Kai had his last stitches out last week so he's at last bandage and funnel-collar free. But he is still very much incontinent. Thankfully the diarrhoea has cleared up but, boy, can he produce urine! So much and so frequently that we now live in a partially waterproofed house.
We hoped he might adapt to being an outside cat but Kai loves his comforts. The home is where laps live and the fridge and cat tins and milk and beds and nice warm places to curl up in. And, since he caught his tail in the jaws of death, he's been wary about going outside. He never strays far and runs back at the first sign of a killer tractor or passing stranger.
We tried shutting him out but he broke through the locked cat door. So out came Plan B - towels and plastic. We covered his usual haunts with towels or plastic. We even slept under a tarpaulin bedspread. Vigilance was the watch word and the washing machine a constant friend. That's when we discovered just how much urine a cat could produce. He soaked everything. And he got everywhere. Kitchen tables, sinks, the warm back grill of a television. We were forever having to grab him or chase him off.
And I was struck down with gastro-enteritis and spent four days fastened to the toilet - luckily I'm housetrained so I fought the urge to curl up on the back of television:)
Enter Plan C - the cat nappy (or diaper). We found a pattern for a cat nappy on the internet and Shelagh knocked up a practice pair. Several scratched hands later we fitted it to Kai and ... it needed adjustment to allow his legs a little more freedom. Back to the sewing machine. The next pair worked brilliantly and Shelagh made four but ... back to the problem of volume - Kai produced so much urine that the nappy pad filled in a few hours. We had to get up in the middle of the night to change him or risk a code yellow bedroom alert. And Kai had a problem being seen in public wearing pink knickers:)
Enter Plan D - the cat crate. Fed up with sleeping under tarpaulin or getting up in the middle of night, we borrowed a dog crate from a friend. A dog crate is a large cage with a plastic tray at the bottom. It's large enough to take a litter tray and a bed and it gives us a safe, waterproof place we can put Kai in overnight. It seems to work. He complained the first night but now accepts it. We still have to be vigilant during the day. We still have towels and plastic bags protecting electrical equipment and chairs during the day. We have the cat nappy for evenings. And we try to persuade Kai to spend as much time outside as he can. It's a strain but it's working.
The hope is that he might regain some continence. He's still swollen at the base of the tail so there's hope that he might improve when the swelling goes down. But it's unlikely that he'll recover fully. The stats show that cats who don't recover urinary control within a month of injury rarely improve after that. But one can hope.
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Again, thanks for all the healing vibes and promises of tuna. They're all working. Kai's continuing to progress well. He's not eating enough on his own yet - so we're supplementing his intake - but he's a lot livelier and he's started purring again.
But just when we thought our Kai washing days were over...
We heard a large thump on the lounge ceiling. Thinking Kai must have knocked something heavy over, we ran upstairs, opened the bedroom door and ... found nothing. Kai was wandering along the floor doing the kitten equivalent of an innocent whistle. Nothing to do with me, guv.
I scanned the room. No furniture overturned. No sign of a disturbance. And then I saw what is best described as a 'code brown' situation at the base of our wardrobe. Our five foot high wardrobe. Little grey cells cranked over. That thump - could it have been Kai jumping down from the top of the wardrobe? Surely not? Three days ago he couldn't walk without dragging his right leg. How could he jump five feet?
I walked over to take a closer look. And found a large sticky pile of what can only be described as conclusive evidence of Kai's presence on top of the wardrobe. And, forgetting his training as an international kitten of mystery, he'd walked it all over the top of the wardrobe too.
As I told Kai on the way to the bathroom, not only does James Bond have to wear a plastic cone around his neck when he gets shot but he also has to have a bath when he soils himself. Those bits just get edited out of the film.
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First the good news: He's stopped bleeding. He's a lot perkier - he no longer lies around all day with his eyes half-lidded looking as though he's about expire any second. And he doesn't need to see the vet until next Wednesday when he'll have his stitches taken out. So the prognosis is good.
Now the not so good news: He's still not eating so the two hourly gloop feed continues. And he's incontinent. Which, when all your wounds are around the tail and inside of the back legs, is not good. Which means he has to be washed. And cat washing is not fun at the best of times - throw in a bad leg, a broken tail and antibiotics that loosen the bowls ... and you take 'not fun' to an undreamt of level.
The vet has switched his antibiotics so hopefully the situation will improve.
*Postscript News Flash*
Kai has at last started eating by himself - tempted by tuna:)
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Thank you for all the healing vibes and virtual hugs.
