We finally decided to crate up our fat boy and take him to the vets to get their expert opinion on a nasty cough he'd been perfecting for the past few months. He'd also been packing on the weight for the last few months with enthusiasm, and now could hardly be bothered to keep himself clean.
He also had an ear problem and kept clawing wildly at both ears and shaking his head violently: Wifie and I assumed it was mites, a problem that would be cleared up with a quick swab of the ears which would render an entire colony of mites homeless. In the mean time, the natural corollary of front end and rear end problems was that he was staring to stink the place up. When he climbed up onto our sofa we could smell him from two metres distance.
Getting Elvis in the cat box for the trip to the vets was easier than we dared hope: a bowl of crunchies pushed in the back of the box and in he went. Unfortunately his back legs were sticking out the back of the box and when I tried to push his fat butt in to close the box he struggled out again.
Eventually he did insert all of himself into the box and I slammed the door shut to take an outraged cat to the vets. After giving Monika, our local vet, dire warnings of how quick-tempered he was, once he was on the table he was quickly cowed into submission, examined, injected (twice) and shoved back in his box. We were given drops to put into his ears twice a day for the next ten days.
It turns out Elvis has a chronic infection, common to street cats round here, which will shorten his life and help drain our bank balance. His teeth and gums are in such a dreadful state that the vet's talking about extraction. She's also considering taking a cast of his teeth as an illustration of how bad things can get in a cat's mouth; I suppose that's some sort of notoriety ...
