Louis Catorze saw the vet on Tuesday. He’s had a good run this summer, with his last steroid shot being on 30th June, so we are glad we’ve been able to stretch it out until now.
As ever, the appointment couldn’t possibly have been straightforward and had to be a total comedy. (Funny for everyone else, I mean. Certainly not for me.)
This was the sequence of events on that morning:
1. Feed and water Catorze, as usual, then wait for him to join me on sofa.
2. Hear him gadding about in soft plastics recycling box in the dining room and figure that, as long as I can still hear him, I will be able to locate him when it’s time to go.
3. Gadding-about noises slow to a gentle rustle.
4. Check dining room, just to be sure.
5. No Catorze. Assume he has teleported out.
6. Search house and garden. Conscious of time (appointment in thirty minutes’ time) and start to feel anxious.
7. Wake Cat Daddy and ask him to come downstairs and act as bait to flush out Catorze. He is not pleased.
8. Final sweep of dining room, turning every metaphorical stone in ultra-meticulous CSI fashion. Eventually find Catorze asleep in Deliveroo bag.*
9. Cat Daddy is even more furious that I made him get up for nothing.
10. Bag up Catorze and schlep him to the vet.
11. Arrive at vet practice and Catorze emits a particularly long, rasping scream, startling a dog and his human who is paying their bill.
12. To break awkward silence following scream, I say, “Shush, Louis!” Dog pitter-patters over to me.
13. Dog Daddy: “Oh, is your cat called Louis? So is my dog!”
14. Catorze screams some more. Louis the dog rests his chin on my knee as if to offer me support in this excruciating situation.
15. Vet comes into waiting room and calls, “Louis, please?”
16. Louis the dog obediently pitter-patters into the examination room despite having already been seen.
Is this exceptional responsiveness from Louis the dog … or the ultimate in Catorzian mind control, with the little sod commanding his canine counterpart to take a bullet for him?
Anyway, apart from all that, everything is as it should be. I mentioned to the vet that Catorze’s mats were returning (although none were visible at the appointment, having inexplicably vanished the night before), and she said that we needn’t be concerned unless we could see Catorze struggling to groom certain areas (no) or having difficulty running and jumping (HELL, no).
The vet also checked his front right paw, where he’d managed to get a blob of pungent plant sap on himself a few days ago and now it’s left a hole. Again, nothing to worry about.
When we arrived back home, Cat Daddy made his boy do the Chubbing Up Dance when he found out his new, meaty weight of 3.34kg. And, at the time of writing this, they were both enjoying Boys’ Club somewhere.
To scrape some positives from the situation – well, I have to try – at least Le Roi is doing well. Let’s hope that this continues as summer draws to a close and his party season starts.
*Cat Daddy and I have only used Deliveroo once (during that fateful weekend away when he set that kettle on fire), and it was such a shambolic experience that we haven’t used it since. So how we came to have a Deliveroo bag is beyond me.
louiscatorze.com 
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