Poor Charles le Baron.........

Charles le Baron du Breuil is not well. This is the cat who is as strong as a lion and has never been ill before so you will understand my concern. Even when he was tiny and lost his paw he seemed to sail through the operations.

Yesterday morning he went out as normal through the cat flap. We went off to a New Years Day breakfast party and returned home in the early afternoon to find him curled up asleep on our bed. When he hadn`t moved by the early evening I went up to look at him and realised all was not well. He was lethargic and his face just didn`t look right and his eyes seemed a little dull.

Everyone knows that the only place the Baron will allow you to touch is his head and neck before he starts the growling and scratching, but he simply lay there and allowed me to check all over his body for injuries which confirmed to me that all was not good.

I could find no injuries at all and brought him down to the sofa so we could watch him and he stayed there all night. He turned down food and drink and hardly moved. Just before midnight he rose slowly and made his way to the cat flap, spent a minute in the garden then slowly came back and resumed his position on the sofa.

Just before we went to bed I tried to get him to take a drink of water from a spoon held to his lips as I know that dehydration would be serious but he refused and I managed to dab a little water on his lips which he did eventually lick off .

I came down at 4.30 to check him and he was in the same postition and refused a drink again and when we came back down at 7.30 this morning he was in the same spot.

So, we have just returned from the vets and his temperature is normal, his lungs and heart sound fine but he groaned when the vet squeezed his stomach gently.

The veterinaire seems to think he may have eaten a whole rabbit again or something that has upset his stomach. The fact she was able to examine him at all shows he is not himself as it was this poor vet that he lacerated when she removed the stitches from his leg when he was just 12 weeks old and already as fiery as a firecracker! Typical redhead behaviour!!

Now we have some stomach medicine and rehydrating liquids that we will feed him with a syringe and if he is not eating and drinking by Wednesday he has to go back so that he can have an x-ray to see if he has a rabbit bone lodged in his stomach.

As we speak he is refusing to leave the cat basket and is sulking big time!

A demain mes belles