louiscatorze.com

Quelles montagnes russes!

15/01/2016

“A true Catorzian rollercoaster” is perhaps the best way to describe this week.

Tuesday was just AWFUL. I spent the whole day feeling excruciatingly guilty about putting my poor boy through such stress at the vet’s, and the day closed with a very sticky Louis Catorze whimpering under the bed after Cat Daddy was a little over-zealous with the ear drops. Wednesday appeared somewhat more promising when I was greeted after work with happy squeaks and an up-tail, and Louis Catorze even had the energy to go outside to wind up Oscar the dog next door. When he came back in, Cat Daddy nodded discreetly towards the bottle of ear drops and said, “Let’s get him now” … and, the second he heard that, Catorze spun around on his paws and went straight back out again.

“Shit – he knows,” said Cat Daddy. “But he’ll come back eventually.”

He didn’t.

We waited and waited. It started to rain and he still didn’t return. When it rained harder, he wedged himself into the tunnel in the wall which connects his cat flap with the outside world and sheltered there, keeping an eye on us, keeping dry but firmly and decisively NOT coming in. Eventually I gave up and went to bed, thinking, “I bet he’ll wait 5 minutes and then join me, just to be an annoying little sod.”

I was wrong. He waited 1 minute.

Of course the stupid ear drops weren’t within reach, and I didn’t dare get out of bed to fetch them because I knew Catorze would then take off. So I texted Cat Daddy, who was downstairs watching the football, and asked him to bring them up to me. No reply. I then phoned him. Still no reply. Eventually he managed to tear himself away from the match to get a drink and, when I heard him open the living room door, I seized my chance and yelled at him to check his phone. These words had barely tumbled from my mouth when Louis Catorze dived under the bed, where he remained for the rest of the night.

I usually start a new year full of energy, hope and optimism. This time, however, we’re just 2 weeks in and already I’m exhausted after being toyed with by a cat (and a thick one at that). I don’t know whether to be glad that the weekend is upon us, or scared out of my mind at the prospect of 48 whole hours with the smug little tail-aloft psycho.
Le diable en moi

11/01/2016

Today’s trip to the vet was traumatic beyond belief. To be honest I could do with a week or two to allow my heartbeat to return to normal before writing about it but, if I don’t do it now, I shall wake up tomorrow and think I dreamed it all.

As expected, Louis Catorze needed another steroid shot – this time the longer-lasting one – and an antibiotic shot. But, after I reported seeing him shaking his head and shoving his back feet deep into his ears, the vet checked him as best she could under the circumstances* and said he would also need treatment for an ear infection.

(*I say this because the little sod really didn’t make it easy for her to check: he struggled, kicked and yowled so badly that I began to think we needed an exorcist, not a vet.)

The ear treatment process was twofold and, unfortunately, Louis Catorze writhed and complained like crazy throughout both parts, shaking the cleaning fluid and ear drops all over me, the vet and himself. And, because the whole ordeal had to be repeated on both ears, by the time it was over he was soaking wet and looked as if we’d tried to drown him. It was quite heartbreaking to see the fear and confusion in his face when the torment just didn’t ease up. The relentless attack of the cleaning solution followed by the ear drops followed by the antibiotic shot followed by the steroid shot terrified the poor sausage so much that he ran into his daddy’s arms and clung to him for dear life.

“How often do we need to give him the ear drops?” I asked, praying that the vet wouldn’t say “every day”.

“Ideally a couple of times a day …” she replied.

[Thudding sound from my sunken heart hitting the ground]

” … But I can see that it’s, erm, going to be a challenge,” she continued. “Maybe once the steroid kicks in and he’s a bit more comfortable, he won’t mind you doing it so much.”

Hmmm.

Anyway, Cat Daddy is now pouring himself a big glass of Merlot, Louis Catorze is having an apocalyptic sulk under the bed and I’m wondering how the heck I’m going to get the ear drops anywhere near him without him kicking me to death. We need to take him back to the vet in a week’s time so that they can check on his ears again, but I just don’t see them being able to do it unless they sedate the whole darned lot of us first.
Le miel des rois

10/01/2016

If you choose to be the slave to a special needs cat, one of the things you come to expect is life being brilliant one minute, then disintegrating into crud the next.

