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Je crie, donc je suis

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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.

  • Un nouveau mode de vie (Partie 4)

    When considering treatments for Louis Catorze’s hyperthyroidism, we were offered the options of a pill, an oral liquid or a topical gel. I went for the gel on the grounds that at least Catorze wouldn’t be able spit it back at me, nor would he find inventive ways of pretending he’s ingested it when he hadn’t. 

    Astonishingly, despite being thicker than a concrete milkshake, Catorze is the master of making medication disappear when he doesn’t want to take it. When he was on Gabapentin years ago, for feline hyperesthesia, he went through a phase of fake-swallowing the pill, initiating a fake cuddle, then silently spitting the pill over my shoulder. I found one stuck in my hair one day, and realised not only the little sod’s deception, but also the fact that I had been inadvertently transporting spat-out pills via my hair to all manner of places, thus preventing the big pilly pile-up which would have alerted me to the problem. 

    Then there was this incident. I turned that room over like CSI and I still don’t understand how this happened. 

    The gel has to be applied twice a day, with gloves. Cat Daddy and I have agreed that, since I am a lark and he is a nightingale, I will do the morning application and he the evening one. We even created the ingenious, poetic slogan of “Right at night” (I know – Shakespeare would be so proud of us) so that we he wouldn’t end up doing the same ear twice. It means that, regretfully, I am tasked with doing the harder-to-access left ear, but tant pis. 

    Cat Daddy: “He’ll be fine with it. He loves having his ears played with.”

    Me: “No, he doesn’t.”

    Him: “He does! Look!”

    [He sticks his finger in Catorze’s ear. Catorze rolls and purrs.]

    Cat Daddy: “Now you try it.”

    [I gently brush Catorze’s ear with my little finger. Catorze flinches and scowls.]

    Oh dear. 

    Anyway, we are a couple of weeks in, and it’s really not fun. Catorze doesn’t attack us, but he wriggles, kicks and generally makes the process harder than it needs to be. My first morning dosage didn’t go very well at all. And Cat Daddy’s first night dosage was even worse, although I swear that the reason it turned to shite was because he stuck the wrong finger in Catorze’s ear*. 

    *Cat Daddy insists that he didn’t, but then this is the man who once tried to stick his middle finger up at me but stuck his index finger up by mistake. After correcting himself, he remarked that holding one’s middle finger aloft didn’t feel like a natural, easy movement, and he asked how I managed to do it with such dexterity and aplomb. Erm, regular practice, Cat Daddy. It’s called muscle memory.

    Anyway, this is our new forever. (Cat Daddy: “Or until HE goes.”) I guess we just have to get used to it. 

    Enjoying some Cat Daddy love.

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

  • Un nouveau mode de vie (Partie 3)

    If you’ve ever had to change the food of a fussy cat, don’t follow the usual advice, which is to phase it in gradually. If it’s mixed with something that they already like, of COURSE they’ll eat it, in the same way that I’d probably eat razor blades and asbestos if they were covered in cheese. But when the balance tips in the favour of the new food, then the bastard cats will change their minds, just as I would if there were more razor blades and asbestos than cheese.

    Don’t ask us how we know this. 

    Fussy cats need something that they like enough to eat on its own and, merci à Dieu, when we served Louis Catorze with his new Orijen Original Cat, he was happy to tuck in. After putting away four servings back to back, with his bowl licked clean, not a scrap remaining (so maybe the pieces are softer on his creaky old fangs than Orijen Six Fish?), he went out to harass the local wildlife. 

    Then, when Catorze came back in, he had a further serving. He tried his luck for a sixth, too, but by that time his belly looked disconcertingly round, and Cat Daddy was scared that he would puke it all up, choke and then slip into a coma. So we left it at five. 

    (Incidentally, I’m not advocating serving a cat with as many servings as they want. This is a cat who has lost too much weight, and we are desperate to fatten him up.)

    I’m grateful that Catorze hasn’t turned this into an ongoing food war. Let’s hope that he will be as accommodating when it comes to his medication. 

    Good boy for eating your new food.

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

  • Où la guêpe a passé, le moucheron demeure

    After joking about hornets’ nests in a previous blog post, I am astounded to report that we may actually have one. 

    Wasps keep randomly appearing in the house, usually in the same room and without any window having been open. I trapped a few and released them, thinking they were my friend’s friendly, do-gooder honey bees who had come to bid me Beltane blessings. They’re not. They’re wasps, the naughty guys who attack you for your fruit juice and your ice cream. 

    There are many reasons for which I would not want a wasps’ nest in the house, but the main one is that Louis Catorze cannot be trusted. Chasing bugs is one of his favourite things to do. He may well only have the attention span of a gnat but, when it comes to chasing bugs, he will inexplicably dedicate hours to the cause.

