(s)cat
My girlfriend has 2 cats. The oldest had his little kitty testicles removed long before I met her, while the younger of the two arrived at her house as a 12-week-old kitten not long after we started going out.

In due course, it was time for her (the kitten, obviously) to get her ladybits removed (or whatever it is they do to girl kittens which is the equivalent of lopping off the cat-pods). This entailed a day or so without food, a trip to the vet, more time without food, then a week of taking it easy.

Cats being what they are, it's hard to explain concepts like "That's his food. You mustn't eat it", "Don't jump on her, you might damage her stitches" or "No, you can't go outside" (she'd started using the catflap a week or so before her op. The first time we locked her in, in a spirit of scientific enquiry, she attacked it with the desperation of a small Cambodian child accidentally locked in Gary Glitter's prison cell).

Thus is was that I took home a cat, a generous portion of catfood (Morrissons), litter tray and litter, and other catty acoutrements to keep the elder cat amused for the week he'd be safely stored out of her harm's way.

Soon enough, he'd eaten all the catfood he came with, and I repaired to the local supermarket to stock up on Tesco's catfood.

Travelling to a new house is probably quite stressful for a cat, even a well trained and generally well behaved one. Especially when you're used to popping out into somebody else's garden when you want to fertilise the roses, and you're instead locked inside with only a load of wood shavings (or whatever that stuff is) to do your business on.

Eventually, however, the seal had to break. And it broke in style. He waited until I got home, I suspect because he had an idea how bad it would be and didn't want to live in its fetid stench any more than I would. A quick clean-up was thus assured when he laid an almighty cat cable into the tray (and, inevitably, a bit over the side).

Even through the eye-watering nasal assault, I couldn't help but notice a clear line in the poo, a demarkation of the point where I switched him from one brand of food to another.

Tesco catfood comes out a darker brown. 100% scientific fact
( le brian, Sun 30 Mar 2008, 17:30, Reply)