poor, parched plants and trees have been watered, and that our filthy streets had the good wash that they desperately needed. However, one thing that I didn’t quite bargain for is that this weather seems to have reignited Louis Catorze’s feud with the parakeets.

    During our many summer heatwaves, Catorze spent a lot of time outside. However, because he tended to be well out of sight, sleeping in the shrubbery or under the tarpaulin cover of Cat Daddy’s outdoor bike, he probably didn’t bother the birds too much. When he was asleep on the outdoor sofa, in plain sight, clearly he wasn’t that much of a threat to them.

    However, during storms, when Catorze is resting on his plinth underneath the outdoor table, he doesn’t sleep. He is very much awake and alert, ears upright, listening to the rainfall around him. And that, I imagine, is far more bothersome to the birds than an apex predator who appears to be unconscious or dead. 

    The parakeets are not happy about the new, vigilant Catorze. I found this out by hearing the God-awful screeching one morning and, when I went to investigate, there was an ARMY of them assembled on the telegraph wires at The Back, all glaring down at him. 

    There were no parakeets – in fact, no birds whatsoever – on the wires overlooking any of our neighbouring houses. Yes, I did actually go to an upper floor window to look. 

    Most of them flew away when I approached, but this handful of hardcore ultras remained behind to keep shouting abuse at Catorze. Oh dear. I hope this isn’t going to be the start of something unpleasant. 

    Not the best photo as I took it through the glass, but the avian and feline culprits are all visible here.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le démon dedans

    What’s the most annoying trope in books or films?

    It’s only annoying because people don’t heed the warning: if an animal is unduly agitated by someone or something, it’s bad news. Most likely, that person or thing is haunted. RUN.

    Unless, of course, it’s the animal itself who is haunted. And, if you allowed them into your house, you only have yourself to blame. Sorry.

    What are you waiting for? RUN!

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Saint Jérôme et le lion

    What’s the bravest thing you ever did when no one was watching?

    Erm … gripped a writhing hell-beast of a cat between my knees and shoved sharp metal up their nose? Here’s a throwback from the summer of 2017:

    Louis Catorze started sneezing and snorting late on Friday evening, and this went on at regular intervals throughout the night. At first I thought he was coughing up hairballs, but he hardly ever has them because we are so rigorous with his brushing routine. Plus the sound was more nasal than throaty.

    He seemed otherwise content – shouty, silly etc. – so, after checking his face and mouth and finding nothing untoward, I phoned the vet rather than taking him in, and I described his symptoms as “snorting, sniffing, lots of lip-licking and shaking his head as if trying to get something out of his nose or throat.” They confirmed my feeling that it wasn’t a medical emergency – possibly a seasonal allergy – and recommended a small amount of Piriton if he became too uncomfortable, but told me to monitor him and take him in on Monday if things didn’t settle.

    Hay fever was probably the one, single ailment that Catorze had never had, and I couldn’t believe that we would now have to add it to his extensive list of problems. I ordered some allergen-busting beeswax candles online as I had run out, and I attempted a dose of Piriton but the combination of super-strong, spring-loaded syringe plus unhappy cat meant that it didn’t end very well. The little sod screamed bloody murder, writhed, clawed, drooled like a rabid wolf and then took off to hide in the Forbidden Greenhouse, wearing most of the Piriton on his face and chest.

    After an uneventful afternoon, by evening things hadn’t settled at all: the gurning, spluttering and head-shaking were just as regular. As I went to bed, mentally preparing for the battering that Le Royal Sick Fund would take when I called out the emergency vet on a Sunday, I saw that Catorze had followed me, still snuffling and staring at me as if pleading for help, so I decided to have one last go at checking his face. I put him between my knees, pulled his head right back … and caught sight of what looked like a grass seed sticking out of his right nostril. BINGO.

    I tried to pull it out but the darned thing wasn’t budging, and Catorze was becoming increasingly agitated at my picking and poking. But I held on and persisted, finally succeeding in dislodging the offending item … and, to my horror, I saw that it wasn’t a grass seed at all, but a whole blade of grass (see photo, with a 20p coin for scale). Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: THE ENTIRE THING HAD BEEN UP HIS NOSE THE WHOLE TIME.

    Ugh.

    I cannot fathom how it could have got up there in the first place, let alone how it stayed there for 24 hours. I don’t think I could get a blade of grass to stay up my nose for more than a few minutes, even if I glued it there. But, thankfully, it’s out now. And, as soon as it was released, the ungrateful little weasel uttered not a word of thanks, instead pitter-pattering off to his papa for Boys’ Club cuddles.

    The moral of this story: cats are ungrateful idiots. But we still move heaven and earth for them to be comfortable and happy, don’t we?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com