    Surprisingly, he is often successful. I’ve seen him swatting a fly in mid-air and then chomping it down whole before it even hit the ground. We absolutely do not want him to try this kind of shit with a wasp. 

    An action shot with a fly.

    Our challenge now is to find out for sure where the impingers are coming from. And we need to do it before Catorze does. Wish us luck. 

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

  • Un nouveau mode de vie (Partie 2) 

    Normally, at this point in the year, I would be ordering one portion of jambon de Bayonne from Ocado for Louis Catorze’s birthday, another from the Natoora deli in Chiswick as a back-up, and some jamón ibérico from Waitrose, just in case.

    However, because the little sod has just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, it’s a hard NON to any foods intended for humans. 

    This attack on my strawberries and ricotta was filmed before the diagnosis. There’ll be no more of this under the New Regime.

    I know that a piece the size of my fingernail probably wouldn’t make him keel over and die, but he’d only scream for more and we’d end up giving in, especially after a couple of Screaming Roi cocktails. So it’s all or nothing. Well, not so much of the “all”. Just the “nothing”. 

    Too much iodine is, apparently, bad news for Catorze, so it’s adieu to the fish skins that he used to love. The good people at Orijen have advised me of the iodine levels of their different variants, and Six Fish has the second-highest. (Cat Daddy: “We’ve been feeding him dangerous food for years!”) So we’ve made the decision to swap to Original Cat, which is rated the second-lowest. 

    Here’s a dull chart for anyone who’s interested, going from lowest to highest in iodine:

    1. Orijen Fit & Trim Cat: 2.10 mg/kg iodine as fed. (Why give a too-skinny cat food designed for too-fat cats, right?)
    2. Orijen Original Cat: 2.20 mg/kg iodine as fed.
    3. Orijen Guardian 8: 2.56 mg/kg iodine as fed.
    4. Orijen Kitten: 2.57 mg/kg iodine as fed.
    5. Orijen Regional Red: 2.99mg/kg iodine as fed.
    6. Orijen Six Fish: 3.38mg/kg iodine as fed.
    7. Orijen Tundra: 4.00 mg/kg iodine as fed. (This is the most expensive of the lot, so Cat Daddy rejoiced when he heard that it wasn’t a viable contender.)

    (No idea what “as fed” means. I’m guessing it just means served from the pack as it is, as opposed to drizzled with squid ink and nori flakes?)

    So … not quite the Catorzian birthday planning that I’d anticipated. But if we stick to The Rules, hopefully he will have more birthdays. 

    He may be ill, but he’s still a massive bastard.

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

  • Clouer ses couleurs au mât

    We have a Code Bleu situation here. Well, not HERE, but in CR4, the manor of Boots, usurper stepbrother of Antoine, Louis Catorze’s frère-from-another-mère. 

    Don’t mess with Boots.

    Remember Boots and his penchant for losing his Chelsea collars? Well, he is now down to his last one, but we can’t buy him any more because the Chelsea Megastore is out of stock. They don’t even have an “Email me when back in stock” option. I suppose we could contact the club to ask but, let’s face it, nobody wants additional contact with Chelsea if they can possibly avoid it. 

    Smart boy.
    “Out of stock” AND “almost gone”? Surely it’s one or the other?

    Now, we could, of course, just wait for the stock to replenish, but we have no way of knowing whether this might be days, weeks or months. In the meantime, the likelihood is that Boots will lose his solitary remaining Chelsea collar and end up collarless.

    This absolutely cannot be, because the bell on his collar serves as a valuable alert to Antoine. Antoine really needs to know that his usurper stepbrother is at large, because Boots can be a bit mean to him. 

    The obvious thing would be to put him in some sort of interim collar, but here are the issues that we face: 

    1. It absolutely must be a football collar. (Don’t ask why. It just does.)
    2. The featured football team ought to have nasty, thuggish fans; a jolly, community-based club just isn’t very Boots. 

    The other problem, of course, is that many football clubs sell dog collars, but there are very few cat ones available. That said, Boots is such a meaty chonkosaurus that a collar for a small dog could work. 

    After some searching, we discovered a limited collection of horrible-team cat collars.

    *Not an awful club, but local to Boots.

    **Covers all bases, being the common denominator between all horrible clubs.

    Please vote for your favourite or for the funniest, whichever you feel is more appropriate.

    No collar for Catorze on account of, erm, even newborn kitten-sized ones being too small.