Kai managed a full body stretch this morning but is still not interested in food. We tried to tempt him with various meats and scrambled eggs but he turned his nose away. So it's back to feeding him by syringe every two hours - that's a syringe sans needle which we use to squirt creamy gloop onto his tongue. A long fraught process which isn't popular with cat or human. His next appointment with the vet is on Tuesday morning.
As to the cause of his injury we're not sure. At first we thought it must be another cat but cat fights tend to be very loud, yowly affairs and we heard nothing that night. And we're people who sleep with the window open and who are trained to leap out of bed at the first yowl of a cat fight. Click here for one of our more memorable cat fight adventures.
The vet thinks it might be a mink or polecat as the attack was so vicious and the teeth so sharp.
As a precaution we decided it would be wiser to keep our other cat - Xena - in at night. But cat's called Xena don't take to being grounded too well and Tuesday night she broke out by unlocking the cat door. Then she didn't come home for breakfast the next day. So you can imagine the state we were in on Wednesday morning. We had a listless Kai still bleeding from his operation the previous day and no Xena.
She waited until the evening and then strolled in as though nothing had happened. We locked the cat door again that night and placed a heavy box in front of it. She broke out - galloping away on horseback and ululating wildly. Cats!
Of course, now we've relented and leave the cat door unlocked, she stays in all night. Cats are contrary beings:)
Now I'm off to watch Pompey win the cup.
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As cat slaves we know the joys of waking up to body parts strewn all over the house. But this morning...
Three rabbits and a startled toad. And to judge by the size of our cats stomachs - think cartoon cats with bunny sized bulges - that was just the leftovers. For the first time ever neither cat required breakfast.
Both cats are now sleeping and the startled toad - Toadus Inedibilis - is in therapy.
We may join him.
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This week the International Kittens of Mystery invite Laptop and Boboko, without whom (as all cats know) Alma Alexander would not have been able to write the latest Worldweaver's book - Spellspam - which is out today.
Because of the premature end to last week's interview (following the tuna incident) Xena has decided to assist Kai this week.
Kai: How do you most help your human with her writing? Do you warm her keyboard? Help her with the typing? Or do you translate her text into Polish with some clever paw strokes?
Xena: You asked that last week.
Kai: So? It's my best question. (flicks tail pointedly and turns to Laptop)
Laptop: I find that pathetic meows from the middle of the office where I am just too far to reach REALLY help her concentration. it helps her focus in the right place - which is, of course, me.
Boboko: Well, there are times I want lovings. Like, NOW. And there are times I want her to clean the litter box. Like, NOW. And there are times that I want her to... oh, wait... you mean she was doing something else?
Kai: Humans ALWAYS think they're doing something else. (climbs onto back of chair, tries to turn, teeters precariously, overbalances, digs in claws and swings precariously from front paws whilst trying to pass off entire incident as pre-planned) Thea's a double seventh - seventh child of two seventh child parents. Those are pretty big litters for humans. So, I'm guessing Thea's really a kitten, isn't she? It's one of those allegorical stories where the heroine has to be a human for marketing purposes but we all know she's really a kitten.
Boboko: Yes but how long are her whiskers?
Laptop: Pah. Humans just get carried away sometimes. Doesn't mean they can aspire to be cats.
Xena: (watching the tempting target of Kai's fluffy tail swing in front of her nose for one too many times) thwap!
Kai: Ow! Are ... are there any magical kittens in this book?
Laptop: There are no such things as NON-magical kittens. In this book or anywhere else. Yes, there's a cat - I'm told that SHE has committed the atrocity of amalgamating me and my silly brother into one creature for her character's cat, but we can both forgive her that. She probably didn't want to hurt our feelings by choosing one over the other. And I fully realise that she couldn't have a cat called Laptop in a book which has to do with cyber magic - humans are easily confused - hence the name she gave the cat in the book.
Boboko: There's a cat in the book?
Kai: (trying to read the autocue while hanging upside down) Yawny raft ot kooq...
Xena (rolls eyes) How would you suggest a cat sells this book to their human? What would your pitch be?
Laptop: We cats, we have known for a long time there is more to the world that you know than just what you can smell or paw or hear, that there are other creatures out there (some of them ARE food, arguably) and that you need to open your mind to the possibilities. And that once you become aware of yourself and what you are and what your place is in all the worlds that you can walk in, anything is possible, really.
