louiscatorze.com

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.

  • “EvanesCône!”

    Although the healing process doesn’t look very attractive, Louis Catorze’s recovery is progressing as it should.

    Cat Daddy: “Ugh. I wish we could send him away somewhere until he starts to look decent. Mind you, his “decent” still isn’t really decent, is it?”

    In other news, it had to happen sooner or later, Mesdames et Messieurs: Le Roi has found a way of detaching the front part of Le Cône.

    I found him only half-Côned when I woke up one morning, despite the fact that Cat Daddy and I had agreed never to leave him that way unsupervised. My immediate assumption was that Cat Daddy had forgotten to fully-Cône him after a riotous Boys’ Club of Jägerbombs, absinthe shots and suchlike. But it turned out that he HAD remembered, and now the little sod has lost the detachable section. Furthermore, we haven’t the faintest idea where it is.

    The little sod is most certainly the Master of Dark Arts.

    Thank goodness, then, for Le Deuxième Cône; having two of them means we can borrow the detachable part from the one that he isn’t wearing. Although this has now messed up The System, were it not for this we would be royally dans la merde.

    *EDIT: not long after I wrote the above, Cat Daddy found the missing piece of Le Cône in our bed.

    Catorze is modelling the main body of Le Deuxième Cône, accessorised with the detachable section of Le Premier Cône.

    “Je suis le meilleur magicien.”

  • Le deuxième Cône

    Louis Catorze has been Côned for almost three weeks – far longer than any of us expected or wanted – in which time he has managed to do the following:

    – Escape over the fence into That Neighbour’s garden during supervised outdoor time, Cône and all, and get stuck coming back

    – Escape over the fence into Oscar the dog’s territory, as above

    – Escape out at The Front, after which he was promptly apprehended by Cat Daddy with the stern words: “The Front is no place for a Côned cat!”

    We have also made the following discovery, Mesdames et Messieurs: Cônes get DIRTY.

    Forget about washing my hands to avoid spreading Coronavirus: if I could amputate mine every time I touched Le Cône, I would. (And, unfortunately, touching is inevitable as we are constantly having to straighten it or detach the front part.)

    Having seen the little sod scratch it with his gross back feet, lick it, dribble on it and even – shudder – rub it on his arse* when attempting to clean himself whilst wearing it, we decided that it would be a good idea to clean it.

    Now, our problems with this were as follows:

    1. The fabric edges would need time to dry out after cleaning.

    2. Leaving Catorze sans Cône whilst waiting for it to dry was absolutely out of the question. (He is noticeably less itchy since the vet visit on Tuesday, but we don’t trust him quite yet.)

    *Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, animal owners, but, if your pet is Côned for any period of time, you can be certain that they will have attempted to clean their lower portions at some stage, and therefore there will be ANIMAL ARSE ON LE CÔNE.

    Cat Daddy’s ideas were:

    1. Clean Le Cône, then put it back on Catorze immediately, whether or not it were fully dry (nope).

    2. One of us could physically restrain him during the time it took to dry (HELL, nope).

    The other option – and the worst of the lot – was, of course, to just leave it without cleaning, and there was no way I would allow that to happen, especially in the midst of an antibacterial product famine.

    So I bought a second Cône. And Catorze wore it whilst the other was drying.

    It was £10.80 very, very well spent indeed.

    Enjoying some fully-Côned and chaperoned time in the exercise yard.

  • L’ennemi externe

    Louis Catorze’s biopsy results are in. And it seems that, whilst he appears to have ninety-nine problems, an autoimmune disease ain’t one.

    Although the test can’t pinpoint the exact cause, it’s looking likely that he is triggered by one or more external allergens rather than by having something intrinsically wrong with his body. So, after many years of Cat Daddy muttering “Knowing him, he’s probably just allergic to himself”, this has now officially been declared unlikely.

    This is further forward than we have ever been before with the little sod.

    Here is a summary of the treatments that he had on Tuesday night:

    1. Removal of biopsy stitches.

    2. Antibacterial ointment (Flamazine) applied to his now-healing self-harm wounds.

    3. A dose of Advocate alongside his Broadline to rule out a flea allergy, because the vet found traces of flea poo* in his fur. (Yes, I do flea-treat him every month. No, I have never missed a dose.)