It’s been a tough week at Le Château. The return to work after Christmas and New Year is always difficult but I’ve been working very late every night, Cat Daddy has been working even later, and we didn’t see each other at all from Monday through to Friday. Louis Catorze has been wonderful company but, once again, because I’ve been leaving the (not brilliantly-lit) house in darkness and coming home in darkness, it’s been hard to keep track of his condition, although I’ve been aware of increased itching and fidgeting during the night. When I finally got to look at him properly in daylight on Saturday morning, I could see that the little sod’s chin area was bald and raw again.

It seems that the steroid shot, whilst undeniably improving things, isn’t the faultless magical potion that I wanted it to be, and that it has its limitations. Whereas his first injection gave him excellent results for a whole month even though it was only supposed to last a week, the second hasn’t been quite so effective. You know how a drinking session can get you completely plastered, but, the second time around, you need more booze to get to that same level? Well, this looks set to be exactly the same, except much less fun.

To make matters worse, having agreed that we would take Louis Catorze to the vet after we got back from the football, I realised too late that I’d got the vet opening hours completely wrong and that it was closed until Monday. Our options were to rush him to the emergency vet or sit it out until after the weekend, so we decided to go for the latter because the wound looked unpleasant but not horrendous, and because Catorze is still active, vocal and up-tailed, which I’m assuming means he doesn’t feel that bad.

I have received a lot of advice about what to do with him during the wait for the vet appointment, and one suggestion – which has also cropped up in the past – was to apply honey to the sore areas (thank you, Lisa). With Catorze being the way he is, this needed to be a very well-planned and strategic move, so I took my chance when he came in this morning from his all-nighter and scurried upstairs to join his daddy, who was still in bed.

And, naturellement, the only honey we had in the house was organic artisan New Zealand manuka honey. We’re talking honey that only rock stars and lottery winners could afford to buy, and we, being neither of those, only had it in our cupboard because Cat Daddy happened to meet the supplier at a trade show and they very kindly gave him a free sample. Gram for gram, this stuff costs more than cocaine or gold – and there I was, smearing it onto the skin of a wriggling, kicking, ungrateful little bastard of a cat.

Oh well – Louis Catorze is a king, I guess, which means that supermarket blended honey just won’t do. And, after the initial indignity was over, he was immediately happy again. Let’s hope this is enough to keep things under control until the vet visit.
J’adore le dopage

07/01/2016

I tend to write blog entries when a significant event has taken place, or, more usually, when Louis Catorze has done something stupid, but I’m writing this today because Cat Daddy made me.

Although we’re now sold on the idea of steroid shots for Le Roi – his fur and skin looked so much better immediately after the vet visit on Christmas Eve – it’s difficult dealing with the psychological aspects of going down this route. A lot of this, of course, is due to years of prejudice thanks to the media: most of us, when confronted with the word “steroid”, think of sporting drugs cheats and freakishly malformed bodybuilders. But, with so many animal and human medicines promoting themselves as “steroid-free”, it’s easy to make the assumption that steroids must, therefore, be bad. And the idea that we’ve agreed to pump them into our sweet boy every month, even though they make him feel better, takes some getting used to.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4am after dreaming that Louis Catorze had stopped breathing due to steroid complications, and, worse yet, the little sod wasn’t around for me to reassure myself that he was fine. I woke Cat Daddy and asked him to go and look for him. He rolled over and muttered something unnecessarily discourteous.

That afternoon he and I had a long chat about why we had made the decision about the steroid shots (and why the heck I had woken him up), and he made me write down all the benefits “as a reminder, in case I punish myself later on after Louis is gone”. (As cat slaves we’re good at doing that, aren’t we, even though it’s pointless? I still agonise over Luther, who was run over, wishing I had fed him before he went out so that he might have missed that car by 5 minutes.)

