louiscatorze.com

L’amuse-bouche

08/01/2017

As you are aware, the pilling has been going excruciatingly badly, with Louis Catorze becoming more and more adept at spitting out, clamping his jaws shut or being a menace in some other violent way.

Many people have suggested hiding the Gabapentin in food, but Louis Catorze doesn’t really like food – he can even take or leave Dreamies – so this wouldn’t be tempting enough. But, yesterday, I remembered that he was quite fond of the jamón Ibérico that Oscar the dog’s folks brought for us from their holiday. We haven’t given him any since, so it may have been a one-off fluke but … qui ose gagne, oui?

Cat Daddy pulled a face when I suggested wrapping a pill in jamón Ibérico. “What makes you think that would work? We’ve never given him jamón Ibérico, ever.”

Oh. Oops.

After the inevitable lecture I pleaded with him to at least try it, reminding him that a small spend versus thrice-daily torment was surely worth a punt. So off he went to the supermarket for the French equivalent, which is jambon de Bayonne, but there wasn’t any so he had to make do with Gabapentin con prosciutto di Parma.

Et nom de Dieu: THE LITTLE SOD ACTUALLY ATE IT.

Early this morning, he ate another dose.

And, all being well, he will keep eating them until he’s well again,

THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING. No more disturbed sleep! No more physical fights during unsociable hours! No more stressing about going on holiday and having our cat-sitter shredded to death! Should he end up needing medication for life, all we’d have to do is prepare a few hammy, druggy hors d’oeuvres in advance and notre ami will do the rest.

La vie n’est pas belle … but it’s certainly less merdique than it was previously.
La pilule est dure à avaler

07/01/2017

Cat Daddy and I don’t seem to be getting any better at our cat pilling technique. And now we’re having to do it 3 times a day instead of twice.

We cannot help but feel rather inadequate, as the two of us ought to be more than capable of handling a 3.5kg cat. However, we take some comfort in the fact that we’re not alone, and that this is a problem that dates back thousands of years. This Greco-Roman guy didn’t seem to be having much luck with his cat, either, and I feel his pain:

Louis Catorze has become an expert at spitting pills out and, once spat out, they somehow lose their rigidity and disintegrate into powder when you pick them up to try again. He also very nearly foxed the vet the other day by hiding the pill in the corner of his mouth between his inner cheek and his back teeth, just like school kids do when you ask them if they are chewing gum in class.

And, as well as the physical challenge, we also have the logistical complexity of trying to fit 3 evenly-spaced doses into a working day when our hours just don’t synchronise. Cat Daddy and I wake up and go to bed 2 hours apart because of our disparate working hours, so our routine currently looks like this:

Pill 1 at 6am (for which I have to wake Cat Daddy to help me, and he goes back to bed afterwards)
Pill 2 at 6pm, when we both get home
Pill 3 at midnight, when Cat Daddy is about to go to bed (for which he has to wake me for help)

It’s not quite uniform spacing, but it’ll have to do. Obviously if either of us could pill Catorze alone, the enforced togetherness would not be necessary, but, sadly, we can’t.

Nobody said Le Roi would be easy. In fact, the rescue from where we got him warned us of exactly the opposite …
Les douze jours de Noël

03/01/2017

It’s not been such a Bonne Année here at Le Château. In fact, it’s been an awful few days, with last night being especially horrific.

It was bad enough that Louis Catorze’s drugs count read just like The Twelve Days of Christmas: “Two-oo Gaba-pentin, two Zyl-kene, o-one Met-a-cam, and some Broad-line to treat the worms and fleeeeeas!”

However, after being Cône-free for a couple of days and showing mild, playful interest in the tail but nothing concerning, yesterday he lost his shit completely, attacking the tail tip until it bled. The out-of-hours vet – who knew exactly which cat I was talking about even before I gave my name – told us to increase his dose of Gabapentin to 3 a day. This dosage has just been confirmed by her colleague, whom we saw a few hours ago.

It’s looking distinctly possible that Louis Catorze has feline hyperesthesia. No, we hadn’t heard of it, either, and, when I read about it, I really didn’t think he would have it; it usually affects purebred cats (Catorze is as far from that as is felinely possible), plus it’s a brain disorder (still trying to establish the presence of one).