    4. A souped-up version of the month-long steroid shot, because now we know for sure that Catorze doesn’t have some freakish, as-yet-undiscovered-by-science-but-soon-to-be-named-after-him medical condition which could be worsened by steroids.

    * FLEA POO. THE POO OF FLEAS. MY LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN NOW THAT I KNOW THIS IS A THING.

    We have discussed with the vet the possibility of a hypoallergenic diet, but Catorze has been on Lily’s Kitchen Fabulous Fish since May 2018, long before his symptoms reappeared, plus Lily’s Kitchen have written to me to confirm that all their recipes are hypoallergenic anyway. So Cat Daddy and I have agreed that we won’t implement a change of diet until later on, and only if all else fails. We have been guilty in the past of throwing too many solutions at Catorze and not really having any idea of which ones – if any – have worked, so I don’t think it’s a bad idea to be a little more measured this time around and to try one thing at a time.

    The relatively newly-introduced Delicious Chicken, however, is off the menu, and my friend’s cat Boots will be the happy recipient of the brand new, unopened pack currently sitting in our cupboard. Even though he is a meaty monster and the last thing he needs is more food (see photo below for proof).

    Anyway, the thought of flea poo has disgusted us so profoundly that we are now busily washing cushions and blankets on an extra-hot wash, and Cat Daddy is giving serious thought to replacing our fabric sofa with a leather one (and claiming the money back from Sa Maj’s sick fund).

    We are hoping beyond hope that this will mark a turnaround in the little sod’s health.

    This Boots is made for eating.

  • Les envahisseurs doivent mourir

    Good news: Louis Catorze has something new to take his mind off his health woes.

    Bad news: WE HAVE A MOUSE IN OUR LIVING ROOM.

    The phrases “This is the last thing we need” and “You couldn’t make this shit up” were INVENTED for this household. And this is probably my punishment for laughing at Puppy Mamma that time when she was taking garden refuse to the tip and a mouse jumped out of the sack of wisteria trimmings and ran riot in her car.

    Now, how on earth a Côned cat – who is only allowed outdoors under supervision – could possibly bring in a mouse is beyond me. I imagine it’s more likely that this mouse just randomly wandered in but, all the same, I wouldn’t put anything past Catorze.

    Anyway, this is how the farcical events unfolded from around 7am on Monday:

    1. I catch sight of the invader beast not long after Catorze’s morning feed.

    2. I attempt to draw Catorze’s attention to the invader beast. Catorze, who is half-Côned and washing his arse, is utterly oblivious.

    3. I debate whether to unCône Catorze or to wake Cat Daddy, and I finally decide upon the latter. Cat Daddy is highly displeased but comes to my aid armed with, erm, a beer tankard and a chopping board.

    4. Cat Daddy pulls out furniture and boxes and lifts things (mainly cat toys) off the floor but, each time, the wily mouse darts elsewhere and evades capture.

    5. Catorze finally stops washing his arse and spots the mouse. Cat Daddy suggests unCôning him to see if he will catch it. Cône comes off.

    6. Catorze immediately starts scratching. Cône goes back on.

    7. Cat Daddy eventually manages to corner the mouse among the wires under the television unit.

    8. Catorze takes a flying leap across the floor and under the unit, Cône and all, and lands squarely on top of the wires, dislodging Cat Daddy’s hands and allowing the mouse to run free once again.

    9. Cat Daddy declares that “it’s all too much: first Boris Johnson, then Coronavirus and now this” and goes back to bed.

    Our living room remains in disarray, with furniture all over the place, and the mouse is still at large. And, despite not being very well, Catorze is dutifully keeping watch. You have to admire his tenacity, even though I can’t think of a less efficient rodent sentinel than a Côned cat.

    This is going to be a long week.

    “À gauche, Papa! Non, à droite!”

  • Le Roi se détruit

    Whilst the rest of the world is worrying about other things, our greatest concern is the fact that Louis Catorze cannot be trusted with Le Cône in half-mode (i.e. with the detachable front part removed).

