Saggy tummy syndrome - how can I stop my human dieting me.

Dear George,
You may not be able to see from the photo, but I am a large cat. A seriously large cat. I put it down to my inheritable British Blue genes. Large size runs in my family - or so I like to think. It's not really fat. Just toned gorgeous muscle round the neck with a bit of FSTS, better known as feline saggy tummy syndrome. Alas, there are signs that my human wants me to diet.He has bought a huge sack of low calorie cat food. What can I do to stop him?
Herbie

Dear Herbie,
Feline Saggy tummy syndrome or FSTS is well known among cats of a certain age but from your photograph (which conceals the rest of your body) you certainly look like a well found cat of gravitas. There's a layer of muscle (I can be tactful) over the top of your neck which if repeated lower down must be fat (sorry to use the f. word) saggy tummy syndrome, FFSTS, the stage before obese saggy tummy syndrome known as OFSTS. Frankly, it would be a good idea if you got more exercise. There are ideas for indoor cats on my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com
That said, it is none of your owner's business to police your meals. What on earth gives the human species the right to interfere with the feline pursuit of love, life and happiness. Why are humans so fattist? Meals should be regular, of good quality and of sufficient quantity for you to enjoy. If you choose to be fat, why not? I suspect however, that your human is an enabler. While buying you diet food, he is probably feeding you on the sly. He may even be "feeding" his own codependance by over feeding you with unhealthy snacks. Maybe he too has human STS and he is working out his own psychological inadequacies on you. Humans can be much, much fatter than cats.
Rather than deprive you of the joy of food, he should be thinking of ingenious ways to get you interested in exercise to release some endorphins. Of course, the most obvious way would be to import living mice into his house, but that would be unduly cruel to the mice. He could however start feeding you in a more fun way. Hide the food throughout the household before he goes out. Get a food dispensing ball, and put it in there. Get various cardboard boxes, and hide the food in them so that you have to pull it out with a claw. Put food on the top of the cat gymnasium (that is, if it is steady enough to bear your weight.) More time spent playing with you, instead of slumping in front of the TV, would help too.
That way he would be adding fun to your life, giving you more exercise rather than simply depriving you of food. I blame him anyway for your weight. He is an enabler. Could you rehome yourself next door for a better kind of owner?
George
PS There's a very good comment about cat food below, which I will take up in a future blog.

Mouse deposits - the way to stop financial meltdown?

Dear George,

High finance and the arrogance of merchant bankers, who call themselves the Masters of the Universe, usually don't interest me. We cats are Masters of the Universe. We all know that. We are the most successful species in the world, inhabiting not just every continent but also every small island. However - and it is a big however - I am beginning to worry about the cat food deposit in my human's kitchen. Is it safe? Or will it disappear in the financial meltdown.

Henry

Dear Henry,

Times are worrying. Very worrying. Here in the UK we cats have been directly affected. Cats Protection, the feline charity, has lost 11 million pounds that they deposited in a bank owned by the bankrupt Icelandic Bank. This will compromise their plans to set up more rescue centres for needy felines.

We all need to pull together. We cats can help our humans if we look for creative and useful solutions to the mess produced by this, the most incompetant of species. We can start by hunting our own food, to eke out those vital kitchen deposits. Every mouse, lizard, fly and rabbit caught and eaten by us will make the tinned or dry cat food go further.

Better still, deposit stuff into the food bank. Catch a mouse and store it for later. Currently I have deposited a live mouse under Celia's kitchen cooker. When she shines a torch there, she can see it moving about. The silly woman doesn't realise that this is food. By depositing it live I have ensured that it does not take up room in the fridge. It leaves no carbon footprint at all. This is green food storage.

I also put one in the utility room and, deciding on a 3 am snack last night, I re-caught it. It was fun. Actually I wasn't that hungry, so I just ate the head and deposited the body on the landing just outside the bedroom door. She nearly, but not quite, stepped on it in the morning. Did she congratulate me? Was she pleased at my efforts to help the household budget? No. She swore.

Nevertheless, I am a cat with a plan to put an end to financial meltdown. Help your humans during the stockmarketl crash. Catch a mice and deposit it in your own personal home food bank.

George

PS She's back. Miaowing about cats that barber each other. If you can help her with information, or if you want to send her a photo, contact her via her website, http://www.celiahaddon.com

How do we cats vote?

Dear George,

How should we felines vote? Republican or Democrat? Tory or Labour? And why don't we have a vote? I should like to have a paw in the business of choosing the human leader.

Lucy.

Dear Lucy,

Don't even think about voting. Humans spend hours bothering themselves about politics. We cats are much more sensible. We just get on with our own affairs. However, in theoretical terms your question is an interesting one.

AS an English cat, I am not so sure about the differences between Republicans or Democrats though obviously my colour predisposes me to take an interest in Mr Obama. On the other hand that Sarah woman is obviously a terrific hunter. Did you see that bearskin! And moose not mere mice!  What she brings home beats any of the mice or rabbits I have brought home.

We cats have been described as selfish. I would call us sensibly self interested. And independant. As such we might vote Tory rather than Labour. We don't do altruism except for our own families. We don't look after poorer cats. We don't share. 

On the other hand we do exist on handouts. I mean I don't actually pay for my cat food. My humans do that. So perhaps I am part of the dependancy culture. So on that score we might vote Labour.

What do the rest of you think? Please enlighten me.

George.

PS. My secretary is away for a week learning the scientific side of animal behaviour so this is only a short entry.

Strange food enjoyed by cats.

