The fourth stage is up to you. Usually by now the cat is displaying such a new lease of life that the treatment might be said to have worked. Grinding the pill up with a bit of water and spooning it in sometimes does the trick. A fellow Real cat owner says powdering the wretched object—the pill, not the cat, although by stage four you'll entertain any idea—mixing it with a little butter and smearing it on a paw is a sure-fire method, because the cat's ancient instinct is to lick itself clean. Close questioning suggested that he hadn't actually tried this, just deduced it from theoretical studies (he's an engineer, so that explains it). Our view is that an animal that will starve and asphyxiate before taking its medicine won't have any trouble with a grubby paw.
Feeding cats
For centuries the idea of feeding cats was as unbelievable as squaring the circle. So was feeding chickens, for that matter. They just hung around, making their own arrangements. The whole point about having them was to keep down vermin and generally tidy up the place. Dogs got fed, cats got scraps. If they were lucky. We all know what it's like now. Feeding Real cats follows a pattern as changeless as the seasons.
1. Real cat turns up its nose at gold-plated tinned stuff recommended by woman on television.
2. Out of spite, you buy some down-marked own-brand stuff whose contents you wouldn't want to know about (after all, considering what can be put in beefburgers and sausages… no, you really wouldn't want to know about it…) Cat wolfs it down, licks empty plate across floor.
3. Out of relief, next shopping trip you buy a dozen tins of the humming stuff.
4. Cat turns up nose at it after one meal. This is a cat, you understand, that will eat dragonflies and frogs.
Having for some time watched what cats will eat, then I can safely say that any enterprising manufacturer who markets a cat food made of steak, half-thawed turkey, grass, flies, crumbs from under tables, frogs and voles will be on to a winner. At least for one meal.