Apparently it’s a rare condition that causes cats to go psycho-eyed and attack the tail as if angry with it. Because treatment is drastic – heavy-duty, warning-carrying drugs for life – it tends to be diagnosed by first eliminating all other possibilities.

So, before feline hyperesthesia can be confirmed, our next steps are as follows:

1. Keep up with the 3 doses of Gabapentin a day
2. Le Cône must remain on whenever Louis Catorze is unsupervised (even if he’s only in the next room or under furniture)
3. Keep pumping Le Château with Feliway diffusers
4. A fun, new party powder called Nutracalm
5. A fungal test to rule out ringworm (done today, results in 2 weeks)
6. A steroid shot on Friday to rule out the possibility of his skin allergy resurfacing on his tail
7. A break from the Metacam as it’s not compatible with the steroid shot
8. An MRI scan, which will obliterate Le Royal Sick Fund like an atomic bomb (Merci à Dieu for Le Back-Up Fund, previously known as Le Holiday Fund)

It’s a good thing we love the little sod so much … and it’s wonderful to know that so many of you do, too. Thank you to everyone who has wished him well.

Here he is, behaving uncharacteristically well during tonight’s appointment:
Le nouvel an

31/12/2016

As we say goodbye to a year that has been pretty merdique, and welcome a new year which, surely, cannot be any worse, all of us at Le Château would like to thank you sincerely for your ongoing support of Louis Catorze.

When I started Le Blog I never imagined we would reach in excess of 140 followers – I expected maybe 20 of my friends to follow, with around half of these deciding “Enough of this shit” and unfollowing after a fortnight or two – so to know that you are all still with us is wonderful.

Special thanks to those of you who have kindly sent gifts to Sa Majesté or come to visit him. We hope to see many more of you next year, although he gets booked up early so don’t leave it too long. He already has 3 visitors arranged for January!

Bonne année from us, and may 2017 be a joyous and happy year for you.
Le lion de Némée

30/12/2016

Saint Jésus, save us from the torment that is administering Louis Catorze’s Gabapentin. There is no punishment in hell worse than this.

It’s rather like throwing a live grenade into the mouth of an active volcano: you want to get it out of your hands quickly, but you don’t want to mess up your one shot, either, nor risk the angry volcano spewing the grenade back out and into your face.

Cat Daddy thinks the horror of this task is such because I am not calm enough, and that Catorze detects my stress and acts up. I suggested that he do it himself if I’m such a hindrance. He said no.

It’s a 2-man job, partly because 4 hands are needed but also for that “If I’m going down, so are you” sense of camaraderie. If you’re going to be slashed to smithereens it’s only fair that your partner is also slashed to smithereens, n’est-ce pas?

When we both go back to work, it’s going to be even worse: Cat Daddy usually gets up for work some time after me, but he will be forced to get up with me at 6am so that we can do the pilling together. If we leave it for when we get home, there won’t be enough time between the 2 doses. The only thing more horrific than this is the insult of having to get up early to do it.

“I’m sure that, on some level, he knows we’re trying to help him,” Cat Daddy wheezed as, together, we battled to restrain a kicking, yowling, hissing Catorze. And we watched in disbelief as he spat out a pill which then rolled through a crack between the floorboards and vanished forever.

Whether he knows or not, frankly I would rather take on the remaining 11 labours of Hercules.

(This surely counts as the first one?)
Le bonheur est une drogue dure

28/12/2016

Christmas has been and gone, and we have made it to those weird in-between days when nobody quite knows what to do with themselves.

December has been a trying month: we have had to cope with stubborn colds, Cat Daddy’s scary Christmas lights set to “epilepsy mode”, and seeing the vet more often than we have seen all our friends and family put together … and, through it all, Louis Catorze is still chasing his tail.

The Zylkene calming supplement – or “Louis Catorze’s party powder”, as Cat Daddy naughtily calls it, and which can be seen decorating the edges of Le Cône – has made some difference; the little sod has been going for his tail slightly less often, and with slightly less ferocity. But, unfortunately, this difference isn’t significant enough to allow us to permanently dispense with Le Cône.