So:

Pros of steroid shots:
1. Rapidly improved skin and fur
2. Dramatically reduced itching
3. Increased energy (and annoyingness)
4. More sociable behaviour
5. Civilised monthly trip to the vet, as opposed to brutal fight to the death 3 times a week
6. Giving him the shot would mean we could now go away at weekends if we wanted to (something we haven’t done since the little sod came to live with us, because we feel bad asking our neighbours to do battle with him in our absence)
7. NOT giving him the shot would be imposing a personal stance on him when he has no choice, like those poor cats who are made to eat vegan food (no problem with vegans personally, but forcing a vegan diet onto carnivorous animals is CRUEL)

Cons of steroid shots:
1. Questionable long-term effects (although this is the case for all medication – and the vet said that, provided we kept an eye on Louis Catorze’s organs via yearly blood tests, he should be fine)
2. Double the monthly cost of Atopica (not really a proper con as we have never held back, and would never hold back, from a treatment for Catorze because of money)

It doesn’t look so bad when presented that way, does it? I do know that we’re doing the right thing for him; I just wish my brain would catch up.
Partageons!

03/01/2016

I was looking back through Le Blog yesterday morning and remembering when I started it; I had asked my brother-in-law, a journalist, for advice, worried that I would run out of ideas after a few weeks or months. His reply was, “If you do, that’s a sign that you chose the wrong subject matter.” Another friend later added, “The day you stop writing will be the day Louis stops doing stupid shit. So you should be fine for some time.” Thanks.

This is the third and longest-standing blog I’ve written; the first one fell by the wayside because I just got bored, and I had to stop the second one because l gave away lots of secrets and gossip about my then-workplace, and I would have been fired had anyone from work found out about it. I am still staggered that a plain black cat who doesn’t do a lot has inspired me to write so much over 6 months, and that he has attracted so many followers in various parts of the world. The new year got me thinking about the long-term future of Le Blog and where I wanted it to go, and I wondered this aloud to Cat Daddy. “He’s such an inspirational cat that the prospects are limitless,” said Cat Daddy. “His teachings are so profound and life-enriching; in fact, I see him rather like Gandhi, don’t you?”

“Are you, by any chance, being sarcastic?” I asked.

“We could get your blog made into a BBC drama series, with a spin-off website selling Louis Catorze merchandise,” he continued. “Imagine celebrities wearing “Je gratte, donc je suis” T-shirts. Imagine Louis Catorze on Piers Morgan’s TV show. The world needs to know about this amazing French cat!”

Yup. Sarcastic.

In actual fact, my only wishes for Le Blog have been to help other cats with a similar condition, to provide support to their human slaves, and, maybe one day, to have some medical whizz-person read what I’ve written and contact me with a cure for Louis Catorze. So I felt very hopeful yesterday when 2 people messaged me, saying, “My cat has those symptoms too.” An exchange of photos seemed to confirm this (see below for how the little sod looked this time last year):

It’s very early days but I’m going to encourage them to follow Le Blog and hope that one of us will soon happen upon a solution that will help the others. I’m also going to shamelessly request that all of Louis Catorze’s followers please share, share, share Le Blog with vets, rescue centres, cat breeders, animal charities, anyone who cares, really. Share until people are sick of you and beg you to stop. You just never know when the right person will get in touch and utter the magic words, “My cat had the same condition and, after trying Magical Elixir X, is now completely fine.”
Flotte comme un papillon, pique comme une abeille

31/12/2015

Louis Catorze is strutting around Le Château as if he were the heavyweight champion of the world.

Mind you, by “world”, we really mean a small patch of land in TW8 measuring about 10 metres by 6 metres. And weighing in at 3.48kg (as he did at his Christmas Eve vet visit) is hardly, by any reasonable interpretation of the word, “heavyweight”. Come to think of it, given that we haven’t seen the condition of his opponent and can’t conclusively state that Catorze delivered the knockout punch, even “champion” is a bit of a stretch.

Apart from all that, though, he’s the feline incarnation of Muhammad Ali, sans doute.

