Dude cat - where's your self respect?

I saw dude cat at the back of the garden yesterday - it's been a good while, and I'm really happy he's here again. I was stepping out of the garden shed and a heavy weight nearly toppled me sideways. Has he grown fat! This is solely the result of his excellent strategy for attracting food when he was lost and lonely: a handsome face, willingness to be stroked and the loudest miaow I have yet to hear from a domestic cat. You simply cannot ignore dude. At once he knows your focus is all on him, then he switches into affection attraction overdrive. So now he is obviously getting buckets of the best food at home he's also getting all the old neighbourhood softies still feeding him. No wonder the owner regular calls by to plead with us not to feed him. Still, I just might be tempted ...

Lucy, the fat pet shop cat in her heated box

She's lost a lot of her weight now, as she is getting very old. But Lucy lives the life of Larry in her own little mini-apartment inside the pet shop at Cotteridge. It features a heated blanket and warm air that circulates throughout. And as you can see, she is well supplied with food, blankets, probably got a tv and MP3 player in there, who knows what fat cats can hide. It was a freezing day, there was no heating working in the shop and as my frozen hands picked tins of cat food off the shelf I realised that but for the fact I would be called a weirdo I would in an instand have climbed inside next to Lucy to warm up. Long may she live. fat and free.

Making me look ridiculous

I took Yoshka to the vet for her annual jab today. I also mentioned to the vet that I thought she might have a thyroid complaint as she is such a nervous cat - cough and she'll jump six feet in the air. Good party piece but irritating. If I try to stroke her belly or touch her legs she'll go nuts. And how on earth can a cat lover not want to stoke a cat's belly, for chrissake? And as for picking her up, forget it.

So I took her out of her box, placed her on the vet's table - and he picked her up and stroked her and she loved it. What a cow! She purred, stretched out in his arms and simply made me look like I was either making it all up or that I was some idiot who was bursting balloons in her ears all day. They made an ideal couple.

Upshot is that she needs to have some teeth removed and gingivitis treated.
Apart from that she's 4.2 kilos of healthy cat. And so she should be after all the organic cat food she scoffs.

For a few moments I entertained the idea that she might let me pick her up and stroke her belly when I got her home. No way.

Not your desk. Mine. Watch the tail.

Librarian - who's that talking?

Computer repair cat napping on the job