    Everything can be fine for a while, with Catorze appearing to heal well. Then we stupidly let our guard down and leave him half-Côned and unsupervised, during which time he finds bizarre and inventive ways of scratching himself until he bleeds. We don’t even know what these ways are because the crafty little sod is so secretive about them, and we don’t realise he’s done it until it’s too late.

    On Saturday we went to the butcher and the baker (although not, on this occasion, the candlestick maker), leaving Catorze home alone and half-Côned with no problem. Then, when Puppy Mamma came over and we were about to leave for the football, he was hovering around his feeding station but Le Cône had swung the wrong way around, preventing him from eating. So I straightened it … AND HE STARTED TO EAT.

    Now, Le Cône has been designed with normal cats in mind, and we all know that they would eat as soon as they were able. But this is Catorze we’re talking about; he lost 200g in the first week of Côning – and has maintained this loss ever since – because of his refusal to eat when given the chance. Very, very occasionally, the planets and the stars align so that his desire to feed coincides with my availability to help, and this was one of those rare and precious moments. My gratitude for this far outweighed any precautionary measures – especially as, the previous day, he had only eaten a total of about a teaspoonful of biscuits – so, instead of wrenching him from his food and full-Côning him, I thanked the Goddess and all her angels above and left him to eat.

    Quelle. Grosse. Erreur.

    When we returned 2 and a half hours later, he had managed to mutilate himself immeasurably (photos too awful to post).

    Puppy Mamma gave him a good check whilst I held him and, incredibly, his stitches were still intact. Even more incredibly, he wasn’t distressed – although I certainly was – so we didn’t rush him to the emergency vet that night. However, we did call our regular vet and send photos as soon as they opened this morning. They have advised against any further steroid shots until the biopsy results are in, but they have prescribed Piriton pills for the itching – which will have to be administered either using the Greco-Roman method (brute force) or the Trojan Horse (hidden in some jambon de Bayonne) – and a topical cream for his sore patches.

    Cat Daddy and I have agreed that full-Côning – with only occasional supervised half-Côning moments for eating and drinking – is the only way forward. It’s not very pleasant having to choose between having him thin and hungry or bleeding and infected, but the former just about wins.

    Here he is, enjoying the last few moment of the unsupervised half-Cône before disaster struck:

    Probably only pretending to be asleep. Not to be trusted.

  • La brosse royale (Partie 2)

    Louis Catorze’s fancy new facial brush arrived during the week. And, although everyone is laughing at me for buying it, it’s been a big hit with Sa Maj.

    My first choice was a sustainable brush with olive wood handle and pony hair bristles, but the reviewers said they “couldn’t get past the smell of horse” (shudder) so I went for the Aveda Tulasāra one with the recycled resin handle*. Because it’s designed for human use, the bristles are super-soft and should hopefully relieve the itching without hurting the little sod.

    *I have no idea what Tulasāra means but, being a linguist, I really enjoyed typing an ā for the first time ever. I also don’t exactly know how one would recycle resin, but I expect the good folk at Aveda know what they’re doing.

    Anyway, despite the fact that Cat Daddy almost had a seizure when I told him how much the brush cost – and I only told him the sale price, not what it cost before the reduction – he was, and continues to be, surprisingly happy to administer the treatment to his boy.

    Here they are enjoying a special moment (pre-biopsy) at Boys’ Club Wellness Spa:

    Le royal facial treatment

    Catorze’s brush is from, erm, lookfantastic.com. And, yes, I do get the irony.

  • Le Roi se rétablit

    Louis Catorze returned on Wednesday afternoon from his jolly day out at the vet’s TW3 branch. And he was rather more annoyed with Cat Daddy (as he’s the one who dropped him off and collected him) than with me, so I made the most of the very rare opportunity to be the favourite human, for a change. This lasted a whopping minute and a half before normal service resumed.

    Le Roi has had biopsies from 4 areas of his face and is looking very battle-scarred as a result. He has to go back to the vet next week to have the stitches removed. Until then we must be even more vigilant with him than ever before, because we discovered – the hard way – that he can scratch his stitches when we take the front section off Le Cône.

    We also have to give him 4ml of Metacam a day with food and, as you are well aware, he wasn’t that bothered about food even when he was fully well. So getting Metacam into a grumpy cat who never liked food very much anyway, who is experiencing post-op appetite loss and who would, most likely, go on hunger strike just to get back at us, is going to be quite some challenge.

