Images

La cage aux folles

Image ~ ~ iamthesunking ~ 2 Comments

Good news: I have found Louis Catorze’s secret hiding place. Bad news: it’s here. Yes, here! The Cage of Broken Dreams! The transporting vessel from hell, which strikes cold fear into the heart of every kitty as it usually indicates a trip to the vet! I’m very upset that my poor boy’s trauma is such that he’d prefer to hide in here than snuggle in bed with me. Alternatively, because he’s so darned stoopid, he could very well have thought, “A new bed? Pour moi? Magnifique!” I’m hoping beyond hope that it’s Option Deux.

(By the way, the door is lying in that position because he kicked it that way after our undignified tussle this morning. He was successfully medicated eventually, but that was 15 hours ago and he’s ignored me ever since.)

The positive news is that, despite the fact that he’s been Côneless since late on Sunday night (because, since we removed it to allow him to eat and drink,  we’ve failed at every attempt to put it back on), he hasn’t been scratching at his wounds and they seem to be healing. They don’t look at all attractive as they go through the process, but then we didn’t get Louis Catorze for his looks, so tant pis. Also, the veterinary surgery attached to his ex-rescue centre – which was where he lived for many months before coming to us, as he wasn’t well enough to be adopted or fostered – have been communicating with our local vet, where we took him on Sunday, to talk treatment. Hopefully, between them, they will come up with a more long-term solution. No doubt it will be an expensive one, but that’s special needs cats for you.

Je déteste les médicaments

Image ~ ~ iamthesunking ~ Leave a comment

medication

Louis Catorze may or may not get his medication today and, unfortunately, I am leaning more towards “may not”. Getting a tiny pill into a 3kg cat may not seem like the twelve labours of Hercules, but all I can say is: “Try it yourself and see.”

First of all, it requires the cat to be present; this morning, when it was time for me to do the deed, Louis Catorze was not. There aren’t that many places for him to hide, but when you’re rushing to work and just 5 extra minutes make all the difference between being relaxed and on time or being panicked and late, there just isn’t the time to piss about looking for cats. Especially tiny black ones who can slip about unnoticed like little ghosts; those ones, when they don’t want to be found, are utterly unfindable.

Cat Daddy had rather more success in finding Louis Catorze when he got up after me, so he donned the riot gear and armed himself. However, being physically fit, having a weight advantage, being a general badass and all the other things that would usually help you to win a fight, are of no use whatsoever when it comes to dealing with a savage, fur-covered mini-Wolverine on steroids who, despite his diminutive stature, would shred your flesh like pulled pork without a care. The pill bounced off Louis Catorze’s face, ricocheted off the walls of the living room and vanished under the sofa; then, whilst Cat Daddy tried to retrieve it, canny kitty took the opportunity to flee to his mystery sulking den which we have yet to discover. He could very well still be there but, on account of it being a mystery, we just don’t know.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day – or rather, 8pm tonight is another dose and another attempt, and this time it will be my turn to take one for the team. Yikes.

Le Roi est malade: vive Le Roi!

Image ~ ~ iamthesunking ~ 2 Comments

I had hoped to kick off our blog with something rather more positive than this, but unfortunately Louis Catorze isn’t very well. Recently he has inexplicably stepped up his efforts to go burrowing in dusty places and remain there unnoticed for long periods of time, which aggravates his skin allergy, and today he scratched his itchy face with such force that he ended up bleeding and wailing. So we had to take a trip to the emergency vet and, one antibiotic injection and one antihistamine pill later, and with our pockets £68 lighter, we brought him home and embarked upon the onerous task of getting Le Cône d’Honte (the Cone of Shame) around his neck.

I weigh 21 times more than Louis Catorze does. Cat Daddy weighs 31 times more than Louis Catorze does. (We’re not fat, by the way: our cat is just very, very small.) Yet it took the pair of us – clad in padded jackets to protect ourselves from the Freddy Kruger slasher claws – to get the job done. We couldn’t help smiling a TINY bit at the sight of Louis Catorze in his new neckwear, but our smiles were short-lived as he shot upstairs and under our bed for the papa of all mega-sulks (and a revenge-puke on our bedroom carpet).

Le Cone d'Honte

After a while – well, several hours, actually – we decided to check on him, but he was nowhere to be found. We searched every inch of the house, starting, of course, with all the places he wasn’t allowed to go, but to no avail. Our panic was eventually interrupted by a knock at the door and a never-seen-before cheery neighbour, who said, “Hello. Do you happen to have a black cat with a cone? He’s in our flower bed and doesn’t seem to want to move.” Black, coned and refusing to move his lazy arse? Bingo.

We ambled over to the cheery neighbour’s house, met his equally cheery wife and collected Louis Catorze somewhat shamefacedly, as if bailing out our underage, drunk and disorderly child from a police cell, and all the while hoping they wouldn’t be judging our cat parenting. He is now holed up in the wild strawberry bush outside, having embarked upon Mega-Sulk Partie Deux. I don’t suppose giving him his next lot of antihistamines is going to be fun in a bun, but it has to be done. (That wasn’t supposed to rhyme.)