Le vilain petit canard

~ iamthesunking

I didn’t want to say this until I was sure I wasn’t imagining it, but … Louis Catorze has been doing the bird-chatter noise at his tail. I must admit that, from some angles, the shaved bits make it look like the head of a duckling or a baby emu, but surely nobody is THAT daft?

And he has discovered that, if he curls up into a ball, he can reach the tip of his tail to bite it. So the soft Cône, being wider than the plastic one, is back.

Because the little sod managed to wriggle out of it the last time, we have had to become very inventive with our knotting and create something at the more severe end of the knot spectrum. I experimented with the few knots that I could recall from my Girl Guides days until my mum tutted impatiently, snatched Le Cône from my hands and whipped up a hangman’s noose-style Knot of Death that, frankly, terrified me. Had we known about this knot as kids, we would never have played up.

Obviously the danger of Catorze strangling himself is very much on our minds so not only is he under house arrest, but he is also under room arrest and under round-the-clock accidental-suicide watch. Like a dangerous inmate in a maximum security penitentiary, he goes nowhere unaccompanied.

The good thing is that he is much happier with the soft Cône. He would be happier still with no Cône at all but, alas, it’s never going to happen: he has proven, time and time again, that he cannot be trusted during Cône-free breaks, however short. So, although it might not seem that way, it’s easier and kinder to give him the drastic death-knot around the neck and assign him a 24-hour guard.

And, between us, Cat Daddy, Houseguest Matt and I are on it.

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18 thoughts on “Le vilain petit canard”

  1. Just like a mum to save the day! 😉 Have you considered a partial tail wrap or does the vet think that it’s best to allow it to heal au plein air? Did Le Roi sustain this injury defending his kingdom?

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  2. They say that chattering is frustration because they want to attack the thing they are chattering at. Mine talk to birds and squirrels through the doors and windows that way. His tail must be insanely itchy in its healing to warrent that kind of attention. Poor boy💓

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  4. Oh my goodness, what a genius invention! I would love to try it. Thank you! Do you have a PayPal account? Little sod is very little indeed so he will need the smallest size available … 😊

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        1. Ok let’s do that. 🙂

          The only thing is I’m away until the 30th! Will that be soon enough to help? 😮

          Do drop me an email with your address if it is and which of the two sizes. 🙂

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            3. If you could that would be great! I’ll have to check that contact us form when I’m back at my PC as it didn’t alert me to a new message. Wondering if wordpress broke something about it now! :O

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      1. Is that measurement the width of the collar from edge to edge? Le Roi has a teeny tiny head so would need a small hole but a wide-ish brim. His most recent Cône is 12cm wide from the upper edge to where it meets his neck.

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      2. Sorry, I think I forgot to mention in my message that the smallest size should be fine for la tête royale. Thank you so much once again!

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