    We will, of course, update you in 3-5 days’ time when the results come in. In the meantime, to cheer us up a little, here is a picture (taken before Sa Maj’s troubles started) which is my ace of spades in response to anyone who refuses to believe how daft he is. Yes, he did spend 5 whole minutes staring out of a closed shutter:

    “Où est mon royaume?”

  • Les pies bavardes

    Louis Catorze went back to see the vet yesterday evening, but they decided against the month-long steroid shot as the previous ones haven’t been quite as effective as they’d hoped.

    So the next step is the skin biopsy plus a couple of other things that can’t be done when he’s conscious because of his bad behaviour e.g. claw-clipping (just trimming the sharp ends to prevent him from cutting himself, not claw removal, obviously), an ear examination, a more in-depth eye check, and whatever else they feel the need to do. To be honest we’re at that point where we’re happy to let them take advantage of him being unconscious and do whatever they want.

    Cat Daddy is going to drop him off on Wednesday morning and he will take the Special Animal Bus to TW3 and be back for collection in the afternoon, by which time they should also have his fungal culture test results.

    Catorze is frustrated beyond measure at still having to wear Le Cône. But the one small silver lining of being Côned is that one can only get into limited amounts of trouble. (Yes, I realise that, ideally, one should not be able to get into any trouble whatsoever, but this is Catorze that we’re talking about.)

    It was That Neighbour’s birthday last week and he was able to celebrate in peace without having to investigate God-awful screaming outside his window and then escort the offender off the premises. And Oscar the dog must be thoroughly punch-pleased that he can enjoy his garden without Catorze giving him grief, although he would perhaps be less impressed to know that his humans had come round to give love and cuddles to his nemesis at the weekend. (THANK YOU, Dog Family, for being the best people ever.)

    We have been letting Catorze outside at The Back for short periods – under supervision, of course, and during daylight hours – which is one little piece of normality for him amidst all this horror. Le Cône prevents him from jumping over fences and from shimmying through gaps, so we know that he can’t possibly leave the garden. Yet, despite the fact that he always returns to the back door within minutes, it seems that this is the weak link enabling him to get into Limited, rather than No, Trouble.

    Here he is having just finished annoying the magpies, who voiced their displeasure very clearly indeed:

    “Je ne comprends pas, Madame Pie.”

  • Une chatte doit être deux choses: classe et fabuleuse

    Attention all units: there is a new black French cat on the block! Such cheering news indeed after all the recent drama at Le Château.

    This is Chanel, who is Cocoa the babysit cat’s new sister. And Cocoa has been a fantastic big brother, welcoming her and patiently tolerating her zany kitten behaviour. Here she is, looking utterly angelic and sweet, although we are not fooled in the slightest and are fully aware that all kittens are psychopaths:

    “Je vais manger ton âme.”

    So that makes a total of three black cats at our end of the street: Cocoa, Louis Catorze and now Chanel. And there is another one who lives at the other end, and who is probably blamed for most of Catorze’s rubbish, whose name we don’t yet know.

    One could view this phenomenon in one of two ways:

    1. Our street is the luckiest in TW8 (quite likely).

    2. The Chat Noir Army of Darkness is multiplying and, one of these days/nights, they will overpower us and take over the world (considerably more likely).

  • Le Cône est de retour (encore une fois)

    It’s been almost 5 days since we declared a Code Rouge state of emergency and deployed Le Cône to save Louis Catorze from his worst enemy: himself. So much has happened but here’s a brief synopsis:

    Monday: The vet suggests that we Cône Catorze for a day or so.

    Tuesday: We take off Cône for about 90 seconds and he manages to scratch and cut through his skin again. Cône goes back on.

    Wednesday: I try removing Cône once more, this time for about 12 seconds, and the same thing happens. We decide to keep it on for another day.

    Thursday: Little sod seems much better and appears to have stopped scratching, so I swap Cône for a more comfortable and yielding soft Cône. He sneaks off somewhere and scratches himself into a worse state than ever. Hard Cône goes back on.

