My cats are overweight, a problem common to aging pets and pet owners who spend too much time indoors at the computer or on the sofa watching television. My cats are on a diet, which causes Milo some serious problems. Milo is a large, lumbering cat of Siamese mix. He’s muscle, fat, size, and stealth. He’s all love, and all hunger, and like your typical Siamese cat, he’s a complete bully. The other cat, the lonesome Hank Williams, was a pariah in another life. He stands his ground, but only for so long. So Milo, whose full name should be Milosevic, muscles him out of the way like a bull elephant. Hank doesn’t stand a chance, but you’d be surprised.

Now, Milo likes to eat so much and so fast that he gets sick. You could call him a bulimic cat. Not soon after completing a meal, he “casts up his accounts.” The remedy for this putting something in his bowl to slow him down. The common recommendation is a golf ball, with the logic that Milo will roll and nudge the ball around to locate the food, and the effort will stymie his speed. With no golf ball in the house, the next best thing is some artistic, sculpted tokens the size of flattened golf balls, painted and decorated, and some hand-painted rocks I had sitting round. The runes or tokens have carved in them the words “love” and “respect,” which are two lessons Milo needs to digest anyway. Now he roots around for his food like a cat in the wild and we are wildly successful at avoiding cat puke.

Milo reminds me of Attila the Hun in Disney’s Mulan. Now, even though I’ve tagged that darn cat with the names of two of the most evilest of evil doers, please don’t confuse him for anything other than the sweetest thing. He’s charming and loving, and he even loves his little brother Hank. Still…. the resemblance to a gruesome killer is slightly disconcerting. But, don’t take my word for it. You be the judge. And when you hear the clatter of rocks in his bowl, you better watch out.

Shan Yu

 

Milo the Hun

1 Comment

  1. Author

    Yes, someone pointed out to me that this is not Attila the Hun, but Genghis Khan. In Mulan, he’s called Shan Yu. I’m stoopid.

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