Boboko: You DO know that neither of us can read...? But this book was written by She Who Doles Out Treats and Kibble. We like treats and kibble, Lap and I. So buy the book, and help her keep the kibble coming...
Kai: (falls down, shocked) Kibble can be stopped? What about the Kibble Fairy?
Xena: Thwap! (turns to Laptop) Any plans to talk your human into writing some cat-centric mythology. I'm thinking Bast the Egyptian cat goddess.
Laptop: ALL HAIL TO BAST - and don't think we haven't been trying. With the help of the Cat Headed One, we will prevail. And if she doesn't there's always the option of wandering across her keyboard on our own and doing it ourselves. In Polish.
Boboko: Well how was I supposed to know that the pile of treats you wouldn't eat was an offering to Bast and not just something I could finish off?... Sorry, folks. I messed up the sacrifice. I guess the Cat Headed One will have to wait just a little longer for her story... ooooh... SQUIRRELS...
Kai: Squirrels? Where?
Xena: Come back! We haven't finished...
Well, if it's not tuna it's squirrels.
Here's Laptop and Boboko behaving themselves:
And here's Kai and Xena having an animated discussion about third person narrative:
If you'd like to know more about Laptop and Boboko click here
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As heralded last week, our international kitten of mystery (the kitten formerly know as Kai) is conducting a series of feline interviews to prove the old adage - 'Behind every successful author there's a cat - and there's another one over there and one's got the manuscript and one's on the keyboard and Noooo!'
Today, Kai welcomes Flop, Pod and Flit who's pet human, Jim Hines, has a book coming out today. The book is called Goblin War and makes an ideal gift for pet humans of all ages.
Kai: (balancing precariously on arm of chair while trying to read autocue) How do you most help your human with his writing? Do you warm his keyboard? Help him with the typing? Or do you translate his text into Polish with some clever paw strokes?
Flop: Some humans need more help than others. Jim requires a three-cat team. Flit over there helps keep him on schedule, making sure he doesn't sleep in too late. Pod provides financial incentive for Jim's work by shredding the occasional curtain. As for me, I keep the other two in line.
Pod: What's that supposed to mean? You think just because I'm missing a leg, you can--
Flop: *thwapthwapthwap*
Pod: Hey, I was just asking.
Flit: Huh? What was the question?
Kai: (falls off chair, almost lands on feet, swishes tail and blames last week's earthquake in Market Rasen) Are there any magical kittens in his book?
Flop: No magical kittens, but there are tunnel-cats, the fiercest beasts in the whole trilogy. Jig the goblin might be able to fight humans and wizards and even a dragon, but he never messes with the tunnel-cats.
Pod: What about that short story where the tunnel-cat gets--
Flop: I don't want to talk about that. I'm pretty sure the dogs wrote that scene when we weren't looking. They'll pay for that one of these days.
Flit: Wait, what's going on? Who are we talking to now?
Kai: (sharpening claws on chair legs) With your human writing all these books about goblins, when's he going to produce a cookery book? There must be some good goblin recipes - maybe with a little tuna...
Flit: Tuna! (bounds away)
Flop: You had to say the T-word, didn't you.
Pod: Most goblin recipes sound pretty good to me, actually. But humans don't seem to appreciate them. Don't ask me why. The barbequed elf with rock serpent gravy is especially tempting.
Kai: (mouth open, head back, glazed look while doing a passing imitation of Snowball imitating Homer Simpson) Rock serpent gravy... (gurgle, wretch - unexpected hairball) How would you suggest a cat sells this book to their monkey? What would your pitch be?
Flit: He lied. There wasn't any tuna. Go sneeze on him, Pod!
Flop: Jig the goblin takes a very feline approach to adventures and quests: he wants nothing to do with them. He'd rather curl up and nap, or at least hide somewhere that the warrior goblins don't pick on him. Instead, he gets dragged off on some silly human adventure, and has to survive with his wits and his fangs. Also with his pet spider who sets things on fire a lot.
Pod: I had a pet spider, but I eated him.
Flop: Anyway, it's an entertaining book, particularly for anyone who's familiar with the tropes of the genre. Jig's a very loveable character, for a biped.
Flit: What's a trope?
Kai: (acting knowledgeable)It's French for mole. Not as nice as mouse but better than spider. Do you think any of the characters in your human's books are based upon you?
Flop: Well, the elves who appear in the first and third books are highly graceful, like myself.
Pod: Didn't you fall off the DVD player again last night?
Flop: *thwap* Some of the goblins are a little dense in the head. I'll leave it to you to decide which of us inspired them.