We went back to the vet today, and she was surprised at how long it was taking for his wound to heal. A few squeezes and pinches to the tail – and a hiss from Sa Majesté – revealed that there was still a problem there. Rather than going for the steroid shot, which would delay the healing even further, the vet prescribed a neurological painkiller which only exists in tablet form. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: we are going to have to pill the little sod twice a day for 2 weeks.

“You could try wrapping the pill in this special paste, to get him to eat it,” the vet suggested, demonstrating how to do it. Louis Catorze stared at the unappetising pellet and gave each of us in turn his “And what the heck is THIS pile of merde?” look.

In the end she had to pill him using the traditional method of brute force and a prayer. It didn’t look pleasant and there is no chance in hell of us succeeding.

I am usually pretty poor at predicting the future, but I can see that my January 2017 will involve tears, anguish and lacerations to the hands.
Le patient français

24/12/2016

It has been 2 days since the X-ray and Louis Catorze is continuing to obsess with his tail, presumably because the claw puncture wound from the other night has irritated him even further.

Watching him interact with it is the most bizarre thing imaginable; he can be unaware of it one moment and, the next, the red mist descends and he just HAS to try and kill it. If we are with him, a cuddle and a gentle warning are usually enough to distract him. But we can almost hear the cogs whirring away as he thinks, “You can’t keep watch over moi forever.”

And, of course, the real problem is when we’re not in the same room with him, or when we’re asleep. That’s when he really goes for it, with a full-on fight punctuated by those awful raspy screams that we have grown to know and hate.

We have decided to try the Zylkene calming supplement, which is a white powder that you sprinkle onto food, to see if it has any effect on Louis Catorze’s tail obsession. Bearing in mind that white powder dusted over dark brown food looks ridiculously obvious, I was fully expecting to be met with the “Go home: you’re embarrassing yourself” look, but, astoundingly, Le Roi did eat a little.

We have also studded the house with Feliway diffusers in the same way that Transylvanians would use crucifixes. They’re everywhere, silently churning out odourless, invisible clouds of happy gas that will make our boy better (we hope).

The vet told us that these new measures would take a few days to kick in, and that any changes would be subtle. But, if the alternative is tail amputation (unfortunately, yes, this has been mentioned), we’re willing to give anything a try.

We will keep you updated and, in the meantime, we wish you a wonderful and peaceful Christmas weekend. Your love and support of the little sod mean the world to us.
Le jeu de cônes

22/12/2016

Winter is coming – or, rather, it arrived yesterday – and the solstice is traditionally a period of celebration, joy and hope. Sadly I don’t feel especially celebratory or joyous at the moment, and the only thing I’m hoping for is that, one day, Louis Catorze will stop biting his darned tail. Regretfully, that day won’t be coming anytime soon.

Earlier this week, he was lucky enough to receive a SECOND gift of a soft Cône, this time in Extra Small size, from the same kind friend who sent the first one. And he has shown his gratitude by figuring out that soft Cônes can bend. Naturellement, he bit his tail and broke the skin again, forcing me to go to Pets At Home and buy an even wider, more rigid Cône (with padded edges to protect la gorge royale) for when we’re not supervising him.

He absolutely cannot bite his tail in the new Cône … but, with sufficient effort and the correct planetary alignment, he has discovered that he can get a paw to it. And, yesterday evening, he managed to get his claw stuck in his wound and couldn’t get it out. Fortunately I was with him so I was able to pull it out … but he was left with an ugly, gaping wound and a chunk of flesh hanging from his tail.

We took him to the vet this morning, hoping she would say that it was just a superficial scratch. But she thought it looked much worse than that and was concerned that he was still showing so much interest in his tail, so she recommended an X-ray to rule out any deeper problems. Luckily there was a slot available this morning so we were able to leave him there and collect him again this evening.

Sadly the X-ray revealed no damage to his tail. (I say “sadly” because I find inconclusive answers more frustrating than anything on earth; “It’s broken in 28 places”, whilst unpleasant, would at least have given us a starting point.)

And he will have to remain Côned for at least another week.

