Real cats are subject to the same illnesses that unReal cats get, although by and large Real cats tend towards rude health—not counting, of course, the occasional little intestinal problem which could happen to anyone.

However, there are several specifically Real cat ailments:

Weird, this. We had a cat who suffered badly. The vet couldn't explain it. The cat could climb trees, ladders, anything, it was as agile as you please, but when it tried to run fast it was all okay until its back legs tried to pass. Then it'd get so embarrassed at the sight of its own rear end coming past on the fast lane it would stop and wash its paws in shame. If it forgot itself and really made a dash for it, it was likely to end up facing the wrong way.

Well, okay. Not common. But one of the biggest cat ailments we've ever faced. Ho—we said—let's be ecological, remember the ozone layer, have no truck with flysprays, whatever happened to good old-fashioned flypaper. Finally found some, after shopkeepers made mad faces (“man here wants flypaper, keep smiling, desperately signal assistant to call police, will soon be asking for crinoline hoops and a pound of carbide crystals”). Got it home, hung it up in open window, bluebottles soon stuck fast like small angry currants, hooray, paper swayed in breeze, Real Cat leapt… Real Cat becomes spinning furry propeller. Paper snaps, cat falls out of window, begins massive chase across gardens as it tries to escape from unwound paper trailing behind it, finally brought to earth in distant shrubbery because only one leg now capable of movement.