Tag Archives: cats

The mangina

Posted on by
4

Since his rescue from the tree seven months ago, Edward has been unable to develop any ability to self-regulate, food wise and is consequently teetering on the brink of obesity.

In human motherhood terms, having a chunky child is (quite ridiculously) considered by some to be a punishable offence and can even lead to the child being taken away and placed with (one can only assume) Gillian Mckeith-esque Foster parents for immediate slimming. Fortunately, the RSPCA doesn’t exercise similar philosophies for those of us with furry fatties, but to say that the vet has started to get on my case about reducing Edward’s rolls is quite the understatement.

I had been taking the vet’s advice about measuring out his portions ever since his flab started slopping over the edge of her scales, but Edward’s problem wasn’t so much the portion size of his kibble as it was the stuff he was stealing on the side!

Since his adoption, I have been woken up in the middle of the night six or seven times by the sound of Edward swinging a bag of bread around the living room in an attempt to burst open the plastic wrapper. He has been caught face-down in the pans and trying to lick bits off used dinner plates on the sideboard numerous times. He is particularly fond of corn on the cob and when I shut him out of the kitchen one evening in an attempt to preserve this side-dish until the main meal had been cooked, he decided to launch his way in through the kitchen window, resulting in Edward smashing fat arse-first into the flower pots and the consequent death of several plants.

During my recent trip abroad, and given the highly sensitive nature of both of my moggies, not to mention Edward’s obesity, I decided to employ a cat sitter to make sure that they were both well looked after.

Finding a good sitter is no mean feat and finding a sitter who shares your exact same parenting philosophies is nigh on impossible. There’s nothing worse than getting home after a romantic night out only to find your kids jacked up and twitching after a night of scary films, fizzy drinks and popcorn. And it’s no different for cat parents. We were lucky enough to find a mostly great sitter, the only down side was that it was evident upon our return that Edward had managed to psychologically manipulate her into giving him extra portions of food.

I know exactly how he does this: Cue wide-open eyes and tales of his former life as an emaciated stray, surviving a wet winter by rooting through garbage cans and dragging scraps of food back to his tree, I just hoped she might be able to resist. She wasn’t.

We know this because although we returned to an immaculate house and two, completely chilled out and happy kitties, Edward’s at best, lumpy, physique was now almost completely circular. So excessive were his rolls that he was even sporting what can only be described as a mangina.

Needless to say, the weight is coming off quickly. It seems that we got here just in the nick of time to prevent Edward’s complete transformation from cute chubby kitty to full-blown slug.

Young cat, there’s no need to feel down. I said, young cat…

Posted on by
Reply

I haven’t posted for a while as I’ve been visiting family in the UK, leaving my beloved furry children in the capable hands of a cat-sitter.

Family in the UK also includes my mother’s three year old mog, Dylan. When it comes to cats, my mother is one of those people who “judges a book by its cover”. And as a long-haired fluffy tabby cat (with, I’m convinced, Maine Coon ancestry) Dylan is one beautiful cover indeed. But don’t be taken in by the beautiful facade, for behind his perfectly symmetrical furry face lurks a ruthless savage waiting to clamp down on any human hand that comes within 2 feet of his person.  When Dylan bites, he bites through to the bone and engages your entire forearm in a death-grip designed to tear the limbs off anyone that tries to escape (much like a crocodile).  If you pick him up, he will apply the same manoeuvre to your neck.

My poor mother spent hours trawling through websites to try and find a solution to Dylan’s ultra-violence, took him to numerous vets and even consulted an animal psychologist…all to no avail. It wasn’t until we discovered that Dylan had a deeply-entrenched secret that he was hiding from the rest of the family, that we finally began to understand the reasons behind him acting out.

Dylan is a homosexual (we should’ve guessed really from his predilection for Village People-esque headwear…see above) and engaged in a tumultuous relationship with an ex stud cat from over the road. The homosexuality in itself isn’t the big issue but the fact that our neighbours took it unto themselves to record a series of video clips on their mobile phones of Dylan and their ex-stud cat engaging in lewd acts for the viewing pleasure of their other family members, is disturbing to the extreme!

So while they’re in fits of giggles over the recorded footage of Dylan sodomising their pet, the poor cat is on the verge of a nervous breakdown for having been outed so publicly. Not to mention that the video could at any time be uploaded to the internet, turning Dylan into some kind of gay, cat version of Kim Kardashian! It’s really not surprising he hates humans so much!