    Friday: Cat Daddy takes him back to the vet. Another steroid shot, this time the month-long one, is booked for Monday.

    We had completely forgotten how much hard work it is to have a cat in a Cône and to manage all the inevitable life adjustments. It also doesn’t help that Catorze is such a shite.

    His firm Cône is well-designed, with a front part that de-Velcros off for feeding, but kitty needs to be ready to eat the moment it comes off. If they’re not, and you leave them at length with the front part detached, the weight of the heavier back part makes it swing back to front, and then they can’t eat. And, of course, this is where Catorze won’t play ball.

    When we straighten Le Cône to allow him to eat or drink, he no longer wants to do either of those things. Then, when his Cône swings the wrong way around again, he decides that he DOES want to eat and drink after all. So we straighten his Cône, and he changes his mind again. You get the picture. Much of our week has been spent tearing our hair out over this.

    Le Cône is pictured below, in detached mode and with the detachable segment just visible on the wooden chest in the background. Our model is sporting a size XS (which will surprise absolutely nobody).

    If you are interested in the same Cône that was given to us by the lovely Marc from Katzenworld (THANK YOU, MARC), I have attached a link at the bottom of this post.

    The next size up should fit a guinea pig

    https://katzenworld.shop/product/pet-airs-elizabethan-collar/

  • La brosse royale (Partie 1)

    Since Louis Catorze’s skin problem returned, Cat Daddy and I have been very strict about brushing him every day. The brush is quite firm so we don’t actually brush his face with it as such, but we hold it up and let him decide how hard – if at all – he wishes to rub his face against it.

    On a couple of occasions, he has pressed/hurled himself against the brush with such ferocity that it has alarmed us. I even videoed it once (mainly because I didn’t think anyone would believe me) and it’s quite gut-wrenching viewing, with scraping sounds akin to fingernails down a chalk board. Yet we trusted him to instinctively know what was best for him and to manage it accordingly. This was a massive mistake because, earlier in the week, the yelp happened.

    Yes: the little sod actually brushed himself to the point of pain. This is not good.

    So now the brush is strictly for body use only, and the moral of this story is that, however bad your judgement may be, it will always be better than that of a not-very-bright cat. And I really should have known better, because this is the same silly sod who picks fights with dogs and foxes, who heads for hotter-than-the-sun greenhouses during heatwaves and who rolls in the middle of the road for fun.

    On a more positive note, I have ordered a brand new brush just for his face, and I can’t wait for it to arrive.

    I know. Had Teenage Me known that Forties Me would be excited about the arrival of my cat’s new facial brush, I would have had a serious word with myself.

    #cantbetrusted

  • Le mot C

    Things are developing here at Le Château faster than I can write. I had an entirely different entry ready to post today, but I have had to make changes following recent events. Please feel free to mute us (if, indeed, that is a thing on WordPress) or to unfollow if the updates become a nuisance, but it really helps me in terms of record-keeping to write and post in real time about Louis Catorze’s health.

    Yesterday, when we came home from a day out, Cat Daddy and I noticed that Catorze’s face was a little redder, but not alarmingly so. However, in the couple of hours after our return, he disappeared off to scratch himself to smithereens and reappeared looking like the victim of an acid attack. So we took another trip to see the vet.

    Although we had initially said no to repeating the steroid shot in case it exacerbated any fungal infection, the vet felt that this level of deterioration was unlikely to be of fungal origin. In any case our priority was definitely to control the itching, so we went ahead with the second shot. Once again Catorze went stark raving psycho, screaming bloody murder and scratching both Cat Daddy and the nurse (not the same lady that he scratched before, and I can’t decide whether this is good because he hasn’t made the same person suffer twice, or bad because he’s doubled his victim count in the space of a few days).

    Anyway, he is now under house arrest and we have had to deploy Le Cône. I really didn’t want to have to do this, but we haven’t had much choice; as he clearly can’t be trusted not to scratch, if we were to leave him sans Cône he would pretty soon have no face or ears left.

    The saddest thing about him being Côned is that he doesn’t become skittish or aggressive around us but wearily compliant, like a prisoner of war so broken down that he finally resigns himself to his fate. He is more affectionate and needy than usual, presumably because not being able to fully see around him makes him uneasy and therefore he needs to be near us to feel safe.