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

  • Je suis la Roux-surrection

    Nine Easters ago, distant enough not to be an everyday thought but still memorable enough for us to be furious when we think about it, Louis Catorze disappeared. He wasn’t gone for long and, these days, we know to leave it a good three days before worrying. But we understand that sinking feeling when you realise you’ve not seen your pet for a while, and that this isn’t typical behaviour. 

    On Good Friday morning, Catorze’s cat-cousin Roux vanished. Because their cat flap is digitally monitored, the frantic family were able to pinpoint exactly when Roux left the house, and they knew with 100% certainty that she had not been back since. They deployed the usual measures of looking in both logical and illogical places, placing cat litter outside for the smell to guide Roux home, making social media announcements, asking neighbours to check their sheds, and so on, to no avail. 

    The little sod finally reappeared on Easter Monday morning. It transpired that she had popped next door to visit her friend Idris, aka The Cat With The Human Face, and never left his house.

    You know when witches turn humans into cats? Yeah, that’s what Idris looks like.

    Maison Idris was my sister’s first port of call when they went searching, and she asked Idris’s humans to check their shed, which they did. She didn’t mention checking their house, nor did it even occur to her/them to do so, as everyone assumed that Roux would draw attention to herself if trapped there. It is also somewhat surprising that neither Idris NOR HIS TWO CANINE SIBLINGS bothered to sound the “Intruder Alert” klaxon in any way, despite the whole lot of them supposedly being so psychic that, in horror films, their reaction tells us if someone is possessed.

    That said, Catorze would probably be just as inefficient in the same situation. A fly in the house: alarms and strobe lighting, day and night. Another cat in the house: whatever.

    Just like a stealthy phrogger, Roux lived silently and invisibly in Maison Idris, alongside the humans and the animals, for three days. She finally made herself known at 1am on the day of her release, scaring the shit out of Idris’s family, who went to investigate the noise in the attic because thought they were being robbed. When they discovered that it was Roux, they provided her with food, water and litter and kept her under room arrest until her family were able to collect her later that morning.

    Anyway, Roux is now safely home, although Idris seems to be missing the company because he’s followed her:

    Idris wants to hold onto that long weekend feeling.

    If your cat is capable of this level of bastardliness – and they all have it in them, even if they don’t show it – in the event of them going missing, please ask neighbours to check their HOMES as well as sheds and garages. Yes, even if they have other pets. Clearly we can’t rely on the resident pets to do their job and speak up, because they are all either in cahoots together or just plain useless.

    The worst Easter weekend ever.

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

  • Un anneau pour les tous gouverner (Partie 2)

    Having an Oura ring is both a blessing and a curse. Not in a 50-50 kind of way, though. More like 30-70. Maybe 35-65, on a good day. 

    I wanted an Oura ring mainly for tracking my body temperature and my sleep. The fact that it also tracks, amongst other things, my stress levels, is very handy. However, being able to pinpoint the moments – and therefore the causes – of my stress, by the minute, yet not actually do anything to stop them, only makes me more stressed. 

    This is a reading from a couple of days ago: 

    Just a coincidence? Ahem.

    The part I’ve circled was when Louis Catorze was screaming and screaming at the two gentlemen who had come to fit our new washing machine. It was excruciating. Cat Daddy and I hid in the living room and just pretended we couldn’t hear it. Then, when the machine was all installed, Cat Daddy gave the fitters a generous tip and we all pretended the screaming hadn’t happened. 

    The fitters said something about using the tip money to buy “breakfast” between jobs. But, by that time, it was long past breakfast. After enduring Catorze’s insufferable screaming all the way through their job, they probably ended up heading to the nearest pub for vodka shots.

    And anyone who says ten o’clock in the morning is too early for vodka shots has never had to live though the pain of Catorzian screaming. 

    Oh my goodness, you can add “Pets” as a tag, to remind yourself of why you were stressed. Maybe “Noisy” would work too.
    “Event end”? What’s if it’s never-ending?

    Cat Daddy, later: “Cats are supposed to give you pleasure. Ours just causes pain. Bastard cat.”

    Indeed. WHAT a bastard cat. 

    The screaming just won’t stop.

    *EDIT: I have now had my dental surgery (general anaesthetic) and, would you believe, my stress levels rose when I CAME HOME from hospital. I wonder why that might be?

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

  • Un nouveau mode de vie 

    Louis Catorze’s thyroid test result – the additional £67 one which was conducted a little after the others – is in, and it turns out that he has hyperthyroidism.

    Cat Daddy suggested some time ago that the constant screaming might be anxiety, and I said, “Of course it’s not. He has no reason to be anxious.” But anxious screaming is one of the many symptoms of hyperthyroidism, almost all of which are the same as those of feline dementia. 