Our next options are as follows:

– A different type of painkiller whose name I forget, designed for neurological pain
– Feliway diffusers and an anti-anxiety supplement called Zylkene
– Another steroid shot, in case the reason for the original irritation is his old allergy inexplicably deciding to reappear on his tail
– All of the above

It’s a lot to take in. Cat Daddy and I are having a cup of tea, cuddling Catorze and trying to figure out what to do.
Le vilain petit canard

20/12/2016

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.
KramPuss, le diable d’hiver

18/12/2016

One of our much-loved blog followers very kindly sent Louis Catorze a soft collar as a get-well gift. Thank you, Tally! What a thoroughly sweet and and thoughtful gesture, for a spoilt little sod that probably doesn’t deserve it. The collar has been a godsend in terms of allowing him to get comfortable and sleep properly, but the naughty boy has found all sorts of ways of exploiting its, erm, versatility.

On Friday, when we came home from a meal out, he had shoved one arm through it and was wearing it as a sort of off-the-shoulder top/cape, and the next day it was a 50s-style prom skirt. Unfortunately he cannot be trusted without a collar properly in place, and doesn’t even last a second without going for his tail again. So, with deep regret, I decided to put his plastic collar back on again, reserving his soft collar for supervised sleep sessions only.

Could I get it back on? Mais non.

To be fair, Louis Catorze wasn’t THAT uncooperative, although he did yowl and complain all the way through. I was just too stupid to figure out the weird fastenings; after I had finished, there were rough seams rubbing against his ears and bits of plastic sticking up in all directions. So back to the vet I went.

Because both Cat Daddy and Houseguest Matt were out, I had to take Louis Catorze myself. He fought like an absolute fiend as I put him into his box, and continued to struggle and writhe throughout the car journey and as I carried him across the car park. The two ladies in the vet’s waiting room (with their nice, calm cats) looked quite alarmed as I fell through the door, breathless and sweating, hair stuck to my face, just about managing to cling onto a violently-shuddering cat box.

As I waited, with the box continuing to spasm and jerk at my feet and the ladies trying/pretending not to notice, I sent an SOS to Cat Daddy. His helpful reply: “I don’t understand. He’s always fine when I take him to the vet.” Right. Thanks.

The vet showed me how to put the collar on properly, and we’re booked in again on the 22nd so that she can check his tail. This nicely messes up our holiday plans … but, having looked back at my blog entries from this time last year, it seems that that’s Le Roi and that’s what he does.
Le Cône est de retour

16/12/2016

We have had a stressful few days at Le Château.

The mascara worked like a dream when freshly applied but, when it wore off, we were back to square one again. And, when I came home on Wednesday night, the tail-chasing and throaty yowling were worse than ever, at which point I discovered that Louis Catorze had gnawed the crap out of his tail.

I called the out-of-hours vet, who told me to give him some Metacam and make an appointment for the next day. So Cat Daddy cancelled his morning’s meetings and took him in.

It turns out he had a minor tail injury which was concealed by his fur, and that’s what was troubling him. Unfortunately all his biting has both worsened this AND given him a new injury on a different part of his tail that was fine before.

Obviously this isn’t great, but it certainly beats the previous theories that he might have had a mental disorder (how exactly does one treat such a thing?) or that we were too boring (again, I have no idea how to fix this; 44 years on the planet and I’m not about to suddenly become fun now).

Despite being walloped with the quadruple whammy of antibiotics, painkillers, a shaved tail and Le dreaded Cône, Le Roi is reasonably content and comfortable now and, more importantly, he can no longer bite his tail. And, because he can’t use the cat flap whilst wearing Le Cône, I had the surreal experience of sleeping in the kitchen with him last night, so that I could let him in and out, and throughout the night I had the privilege of constant cuddles. (Cat Daddy had shut the bedroom door and Houseguest Matt was out, but still: CUDDLES! FOR ME!)

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to send messages of support.
Le maquilleur royal

13/12/2016

Houseguest Matt came good with the toxin-free mascara.

And it seems that any old plebby mascara simply wouldn’t do for his cher ami: he spent quite some time in the beauty section of the organic shop trying various brands to find one with the perfect consistency. And, when a curious sales assistant passed by to see if he needed help, he told them, “It’s for a cat.”

“Well, I had to say something,” he later said, “otherwise they would have thought it were for me.”

Right. What a relief to know he saved himself THAT embarrassment.