He is utterly unconcerned about the fight and is full of feisty confidence. (I like to think this is because he’s such a fearless warrior, but in reality he’s probably just forgotten about it.) People who haven’t seen him for a while – even Cat Daddy, who was away for a day or two – remark upon how thick and soft his fur is, and how meaty and well he looks. His ear, on the other hand, looks rather like a gnarled, 900-year-old tree root, and I expect it will continue to look this way as it heals, but it’s much less red and sore than it was. Plus it adds a little grit and character to his neatness, rather like a tattoo, a piercing or an extreme sports injury (not that Louis Catorze has any friends to impress).

As this year comes to a close and we prepare to welcome in the new one, this is a great place to be. All of us at Le Château wish you a very Happy New Year, and we hope that 2016 brings joy to you and your furry overlords. Xxx
Le club de bagarres

28/12/2015

The first rule of Fight Club, apparently, is not to talk about Fight Club. And, for once, Louis Catorze has been sticking rigidly to the rules.

Because I know his face better than I know my own, I was able to tell immediately that all was not well this morning. He has cut his ear, and I know full well that he didn’t simply catch it on a trailing bramble or any such nonsense: the little sod has been fighting again. Cat Daddy, who is still away, agreed: as soon as he saw the photo he texted back, saying, “Fighting wound. Little bastard.”

I posted this photo on a cat forum and others confirmed my belief that it wasn’t an urgent vet situation. Apart from the odd shaking of his head, Catorze is absolutely fine; in fact, if anything he is MORE zany than ever, and I was lucky to get him still enough to take such a clear photo. But my bigger problem is the identity of this invisible assailant, and when and where this underground Fight Club takes place.

We haven’t seen a single cat in our garden since the week we moved in. Nor have we heard any fighting, as we used to all the time during the Luther administration – and, on the rare occasion that Luther wasn’t responsible, upon hearing the howls he would go outside immediately to get involved. So how on earth is this happening, unseen and unheard, to Louis Catorze?

The good thing is that Le Roi is either exceptionally brave or too stupid to remember the fights, because he continues to come and go happily; obviously this is far better than being terrified to set paw outdoors. But I’m not loving the thought of him having this double life and fighting like a silent, invisible ninja behind our backs.

Cat Daddy, on the other hand, now sees him as some sort of Bruce Wayne / Batman superhero and is secretly quite impressed.
Le repas de Noël

27/12/2015

One of the best parts of the Yuletide season has been reading online about other pets’ attempts to steal their humans’ festive fare, smug in the knowledge that I never have to worry about this. Firstly, as you know, Louis Catorze doesn’t like food (pictured above, showing conspicuous indifference to the Christmas Day cheese board). And, secondly, he wore himself out so much with his Christmas morning madness that he spent the whole of the afternoon and evening sleeping it off. So Cat Daddy was left to prepare our dinner utterly unbothered and in peace, and, whilst we didn’t leave the turkey to defrost on the floor, we could have done so had we wanted to. JUST BECAUSE WE COULD.

My first childhood cat, Misha, a gigantic pinstripe tuxedo cat the size of a tank, was one of my favourite and most memorable cats. No food was safe from him; everything had to be locked away because he just couldn’t be trusted. One Christmas we let our guard down, and my aunt caught him on the kitchen counter with his face in a huge bowl of her home-made brandy butter. Had this happened recently it would have been an emergency vet situation, but, back then, things were different and I’m not sure whether the out-of-hours vet even existed. My mum carried Misha back to his cat bed, with his limbs flopping drunkenly in all directions, and, after a short nap, he was fine.

My brother-in-law’s family dog, Rufus, once managed to swallow a duck whole, in the time it took for his dad to leave the kitchen and sign for a parcel at the door. When he returned there were no bones, no mess, no sign of Rufus having struggled with the fresh-from-the-oven heat. In fact, there was nothing to say that the duck had even existed, and, had the dog’s face not been covered in sauce, he may well have concluded that he’d dreamed the whole cooking process.