    The poor little sod – Catorze, I mean, not Cat Daddy – was trying to tell us that something was wrong, and I didn’t listen. I feel so bad that all the signs which I thought were him just being an annoying, attention-seeking shite, were actually symptoms of something genuine. 

    (That said, I still stand by my belief that he is, at heart, an annoying, attention-seeking shite.)

    So what’s next for Catorze? 

    Firstly: daily medication. Oh dear God. 

    We were offered the options of an ear gel, an oral pill and an oral liquid. Pilling Catorze is awful, and syringing liquid into him is even worse. As for the gel, it isn’t allowed to touch human skin, so we’re going to have to wear gloves to apply it. Catorze’s cat-cousin Alfie had the same treatment and he hated it – in fact, his ears would flatline when he heard the snap of the gloves going on, and then he’d be off – so I don’t hold out much hope for Catorze. 

    Secondly: a food audit to weed out anything that bad for him (because I don’t want him to eat shitty vet-prescribed thyroid food – and, even if I did, he wouldn’t eat it). I’ll post more details another time but, in short, his favourite treats are off the menu.

    Life is about to get bleaker for Catorze, and right before his birthday, too. We will just have to give him more cuddles to distract him, and ourselves more vodka to numb it all. 

    Oblivious … but not for long.

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

  • On connaît le diable à ses griffes (Partie 2)

    What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?

    Louis Catorze’s cat-cousin Rodan probably doesn’t want to go to the vet again, for obvious reasons. But, if he keeps up with his silly behaviour, that is exactly where he will end up. 

    Sulking in his least favourite place.

    Rodan was doing quite well in his recovery, after going out scrapping and sustaining injuries to his face. However, on the day of his follow-up vet appointment, the little sod somehow managed to wriggle out of Le Cône. 

    In the time it took his human brother to shout, “He’s scratching himself! and my sister to reply, “Well, grab him then!” (about twenty seconds in total), Rodan had scratched up his wounds absolutely ferociously, making them 9,622 times worse than they were to begin with. 

    Before.
    After.
    Even through the mesh you can see that this is bad.

    Naturellement this now means that he will have to spend far more time in Le Cône than originally anticipated, and my sister has to bathe his wounds twice a day and apply ointment. He is as miserable as hell about this state of affairs, but it’s his own silly fault. 

    Oh, and a plot twist that none of us expected is that my sister busted Rodan’s sister Mothra licking her brother’s wounds. So is she expected to Cône the pair of them?

    You don’t exactly help, Mothra.

    Come on, Chats Noirs (and Chats Tigrés, if we count Mothra among the trouble-causers). Give us – and yourselves – a break.

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

  • Il n’y a pas de poisson sans arête (Partie 3) 

    Nobody has the slightest clue what he was doing here.

    When I told Cat Daddy that Louis Catorze didn’t eat his premium fish sautéd in goat’s butter, I thought he would be absolutely livid, with the Unrepeatable Expletives flowing like a burst dam. 

    Won’t eat premium fish, but happy to lap up the dregs of my collagen yogurt, apple and maple syrup.

    However, instead he said, “Did you season it?”

    Sorry? So this is MY FAULT for creating a bland meal for our cat?

    Me: “I don’t think you’re meant to give salt and pepper to cats.”

    Cat Daddy: “Maybe not salt and pepper. Maybe those nori seaweed flakes that you use?”

    Me: “…”

    Him: “Or maybe he only likes fish if it’s smoked? We should buy one of those smoking machines, like they have on Great British Menu?”

    Me: “…”

    I think the craziness of everything that’s going on in the world has dulled the part of my brain that understands what’s a joke and what’s not. 

    Anyway, perhaps a smoking machine would be a good birthday present for Catorze, who will turn fifteen at the end of this month. All we have to do is work out whether to go for the premium or the “budget” model, and where on earth we will put it.  

    Special offer! There is a God!

    *EDIT: I ended up making fishcakes out of the remaining freezer pieces of fish. It took me 9,632 hours and they weren’t very nice, 5/10 at the most.

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

  • Il n’y a pas de poisson sans arête (Partie 2) 

    What is your favourite restaurant?

    Louis Catorze favours any establishment which will allow patrons to send back their food limitless times, without explanation. Right now, that establishment is us.

    Although … can a place even call themselves a restaurant when the one and only customer refuses to actually EAT?

    Having watched Catorze attempt to eat his Pet Picks fish, I actually don’t think his rejection is wholly because he’s a massive arse. Well, that is part of it. But I also think he’s losing his sense of smell and struggling with chewy foods. 

    So here I am, cooking – COOKING – premium fish for my cat. Incidentally, it was Cat Daddy’s idea. 