   Dear George

On the food issue. I have my preferences. My humans give me sardines packed in water from time to time. They HATE the smell but I LOVE it. I just don't like the spine so I leave it. My human doesn't like fish but was going to try the cat fish because they were processed and packed in the US. She just couldn't get over the fact they are scavenger fish so I got them and here is a photo to prove it! I also like salmon. I also eat scrambled eggs and I especially like baby rabbits. What are your food preferences?

    Oscar King of Tidewater (http:simpleandsouthern.blogspot.com)

I love the photo, Oscar. Glad to see you have pushed the humans out of the bed altogether. Make them sleep on the bottom near your toes! That's what they do to us.

As for food, I like a change. Give me a different kind of cat food and I will eat it with relish just because it is new. Give me the same kind of cat food which I have been eating for days and I will eat it - but not so much. Those cunning people at Waltham foods and Iams know that, which is why they make cat food in different flavours. The more we eat, the better their business.

But back to favourites. Simpkin used to eat the end of asparagus tips. Fat Ada liked the batter on fish and chips better than the fish inside it. William refuses to eat human food at all but is balmy for the large sized Science diet kibble given on prescription for cats with bad teeth. He will also eat wet wholemeal bread put out for the birds -- something he would turn his nose up at if offered in his cat bowl. 

Skink, a rescue cat from Cyprus, used to lick the toothpaste out of the mouth of his owners - and they sent a photo to prove it. This has to be the oddest food preference ever. Probably not a good idea but then why should we cats listen to human opinions on this or any other matter?

Jellied eels is what used to help Castle and used to turn on Furry Fighter (http://thefurryfighter.blogspot.com - but be prepared for tears) . Her human has pointed out the wonderful news for cat that there is now REAL DRIED MICE! Just go to http://www.petextras.com/pofdmo21gr.html Rejoice, rejoice you cats. George of the crew (http://crewsviews.blogspot.com) has offered the mice in his basement for any needy cats. Who says that cats are not altruistic! Please add your comments, all you cats out there. 

 George

PS. I am horribly ignored by Celia back from college working obsessively on an essay about r and K selection. She would going to feature the lifestyle of feral cats but they are fed up with her cat obsession at college and say she will have to write about something else. So she is doing the rabbit - I approve though my own interests are more gastronomic than ecological when it comes to bunnies.

Why can't humans give us tinned mouse?

Dear George,

This food business is odd. Why do humans put stuff like soya and ash in our catfood. Havew you read those labels... enough to make a self respecting cat decide never to eat anything but fresh mouse again. Humans tin sardines - quite nice for cats especially the ones in tomato sauce. But why don't they just tin mice for us. And dry them. I'd love to eat dried mice. Like dipping into a box of chocolates for humans - they could vary the flavours - field mice, house mice, yellow-eared mice,  young black rat etc. And a bag of dried mice tails would be fun too.

Rocky

Dear Rocky,

Humans are sometimes difficult to understand.  The odd thing is that they  do feed mice, admittedly thawed out frozen ones, to their snakes. You can buy them in pet shops,labelled pinkies (very young indeed), or fuzzies (a bit older). They also sell turkey poults and chicks for these reptiles - dead not alive. It is against human law to sell live food to reptiles or indeed even to other humans. They even grind up mice to make snake sausages.

So why don't they feed this to us? My human, Celia, once used some fuzzies to get an anorexic cat eating again. They worked fine. Fat Mog sprang to life when offered one. No more refusing to eat. So why no tinned mice - with all the bones and hair and even the tail inside the tin. I'd like to nose around the tinned contents looking for the crunchy tail. It is one of my favourite pieces of mouse!

I am glad to see you other cats are keeping firm on this question of food (see comments below on the last blog), though I am slightly worried about Oscar Snuggles eating cat fish. Is this some form of cannibalism? Should he encourage his humans to stock it. After all it would only be a small step from cat fish to cat! Watch it, Oscar! And I am pleased to see that Libby and Smudge hold out for good food - particularly the Tesco sausages with onion gravy, Libby. Only don't eat too much of the onions - they can be toxic for us cats in big quantities. .

Instead of tinned mice,  we get tinned mush made out of the bits left over from human use - meat scraped off the bone, chicken wings ground up, that sort of thing. Then they add carbohydrate like corn and wheat and soya. Ever seen a cat in the wild stopped to browse in a what field? Of course not. They even add veg - and then colour the extruded kibble with bright colours like sunset yellow. Incidentally this has been phased out for human kittens in the Uk so refuse any pet food which contains it. Why should cats kittens be fed additives that are unsuitable for human kittens.

I agree with Wicky Wuddler about prescription foods. Keeling over on your side, as a protest, is awesome! Magnficent bit of human training, Wicky. Actually I rather like the prescription foods I have been offered, but I enjoy seeing my human worry when I refuse to eat them. It's just fun to wind them up. The only ones I eat willingly are the huge crunchy ones I get fed as treats to keep my teeth clean. Celia says they are better than fatty old cat treats and I like them just as much.

Incidentally did any of you cats see Tom Cox's cats (http://littlecatdiaries.blogspot.com) eating in a line. It was in the Times. I bet he kept them hungry so that they would do it for the photographer! It's publicity for his book 'Under the Paw; Confessions of a Cat Man." Shame on you, Tom's cats! Stop being so nice to him. Remember, it is every cat's duty to keep its human under control.

George

PS. Celia is back at college - the oldest animal behaviour student on the block. So no blogging  for a bit. She's left me in charge but without the secretarial help.