Louis Catorze’s sparring partner, Oscar the dog from next door, is the supplier of yet another incident of food thievery, and made me the funniest person of all my friends when I repeated it. His folks once saw him flash past them with what appeared to be a white frisbee in his mouth, and it turned out that Oscar had stolen the Camembert that they’d taken out of the fridge 2 hours beforehand to bring it to room temperature. One can, of course, always pop to the shops and buy another Camembert, but nothing can erase that fruitless – or rather, cheeseless – 2-hour wait.

The one problem with a pet who doesn’t like food is, of course, what to do with Yuletide leftovers when they’re past their best but too good to throw away; Luther was the perfect food dustbin, but his little brother is useless. Cat Daddy is away at his parents’ place until tomorrow and he’s convinced that the turkey will still be fine upon his return. If in doubt, however, I might just deliver it to Oscar the dog as a peace offering from his cher ami.
Joyeux Noël

24/12/2015

I’m delighted to welcome a new influx of followers to Le Blog since the winter solstice post, and I feel I owe you lovely people some sort of glorious introductory fanfare as you embark upon your Catorze odyssey. But, unfortunately, it’s been a bit of a sac mélangé here at Le Château, and things, whilst not utterly horrendous, could be better.

Le Roi’s condition is on the turn again: when Cat Daddy medicated him yesterday night – his least successful session ever, with the Atopica squirting all over Louis Catorze’s face and into his eye – he discovered that he’s been scratching up his under-chin area again.

Usually, with a failed meds session, our strategy is to abort until the next time rather than upsetting the little sod twice. But Louis Catorze’s skin was so bad that Cat Daddy insisted on a retry straight away; this involved him somehow maintaining a vice-like grip on a pissed-off, struggling cat – who, by this time, had figured out what was going on and wasn’t overjoyed – whilst I raced downstairs to reload the syringe. The next attempt was successful – if you can call traumatising a distressed animal “success” – and Louis Catorze bolted straight out of the cat flap afterwards.

That night we went out for our annual festive dinner at the local pub. But, instead of being full of starry-eyed optimism for the coming year, we just talked about our heartbreak over poor Louis Catorze and what our options were: braving the carnage of a Christmas Eve vet appointment for another steroid shot, or leaving it and risking things turning to merde when the wound deteriorated and every vet was closed for the holidays. In the end we chose the Christmas Eve carnage over the potentielle merde, despite the fact that a steroid injection right before the full moon is probably the feline equivalent of mixing wine and beer on an empty stomach.

The appointment was 6 hours ago, and I’m happy to report good news. Firstly, Catorze behaved. (I KNOW!) Secondly, because we’d caught things early, he didn’t need an antibiotic shot. And, lastly, the steroid shot that he’d had last month was only supposed to last a week, so he’s done well to get this far before relapsing. We’ve also been told that we can start to wean him off the Atopica with a view to replacing it with steroid shots, which, whilst not ideal, would only involve monthly rather than thrice-weekly entrapment.

So Papa Noël’s gift to Louis Catorze was a shot in the back of the neck, and we’re due to return to the vet in a few weeks’ time, as soon as the effects start to diminish. But, if it guarantees our boy comfort, however short-term, ainsi soit-il.
Le solstice d’hiver

21/12/2015

The winter solstice is almost here! Soon the days will gradually start to get brighter and will bring, along with the new light, the promise of spring and happy times.

This time of year is said to be most auspicious for making wishes for the future but, to be honest, we have everything we want: a home, food in the fridge & a happy, healthy Roi. So, to thank you all for your support, we have decided to donate £1 per person following Le Blog to an animal charity*, and to wish for a more positive future for the less fortunate kitties out there.

We are sure Catorze will have no objection to sacrificing a few festive treats to help his comrades. Plus he’s thick, so he won’t know.

May you all feel the magic of this beautiful season, and may your cats forever feel lucky and loved.

*Louis Catorze donated to Lilly’s Legacy, a rescue group which can be found on Facebook and which helps stray and missing cats. If you’d like to donate to them, too, their PayPal account name is lillyslegacy@hotmail.com.
Le sapin de Noël

13/12/2015

Our Yule tree is up! Hurrah!