    Yum.
    Yes, he was mid-scream here.

    Catorze was happy to eat it once it was cooked. However, this was his plate afterwards: 

    A pathetic effort.

    There is not a chance in hell that I’m spending my time sautéing fish in goat’s butter (no joke: this actually happened) for a thankless little shite who won’t even eat it all. 

    So our Pet Picks idea has died a death, although Cat Daddy is tempted to buy it again, for us. Yes, eating our cat’s rejected food. That’s how low we have stooped. 

    You just relax whilst we all skivvy around for you.

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

  • Le sang, c’est la vie 

    Louis Catorze scratched up his face again, right after I said to someone, “Thank God he hasn’t scratched up his face again.” 

    Noooo.

    Luckily it didn’t seem to be bothering him; right after doing the evil deed he went absolutely psycho, racing around, pouncing on random objects, leaping onto the shutters and so on. He even knocked this picture wonky after trying to pull it off the wall – yes, he actually reached out with both his paws and pulled it:

    My OCD hurts looking at this.

    The little sod was due to see the vet anyway for his steroid shot, so I thought I may as well try to squeeze some value for money out of the pips by asking them to check his scar too. As it turns out, that was the least of our worries; the more pressing matter was the fact that Catorze is now down to 2.73kg. 

    He has been on and off his food for a few weeks, but recently it’s become more off than on. There’s nothing wrong with his teeth – the vet said they looked good, which you’d bloody well hope, too, after £1,000 worth of dental treatment. There’s nothing wrong with his abdomen, either. So I finally decided to bite the bullet and do the dreaded blood test, just to make sure Catorze isn’t on the brink of that awful kidney thing that happens to old cats. 

    Anyway, after scaring the shit out of an already-nervous chihuahua with his screaming in the waiting room, Catorze took both his injection and his blood test like a gentleman (which surely means that Armageddon is nigh). And he is now proudly strutting around sporting a stylish bald patch on his chest, from where they extracted his blood, looking, from a distance, like a tuxedo cat.

    A less-than-flattering shot from below.

    Now, £348.49 lighter (consultation plus blood test plus Felpreva plus steroid shot), I am wondering what on earth Cat Daddy will say, all the way from America, when this transaction shows up on his phone. 

    *EDIT: the results came in the same day. Apart from one reading indicating that his thyroid might need checking (at a further cost of £67, of course), there’s absolutely bugger all wrong with him.

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

  • Il n’y a pas de poisson sans arête 

    Describe one positive change you have made in your life

    The fancy place from where we buy our Michelin-starred hot-smoked salmon, has just started selling fish offcuts for pets. And, unbelievably, it was Cat Daddy’s suggestion that we buy some for Louis Catorze.

    Cat Daddy probably didn’t read the “favourite pet” bit.

    When it arrived, we were astounded at its quality: no skin, no bones, very little gross sinew, just lovely fish, almost too good for a little sod like Catorze. I’m pretty sure we’ve served far inferior fish to dinner guests at least once or twice (sorry if you were one of them). 

    Anyway, Catorze now has a whole selection of little portions in the freezer, ready to be sniffed and rejected deployed the next time he’s good and deserves a treat. 

    We’d better take a seat, because we could be in for a long wait. 

    *EDIT: after screaming and screaming for his fresh fish, he ate three mouthfuls and walked away.

    Absolute bastard cat.

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

  • On connaît le diable à ses griffes

    Merde, merde and thrice merde. You are not going to believe this. 

    The VERY DAY that I posted about Rodan going out scrapping and injuring his face, Louis Catorze decided to go out to the Zone Libre looking normal (well, “normal” by his standards, anyway) and return home looking like this: 

    What the absolute WHAT?

    This wasn’t caused by fighting. I would almost – ALMOST – have a wispy filament of admiration for Catorze had he been standing up for a noble cause, such as defending his fiefdom. This was self-inflicted, which is probably a sign that the little sod needs another steroid shot soon. 

    Feline bullshittery is so much easier to deal with when there are two of us here, but Cat Daddy left for New York half an hour after we discovered Catorze’s wound. (This was a planned trip, by the way; he didn’t decide to cross an ocean just to get away from Catorze, although I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.) I really don’t want to have to deal with vet visits, Cônes and medication by myself, yet I may not have much option. 

    Oh, and I’m due to have another surgery (wisdom teeth this time) next week. This was meant to be my peaceful week preparing for it. 

    Bastard cats, the lot of them. And Chats Noirs are the worst. 

    That thing on his back is actually my Pilates socks hanging in the background, but it looks remarkably like his budding demon wings about to unfurl.

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