Anyway … as well as buying the mascara, Houseguest Matt was also kind enough to offer to do the deed, which was a tremendous relief. I warned him of Louis Catorze’s tendency to kick and struggle like a psycho in situations such as these, but he insisted that he was tough enough for the task … and I was left looking really stupid when the little shit purred and rolled for Houseguest Matt and even went to him for cuddles afterwards. (In the last picture you can even see a bit of mascara still on his finger.)

Whether this succeeds in assuaging the tail-chasing is yet to be seen. But it seems that Louis Catorze’s soulmate count has increased by 100%. And, with TWO people in the house who are more adept than I at applying substances to la personne royale, this means I am officially exempt from this horror forever more.
Le maquillage du Roi

12/12/2016

Following a few more instances of Louis Catorze thundering through Le Château chasing his tail (and knocking Houseguest Matt’s stuff off his bedside table at 3am – ha), I’ve spent most of the weekend Googling coloured dye for pets. I wish I were joking.

Most of the results of my fact-finding odyssey have been warnings not to dye your pet, and I can’t say I’m surprised; until now I’d have thought it a thoroughly idiotic thing to do. And, had anyone tried to convince me that they needed to do it for medical reasons, I would have kidnapped their pet for its own safety and reported them to animal welfare.

Yet, here I am, declaring to the world that I need to do this to stop my cat from eating himself. Oh dear.

And, should you choose to ignore the warnings and dye your pet regardless, there are a million stipulations to which Louis Catorze would never agree. (Example: “For best results, start with a freshly washed animal.” Non, merci.)

After receiving the vet’s confirmation this morning that a non-toxic dye might be worth a go, and after a good friend and ardent Roi supporter came up with the genius idea of using plant-based, hypo-allergenic mascara, I thought we might have hit upon a cure. Something toxin-free and designed to be splodged around your eyes couldn’t possibly do him any harm, right? Even Cat Daddy is up for this. And, better yet, I already have an organic mascara.

Or, I thought I had. Naturellement, I have no idea where it is, and I fear it might have been lost in the move to Le Château. (I don’t wear mascara often, clearly.) We don’t want to waste time hunting fruitlessly, nor wait for delivery of a new one, nor do we have time during a horrible working week to go out shopping for one.

Merci à Dieu, then, for Houseguest Matt. There aren’t many people who would unflinchingly accept a request of, “Would you mind popping out today and buying an organic black mascara to paint the cat’s tail?”

I’m tempted to ask him to do the painting, too. Is that going too far?

(Le Roi is pictured below on Houseguest Matt’s legs.)
Le locataire du Château

10/12/2016

Cat Daddy and I have a guest staying with us at Le Château. Now, for most cats, a big deal such as a new housemate would need to be brokered with expert skill and precision; however, because this is Louis Catorze, and because our guest is male, we had a feeling everything would work out fine.

Mind you, I wasn’t prepared for Louis Catorze to love Houseguest Matt more than he loves me, nor for Houseguest Matt to be quite so smug about it.

This is how things have gone so far:

– Seconds after Houseguest Matt’s arrival: Catorze runs to welcome him
– Day 1: snuggly selfies on Houseguest Matt’s bed
– Day 6: Catorze steps over my lap to get to Houseguest Matt’s
– Day 7: Catorze starts sleeping on Houseguest Matt’s bed at night instead of ours [although Houseguest Matt has just read this over my shoulder and he informs me that, in actual fact, this began on Day 3]
– Day 11: The pair of them invent their own meowy language that only they understand
– Day 14: Houseguest Matt and I do that thing where you sit at opposite ends of the room and both call the cat’s name at the same time … and it doesn’t go well for me

I feel partly responsible for this as I should have stomped down on it after Day 1. But I was too laissez-faire, and now it’s probably too late.

And, far from feeling bad about stealing our cat, Houseguest Matt finds it hilarious. His standard response is: “He’s MY cat now! Mwahahahaha!”

The upside of all the treachery, of course, is the fact that we could do a lot worse than a guest who dotes on the little sod and looks after him better than we do; it certainly beats those who are neutral (as a couple have been) and those who take one look at him and run away, screaming (yup, this has happened, too). Le Roi has no idea how much he’s lucked out with Houseguest Matt … but, fortunately, we do.