Flit: Wait, maybe there's tuna now! (Bounds off again)
Kai (bounding in pursuit) Tuna? Wait for me!
And there - a little sooner than planned but we are talking tuna - the interview ended.
Here's Flop, Pod and Flit in the Green Room interviewing the tuna.
And here's Kai resting after a heavy meal.
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One of the problems of being an International Kitten of Mystery is maintaining a successful cover. Dogs have learnt how to Google and tax humans get suspicious when unemployed kittens claim helicopter expenses.
So, for international security and tax purposes, Kai has decided to become an interviewer.
On March 4th he'll be posting an interview with Flop, Pod and Flit - three cats who ghost write under the human name of Jim Hines.
And on March 10th he'll be interviewing Laptop and Boboko who write under the human name of Alma Alexander.
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A new svelte Kai has returned form International Kitten of Mystery Rehab. Readers may remember the consternation in International Kitten of Mystery circles over the full-figured superstar's weight. A situation that came to a head when he became stuck under a sideboard (I think James Bond had a similar problem in Casino Royale with a Russian tabby) and needed an extraction team with an extra large tub of grease to pull him out.
Following Kai's debriefing - and degreasing - it was decided urgent measures were called for. So after a strict regime of diet mice and vole lite, a new Kai has emerged. And, no longer the fat cat of the spook world, Kai is now licensed to swing from very high places.
Witness his first mission. Enemy agents are holed up in barn. They've planted explosive charges around the doors and windows. There's only one way in - up the wisteria, under the eaves and squeeze in through a minuscule gap in the roof.
Here we see Kai climbing the wisteria. Look, no grease!
Now he's looking for the gap under the eaves and, ever the showman, putting on a wobble for the cameras.
Then he leaps! Catches hold of something with his front paws and dangles for several seconds. His back paws claw air. His fellow international kittens of mystery hold their collective - and very mysterious - breath. Can Kai swing it?
Now, an evil blogger would end this post with a kaihanger. Tune in next week to find out if Kai survives! But... as I'm currently not evil here's the conclusion. Kai hauls himself up, under and through. Once inside, he leaps from a very great height onto the straw bales below. "Make my day, voles," he says in a Dirty Tabby voice and the voles immediately surrender.
Here we see Kai posing amongst the straw bales for the debriefing cameras and thinking about supper.
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With Household Security issuing a brown (mouse) alert, it's been a busy time for international kittens of mystery, Kai and Xena. Here we see the feline two sizing up a dangerous situation. Enemy mice, for there are no other kind, have been sighted holding illegal gatherings under this cupboard. Time for some non-covert kitten surveillance.
Having size up both the situation and her shoulders, Xena decides to move to the side entrance. Kai having sized up very little, prefers the direct approach. No exceedingly small gap can defeat a kitten with determination.
Two dislocated shoulders later, Kai squeezes where no international kitten of mystery has ever squeezed before. Or ever will again, thinks Kai. The insurgent mice - those that haven't been squashed or wedged up against their terrorist training manuals - flee the building pursued by Xena.
His job done, agent Kai emerges. 'Nothing to see, folks. Move along.' Five minutes later the International Kitten Of Mystery extraction team arrives with their extra large tub of grease.
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The current summerlike weather and lighter evenings have wrought an unexpected change in the activities of the International Kittens of Mystery. They've become Nocturnal Kittens of Mystery. Which has resulted in far less Polish being typed on my keyboard as they both spend much of the day asleep.
The word 'peace' has re-entered our vocabulary and found a friend called 'quiet.'
Here's Kai and Xena sleeping off a night of intensive counter beetle operations:
And if you're wondering if Xena's wearing a furry night scarf, here's the picture from another angle.
Yes, it's Kai's leg - he has so many. And as an International Kitten of Mystery he has to be prepared at all times and sometimes that means kittenpulting your partner out of bed.
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This week's kitten's guide looks at dizzy heights and features Kai at his dizziest. Yesterday the full-figured stunt kitten decided that having climbed a giant stack of straw without a Sherpa he should then leap from the mighty summit onto the even mightier roof beams of the barn. One more jump and he reached an opening in the gable wall and from there he found a place to sit and gaze down at the ant-like human's toiling in the garden.
So far so good. Then he decides that a stunt kitten with an audience should put on a show. Instead of descending by retracing his steps he decides to use the Wisteria. Now most kittens learn from an early age that Wisteria fire exits are for use only when there are no other means of egress. Here we see Kai a quarter of the way down the Wisteria and attempting to go round the bend - something he usually excels at.
