For all those that live with a cat and survive sans straight jacket

Over the past month, cat Leo has been subjecting me to emotional and mental abuse of such magnitude that I am begging for bamboo splinters to be inserted under my nails, just to relieve my agony.

It all escalated when he started vomiting rather regularly. Now given that he eats 20 meals a day, the statistical probability of an on-the-carpet upchuck episode was getting increasingly favourable. There were no other symptoms and I was about to take him to the vet when my wise sister paid us a visit and shed light.

Apparently all these high science cat foods on the market contain protein that is so altered in the laboratory that if they are eaten exclusively by the said feline over a long period of time, the cat eventually can no longer digest the food properly and the consequences are deposited on the rug.

Change his food said my sister, which I did.

Problem was that Leo liked – a lot - the food that was making him ill and I began tempting him with all the other brands of food on the market. He didn’t like this one, no, that one was just sniffed at, the one in the silver package got the one-eye, the one in the red package generated a look from Leo that said – you having a laugh aren’t you? And so it went.

Then I finally found one. Yes, yes, gimme, gimme, fill the bowl up purred Leo. By this stage I had learnt my lesson and I bought no less than three mini trial packets of this food. Leo downed the lot and even better, kept it down. My problem was that it was fish flavoured and boy, was it fishy. Pour a cupful into his bowl and within minutes the whole room was filled with an aroma that was not Channel number 5 – more like Billingsgate on a very hot afternoon. And of course because of the cat’s bizarre eating habits, the bowl had be kept topped up all day which essentially just stank the house out. But hey, he loved it and he was thriving. 

Job done I thought happily as I ordered a 10kg bag which set me back almost £60.

The bag arrived and I held my breath as I opened it up and poured out the first bowlful. Leo was wittering away at my heels. Ignoring my nausea, I scooped him up and put him face forward in front of his bowl.

He looked into his bowl and then said, nay, don’t wanna it.

So now I am sitting at my desk wondering if I could get away with wrapping the 10kg bag in Christmas paper and delivering it to someone I really don’t like.

Begs the question of what I get Leo for the next meal, which is due in about 19 minutes. Given what he has put me through and the plethora of mice out in the fields, I am tempted to suggest to the cat that he gets off his backside and goes and gets a take away.