Cat wrangling .............

Alas, poor Hugo is poorly.... toward the end of last week I noticed he had a bit of a watery eye and was hearing the occasional sneeze... so he was kept warm and happy (roughly translated as he buried himself in my duvet and refused to come out unless food was involved) but alas by Saturday his left eye was gunked shut and he was mouth breathing and sneezing all over the place...... so off we went to the vets.....

by the time we'd got there I was almost completely deaf - for a cat that couldn't breath properly he couldn't half yowl at the top of his voice!

The vet and I pondered on the mysteries of how an indoor cat might get cat flu...... and then decided that on balance it probably wasn't .... so he had eye drops put in that turned his eyes a lovely florescent yellow.... to determine if there was an eye injury... there wasn't.... and then he had a small capillary tube put up his nose....... which he objected to most strongly.... but we couldn't flush out any foreign objects...... that said - have you seen how small a cat's nostrils are... I mean, it's not like a child... and they don't have the prehensile digits to say, shove lego up their noses.....

After some deliberation.... and hilarity as we tried to weigh him.... we decided that he probably had sinusitis and a course of antibiotics and eye drops were called for....

So twice a day I am cat wrangling....... the first phase of which is to actually find the damn cat........ do you know how many places I have upstairs in my house where Hugo can be just out of my reach??  I've resorted to climbing on things I probably shouldn't, hanging over the edge of beds trying to reach him as he hides in the middle underneath and even rugby tackling him as he runs past towards the door......

So far there have been variable successes...... though apparently he feels once I am in bed at night it's safe and he can crawl under the duvet with me and I won't get him......... I am not sure why he forgets that this works for me every time!

Then we come to the part where you have the cat by the scruff with one hand and are desperately trying to open the tamper proof box of antibiotic tablets with the other - that other being the one you don't normally use..... I've an interesting collection of scratches up one arm and on one side of my body from this phase.

Once I've got the tablet in my hand it's fairly easy to get him to take it.... well, I open his mouth, he looks totally outraged and freezes and I throw the tablet down as far as I can ......... he then swallows on reflex.

The eye drops are more fun.... particularly as there is no way of guessing how much of the damn stuff is going to come out the teeny tiny little tube as I try to keep him still, his eye open and drop the drops at the same time.......

All over I let him go...... and he moves precisely three paces away from me and waits for a treat......... and all is well till we get to do it all over again..... frankly by the time I've done this I am exhausted!  Thankfully only a couple more days of medication to go - we are off back to the vets on Thursday night to get the all clear - fingers and paws crossed!