Note the large degree of wobble. He's fifteen feet off the ground and swinging like a high wire act. By the time I'd grabbed the ladder and ran back with it, he'd gone. Not to a Kai-shaped depression in the ground but back inside the barn. He'd managed to climb up the stonework and crawled under a gap in the eaves.
Here we see Kai about to jump back onto the straw pile.
And here we see Kai discovering that climbing down is never as much fun as climbing up. For some reason distances are doubled. And really high stacks of straw become really really high stacks of straw.
Next week, with Kai checking into the celebrity kitten rehab unit, there will be a Lamb Picture Wednesday.
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This week's Kitten's Guide looks at those times a young kitten's taste buds crave more than the standard freshly-forked fare. Yes, it's gourmet time at the Guide and today we have two recipes for the discerning nibbler.
First up we have Marinaded Mouse on a Bed of Summer Flowers
So, catch your mouse and lightly torture for ten minutes. Toss in air and marinade in the mouth until bored, then carry inside and deposit on your human's flower-patterned bedspread. If possible (and your human is shortsighted enough) leave for several days to mature, returning at odd times (like the middle of the night) to turn and toss.
Portion note: one medium-sized mouse left on the bed is enough to frighten a family of four.
Here we see Kai selecting his mouse. Note: the mouse is, of course, a toy mouse (or third understudy as he's now known after the shocking accidents on previous takes)
Vol au Vent Dip
First catch your vole. Season with a few strands of grass and marinade in mouth. Lightly toss and pat along the floor. Next, steal your pastry. Here we see Xena eyeing her prize before pouncing.
After you've outrun your human, make a paw sized hole in the middle of the pastry and drop the vole in the hole. Hook vole out. Drop vole in. Hook vole out. Drop vole in. Repeat until bored. This is the dip part of the meal and hours of fun.
When your vole has been thoroughly dipped take the vole au vent and place in a warm oven. Here we see Xena testing the shelf height. The shelf should be low enough to allow the chef to walk in and high enough to deter an inquisitive Kai.
Leave for as long as possible then serve with a freshly squeezed spider.
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This week's kitten's guide looks at extreme camouflage. Of course today also happens to be Human Fool's Day in the kitten calendar (as in most things kittens are 11 days ahead of their bipedal friends)
So, first up we see Xena cunningly disguised as a lamb (or maybe the rock - she is an expert) and Kai as her mother. Kai, always the martyr to his art, had to take on a lot of extra bulk for this role - which meant extra meals and snacky things, and a course in reverse liposuction.
'How is it done?' I hear your say. 'They look so lifelike.' To which the answer is - hours in make-up. The trick is to start off by using a fishy-flavoured foundation - always popular with the fashion minded kitten - then move on to the latex mask and the woolly jumper.
Talking of woolly jumpers, here's Kai disguised as another lamb playing King of the Castle on another rock - or is it Xena?
Here we see Saffron, our French Trotteur, coming over to watch the shoot. Xena, being a small animal, does what all small animals do when loomed over by a much larger animal. She pretends not to notice. Kai, on the other hand, unsure about Saffron's views vis a vis fishy-flavoured foundation, decides a hasty retreat is the thing to be beaten.
And just to show that none of the above pictures were faked, here's Kai disguised as a pop-up book from Amazon.
Remember, kittens, you only have until twelve o'clock noon to make a fool of your human. After that it's down to them.
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This week's Kitten's Guide looks at the car. First, it's important to realise that there are two types of car. One is evil and patrols the grey paths at frightening speeds looking for little kittens to gobble up. And the other is our friend. It does useful things like hunt for food tins and take the dog to the vet (and far away woody places where our humans try their best to lose the creature - they even throw sticks at it - but, as we all know, dogs have low cunning, big noses that they shove in all manner of inappropriate places, and are notoriously difficult to shake off).
Here we see Xena checking sufficient room has been left in the back of the car for large boxes of stray cat tins. Very important: never allow your human to leave the house with a full car. Room must always be left for opportunist shopping.
And the car must be regularly maintained. This means inspecting all the important instruments. Here we see Kai checking the instrument panel - supermarket detector, stray cat tin grab, dog ejector seat lever...
And here we see Kai after examining the dog ejector seat lever a little too closely. Remember, kittens, adjusting dog ejector seat levers is best left for the professionals ... and stunt kittens like Kai.
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