Cat Daddy insisted on choosing the biggest and puffiest tree of the lot, then, when it wouldn’t fit in the house, complained that “we” had made an error of judgement, but it was definitely worth all the pain and heartache. Something about decorating a festive tree caresses the soul in a way that you wouldn’t understand unless you actually do it, although Louis Catorze didn’t appear to agree; he showed mild curiosity and interest, but this lasted all of ten seconds before he clambered onto his daddy’s lap and fell asleep. And long may his indifference continue: I would be very cross indeed to come home one day and find our beautiful tree toppled, chewed, urinated upon or worse. (Actually, there isn’t really anything worse than “urinated upon”, is there? That’s about as bad as it gets.)

I couldn’t resist a photo of our tree topper, which Cat Granny gave me a few years ago (although not for this purpose, I suspect). I think this pretty much sums up the hierarchy in this household, with Le Roi at the uppermost point and the rest of us … well … wherever.
Ma peau est parfaite!

12/12/2015

Someone is highly pleased with themselves because they’re 100% scab-free!

I’m quite staggered by the speed at which the steroids have worked. When I look at pictures of the little sod taken just 3 weeks ago, he looked so different. And the change in his personality is astounding; whereas previously we would have to drag his arse out of the Forbidden Greenhouse and force him to interact with us, now he won’t shut up or leave us alone.

My one and only wish this festive season was for Louis Catorze to be well, and it’s incredible to think that it’s steadily becoming more of a reality than a mere prospect.
Papa s’énerve

06/12/2015

I came downstairs this morning to find the living room looking like this, and my initial thought was, “How cute: Cat Daddy has set up a viewing platform for his boy to watch the world go by.”

However, the truth was somewhat different; it turned out that, late last night, after I had gone to bed, Cat Daddy had heard a commotion outside and gone to investigate. And, as soon as the front door was open, Louis Catorze had bolted off into The Forbidden Front and refused to come back.

The shutters were open so that Cat Daddy could keep a lookout for Catorze’s pathetic face meowing to be let in again. The Fortnum and Mason box thing was where Cat Daddy spent ages sitting, because he couldn’t see out properly from the sofa, and the stool was in place not as a viewing platform but as a resting place for the bottle of wine he needed to fuel his vigil.

“Can you believe it?” Cat Daddy sighed. “I didn’t dare go to bed leaving him outside at The Front. Yet, every time I tried to catch him, he’d run away, then stop and scream for a bit, then run further away. So I had to sit there until really late and wait for him to decide to come back.”

“At least we’ve learned that he comes back,” I said.

“Yeah,” Cat Daddy countered, “but we’ve also learned that he’s a little shit.”

Oh dear. Maybe Louis Catorze needs to be told that, if he keeps up this kind of behaviour, Papa Noël won’t be stopping by …
Santé!

02/12/2015

Do cats have an OFF button? Or, at the very least, a LOW POWER button? Louis Catorze is driving us crazy with his naughtiness at the moment.

His lust for play has reignited, and he’s started to let out little “Waaah!” sounds as he chases his toy. If he sees us in the kitchen through the patio doors, he refuses to use the cat flap and screams to be let in. He can be frighteningly convincing, pawing at the glass and looking utterly fearful for his life yet, if we ignore the little weasel for long enough – usually a minute or two – he will come in of his own accord, up-tailed, chirpy and smug, as if saying, “Et voilà! I didn’t need you after all.” He’s also starting to go out for longer at night, as his big brother Luther used to do, and rolls in just before my alarm goes off, soaking wet, shrieking in my ear and with that vile, stomach-churning wet dog smell. Yuck.

His eyes now look exactly like the eyes of a normal cat, with no leathery, bald bits. The horrible under-chin scabs are disappearing, with fur growing back. And I suspect his annoyingness is down to the fact that he’s happier and feeling much better. So, in all, things are looking up for the little sod.

This time last year he looked like crap and was sad, and the year before he was even worse, so I’m excited beyond belief at the prospect of Louis Catorze’s first festive season, to my knowledge, in good health. Here he is, drinking to that!