Hi everyone, Casey and Gibbs here with the latest update on our Mum’s progress with her wobbles.  Gibbs devised this fantastic game where he plays with the catnip toys and then whacks them under the Welsh Dresser which is in the dining room.  He goes up to Mum, looks all sad, and she realises that all the toys are missing.  Then she goes to the cupboard under the stairs where there’s a long stick thing with numbers on (ED: it’s a yard ruler) and she slides it under the dresser from side to side.  All manner of dust and fluff come out, but so do most of the toys that Gibbs whacked under there.

The thing is, this is exercise for Mum.  To some humans, exercise is a dirty word.  They don’t ‘do’ exercise.  For Mum, the very act of walking to the cupboard under the stairs, looking for the stick thing, and walking back to the dresser, little does she realise, that’s she’s exercising.  The hilarious thing is when she bends down with the stick moving it from side to side under the dresser.  Her face goes a really funny shade of red and she looks as though she’s going to explode.  Gibbs and I stand well back in case there’s a Mum-mess all over the place.

She bought a new diet book which she read from cover to cover in a few days.  Dad then took her shopping and she bought lots of different food so that she could start eating the food the new diet book told her to.  This cost a fortune, apparently, and it may put some people off trying a new diet.  Every day now, the kitchen is a hive of industry when Mum is trying out new recipes.  The house smells divine with all the new aromas wafting from room to room.

After the first week on this new diet, Mum eagerly stood on the scales.  I always supervise the ‘standing on the scales’ so that she can’t cheat and tell us fibs.  I saw the numbers.  They were the same as the week before.  Mum was disappointed and she put the scales back under the bathroom sink.  She picked up the new recipe book that she bought to accompany the new diet book and started going through the recipes again.  She made a list of the ones that she wanted to try, knowing that she’d already got the ingredients in the cupboards, fridge and freezer.  And she tried them.

The next week, she stood on the scales and she yelled out. ‘Oh, my gosh, Casey Darlings, Mummy’s lost weight!  Woo Hoo!’  I leaned over to look at the numbers expecting a massive reduction from the previous week. Half a pound off!  Half a measly pound and she’s ecstatic. 

Gibbs said we’ll have to get her exercising more to go with this new diet she’s trying out.  Maybe the numbers will get better.  We hope so.  If you’re only seeing half a pound here, and half a pound there, don’t be despondent.  Our Mum was overjoyed.  See it as a blessing.  Get some butter or sugar and weigh out half a pound and see how much that equates to your weight loss and realise that your body is much better off without that weight.  All these half pounds and pounds add up and the more you can lose, the better your body will be able to move around. Perhaps Mum won’t go so red in the face when she bends down to get the catnip toys from under the dresser, thus reducing the risk of a Mum-mess all over the dining room.

See you next time

Casey and Gibbs xxx

It’s been a little while, fellow flab fighters, since Gibbs and I put paws to keyboard to bring you the latest news about Mum’s fight with the flab.  Actually, there’s not much to report with regard to Mum’s progress.  She still makes up meals from the new slimming cookery book but there’s always disappointment on her face when she stands on the scales.  Incredibly, she’s the only person we know who’s dieting and PUTS ON WEIGHT!  How does that happen?   Anyway, enough about Mum’s woes, I have some of my own to impart.

Last week, it was ‘visit to the vet’ time for the annual booster.  Mum mentioned, in passing, all the matts that I have down each side and asked what she could do to make me more comfortable.  The vet, a nice blonde lady, (a smiling assassin as it turned out), whipped out a comb, held me by the scruff of my neck with one hand and with her free hand, flicked the comb all over me yanking out all the matts.  There was a huge pile of fur combined with matts on the table.  She seemed pleased with herself.  Mum and Dad looked horrified.

Then she dropped the bombshell.  The ‘F’ word.  She said the reason why I had the matts was because – oh, how this hurts me to reveal it – I am too fat (oh, my cats, I can hardly believe I’ve just said that word) and that my belly gets in the way of me grooming myself.  Readers, for the record, I am NOT fat; I am merely incredibly and ferociously fluffy and very, very big boned.  There isn’t an ounce of fat on me, well, maybe a kilo or two. 

