Hi Les... I certainly didn't mean you couldn't talk about the boy... I just wanted to reassure those who had fallen asleep on the couch as I leaf through the kitty album that snoring is acceptable.
Spooks has never been manicured -- he's an indoor/outdoor cat and I wouldn't want to dull his weapons in a village full of dogs. In fact he's only been to the vet's once, when he got into a fight and received a pretty deep claw hook in his leg. The vet cleaned it (Ouch!), disinfected it, put a Kitty Cone around his neck, and gave us pills to shove down his throat and salve to rub in the wound.
We followed that regime for about four hours -- one pill, a little salve, and a lot of time watching Spooks trying to back out of his collar. So we sat him down, told him if he didn't lick his wound or get infected, we would take it off. He seemed agreeable so we dismantled it and left him alone... and all was well.
There are three major things he doesn't do without our having trained him or even told him: 1) he doesn't claw anything indoors, 2) He doesn't eat any human food, even if it's tasty and on a plate on the counter, and 3) he doesn't use our garden as a latrine.
No wonder we're friends.
Cheers,
Don