    I wish we could make him understand that he will always be safe with us.

    “Je déteste Le Cône.”

  • Pourtant on a le même vieux gruau

    When we saw the vet last week and discussed changes in the home that could have triggered Louis Catorze’s problem, she suggested that we stop the Delicious Chicken food for a while.

    Cat Daddy is rather cross about this as we only bought a brand new pack of Delicious Chicken two days before the vet appointment. But, because he is a huge advocate of cutting down on meat consumption to save the planet, he is also delighted that he and his boy can form a special little pescatarian club together.

    Yes, I know: what’s missing in their lives is their own club.

    I checked the ingredients lists of both the Fabulous Fish and the Delicious Chicken at the weekend, and virtually the only differences are, erm, the fish and the chicken. Even the minuscule trace ingredients are more or less consistent between the variants. But, according to the vet, cats can react to the protein in foods, and changing from fish to chicken or vice versa can be sufficient to trigger symptoms. The huge gauntlet of allergy testing that Catorze underwent at the rescue appeared to indicate that his issues were NOT food-related but, since it’s a change that we can deliver with zero effort, we have decided that it has to be worth a try.

    So the little sod is back to just one type of food for the moment. But we may allow him a few slivers of jambon de Bayonne on 30th April as a birthday treat.

    Picture taken last Tuesday; the more recent ones are not pretty.

  • Une descente aux enfers

    On Thursday, after a series of skin-scraping and hair-plucking tests, Louis Catorze returned from his vet appointment looking worse than ever. He looks so bad that, if a stranger in the street were to see him, they’d scoop him up and take him straight to a rescue.

    Ideally he would have a tag saying, “I AM NOT A STRAY: I have a home and a plentiful food supply, my skin problems look dreadful but are being treated, and that pitiful, gut-churning screaming is just my normal voice” but I don’t suppose he would wear a collar. Plus that’s a lot of text to fit onto a small tag.

    This time I left Cat Daddy to do the packaging-up and the transportation, as we didn’t want a repeat of those previous incidents.* Here he is, striding purposefully through the park with the screaming bag of fur, and I’ve added a sombre Noir filter to match the general mood du jour:

    It was the worst of times

    *Incident 1: I hurt my neck and shoulder trying to restrain Sa Maj for his flea treatment. Consequence: cancellation of our Paris trip.

    *Incident 2: I hurt my back carrying him home from his vet appointment, and Cat Daddy was away. Consequence: I was left stranded in the park opposite Le Château, and the only readily-available local people whose phone numbers I had were those whom Catorze had pissed off in some way.

    We were all set for another steroid shot but, when we told the vet that the last one had been very short-lived, she advised against a second for the time being. It seems that steroid shots can make fungal infections worse and, although we are pretty sure that this isn’t what Catorze has, Cat Daddy and I agreed to try and rule it out before bombarding him with more treatments. So we decided to do the parasite and fungal infection skin scraping tests there and then, and to leave the second steroid shot until we had the results.

    As expected, the little sod completely lost it during the tests, screaming, climbing all over Cat Daddy’s shoulders, clawing the poor vet nurse which then led to her having to deploy the strait-towel, and so on. To be honest I don’t really blame him. I can’t think of anything worse than being taken to a place you hate and having already-sore skin poked and scratched whilst the people who are supposed to care for you just stand and watch. When it was all over, it was a relief for every single one of us.

    Cat Daddy and I remain mystified. I even wondered if perhaps Catorze might be allergic to The Special One (the merino wool scarf that I’m knitting at the moment), but, to my knowledge, he doesn’t sleep on the scarf, and his contact with it is limited to batting at the yarn with his paws and trying to kill it as I knit. Pets who are allergic to wool usually sleep on blankets or carpets containing the offending substance; could Catorze be so freakishly sensitive that he reacts to wool just by being in a room with it?

    Anyway, the mite/parasite test came back all clear, and I am prepared to bet Le Château and all its contents on the fungal one saying the same thing in 2 weeks’ time. In the meantime, we are giving the little sod plenty of extra love – or, as Cat Daddy puts it, “It’s all about HIM, as usual.”