Oh, the shame. The mortification. Mum looked a cross between bewildered and embarrassed: bemarrassed, or emwildered.  Before we had a second to digest this earth-shattering and life-changing information, another person entered the room with a tape measure, a notebook, a pen, a folder with dieting information and facts which she gave to Mum, after a long, oh, so very long, dissertation on helping one’s pets to lose weight.  I know what Mum was thinking.  She was thinking that because she’s overweight, the vet people would be looking at her blaming her for over feeding me.  The thing is, though, she DOESN’T give me food off her plate.  She never has and I’ve never asked.

Lots of people with weight issues feed their pets inappropriate food.  They say it’s because they love their pets that they want to treat them so that they feel loved and special but what owners don’t realise is that all these treats have calories.  Calories are alright in moderation, but when humans and pets alike go over their daily calorie allowance, that’s when the hips start spreading, the belly starts sagging, and health problems galore start waiting in the wings ready to pounce and ground you.

Garfield, my predecessor whom I didn’t know, but Ollie told me about him, used to say: ‘It’s better to broaden the mind, than broaden the hips,’ and he’s obviously right.  The second vet person weighed me and tutted.  Then she measured my waist and tutted.  Then she measured my belly and tutted.   Then she turned to Mum and Dad and said: ‘Casey is something we call ‘morbidly obese’ but we can fix him, although it will be a long and difficult journey.’

Mum was on the brink of tears at this point and although I didn’t enjoy being the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons, I did feel sorry for her.  I knew she was blaming herself and I knew she would do her best to help me slim down.

The vet person, whose name is Betrice, is very knowledgeable about weight gain, and how to lose it and she gave Mum and Dad lots of advice and tips on how to help me.  The fact that she’s like a stick insect and Mum is roly-poly did not go unnoticed by me.  And I felt even more sorry for Mum.  It would seem, ladies and gentlemen, that Mum and I are now in the same boat. Watch this space, as they say.   

I might have inadvertently stumbled upon a weight loss solution for Mum.  Let me explain.

On Easter Monday, I treated Mum and ‘Dad’ to a trip to the vets.  It wasn’t really my idea to go but I’d been feeling a bit off colour for a while and not eating so Mum was getting anxious.  A few weeks earlier, I’d hoicked up a massive hairball.  Some people call them ‘furballs’.  I’d thrown up my breakfast in preparation for the hairball’s exit and when it finally emerged, after a lot of ‘ack-ack-acking’ on my part, I stood back to admire my handiwork.

It was huge.  Mum said it was the biggest hairball she’d ever seen and at first, she thought it was a whole large mouse or something furry.  On closer inspection – still from a respectable distance – as she couldn’t see any legs or tails she realised what it was.

Although I felt better for not having that awful thing inside me, I felt rather weird and had to lie on the sofa for most of the day.  Mum kept trying to tempt me with odd titbits of food but I turned my head away.  This has gone on for a couple of weeks.  I do eat, now and then, but not as much as I would normally do.  And that was worrying Mum – which is why we went to the vets on Easter Monday.

The place stank of d-o-g when we arrived and my whiskers started to curl up at the ends in disgust.  I was the only feline there amongst 9 dogs in varying colours, breeds and sizes, some of which had their legs in the air while they licked furiously at their bits. Shouldn’t that sort of thing be done in private, I ask you?  Obviously, I had to announce my arrival to this ribble-rabble of assorted ne’er-do-wells.  I yelled at the top of my voice.  Laughter erupted from the humans attached to the other end of the smelly species while, I could tell, the smelly species were very impressed with my operatic arias. 

Mum and Dad sat down with me and we waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally, after two and a bit hours of waiting, it was my turn to see the vet.  He was Spanish, nice, and he gave me a cuddle while he listened to Mum giving an account of the hairball incident, the impressive dish-back of vomiting which preceded the hairball incident, and the lack of appetite since the hairball incident.

I could tell even he was amazed at my skills as he stroked my head and told me I was a beautiful boy.  He gave me four injections which didn’t exactly impress me one iota and I turned on him with yowl and a snap.  He kept smiling as the injections kept coming.  He was undeterred in his quest while I plotted revenge for a future visit.

Mum’s purse was relieved of roughly the equivalent of one week’s housekeeping money by way of the bill and Dad took me back to the car.  We’d been waiting for so long that Mum had to cross the road to a Costa to use their toilet!

Back home I leapt out of my basket and strode straight to the kitchen where my tail told Mum that I was not best pleased with how the afternoon had progressed.  To appease me, she put down a bowl of food.  To annoy her my tail swished faster as I turned away from the dish.  She picked it up and got a different flavour.  To my annoyance, I decided I was really rather peckish so I found myself eating it against my will.  Satisfied, Mum then got Gibbs some dinner as he was lurking nearby, wondering where we’d been all afternoon.  Once she was out of the way, I told Gibbs all about my adventures.  His whiskers flew to the ceiling in admiration. 

One perk of the hairball incident and not eating much was that I’d lost weight.  Spanish vet weighed me and said I’d lost a few pounds.  As I was slightly ‘overly fluffy’ those few pounds aren’t really going to be missed.  Perhaps to help Mum lose her weight, she should cough up a hairball or two!

See you next time

Love Casey and Gibbs xxx    

It’s been a while since I last wrote, but as most of you know when trying to shift those pesky pounds, it can be a slow, long, laborious business. Mum took me to see the Stick Lady, Betrice, a few weeks ago.  She weighed me and said I’d lost 300 grams – whatever that might be.  Betrice hoped that I might have lost more than that, but I kept trying to show her how ferociously fluffy I am and tell her what incredibly big bones I have.  She was having none of it, I can tell you.

Coincidentally, Denver’s Mum, Helen, wrote to tell Mum, that he’d had a check up at his Fit Pet Club and he’d gained 300 grams.  Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I accidentally gave Denver my 300 grams?? If you remember, Denver reached his target weight a while back, so you see how easy it is to slide back. 

Actually, as neither Denver nor I know what 300 grams looks like, we have no idea where it went or how it came back. And Denver and I are very alike in looks.  Have you noticed that? Perhaps Mackerel Tabby Cats like us are prone to keeping their weight on – because of our extreme fluffiness - but the Stick Ladies that run the Fit Pet Clubs don’t tell you that, do they?

While I was on holiday, I was only fed twice a day and I was a shadow of my former self when I returned home.  Mum was amazed and astonished and upset to see how thin I was.  Gibbs, on the other paw, had porked out considerably in those four weeks that I spent in the hotel. I think he was eating for two, comfort eating, because he missed me.

All I know is that 300 grams seems to be the magic number because both Denver and me are stuck on it.  One thing that has changed since I came back from holiday is that I seem to like playing a bit more.  Mum bought some stinky catnip sardines from The Cat Gallery and I really love those.  You can see my review of them here.  Playing helps apparently.  Mum throws a stinky sardine up and down the hallway and I run after it.  Running isn’t something I would normally engage in so it’s a novelty at the moment.  Sometimes, she’ll throw it up in the air a bit and I leap up to catch it.  This is something I’ve NEVER done before, and even if I blow my own trumpet a bit here, I am quite good at it!  I’ll jump up high even if I don’t need to.  Mum always smiles when I do that.  I think it shows off my fluffiness even more and my athletic prowess which neither of us knew I possessed.

The trouble is she can’t take any photos of me up in the air because she’s throwing the stinky sardine, so I haven’t got any evidence to show you how high I can jump.  But trust me, it’s high.  I nearly get a nosebleed at that altitude.

Hopefully, the next time I write, I will have lost more of those grams or pounds things. As I have no idea what they are, though, I can’t say for certain that I’ll be successful.  Weight loss is bone of contention for many people, and as I’ve already told you – I do have rather big bones.

Till the next time

Casey – the aerobatic astronautical cat who can reach astronomical heights in the hallway! 

xxx