Recent photograph of Jarvis taken in the garden at home…one of the best I’ve ever taken of him.

This one is also pretty good.

It's that time of year again: my cat Jarvis went to the vet today for his annual booster vaccination and check-up. Long-time followers of this blog will recall that it was this time last year when the vet told me that Jarvis was overweight and needed to go on a diet. Progress was initially good, but then his weight levelled out at about 6kg.

The vet said he needed to lose more weight, and despite my assertions that I was sticking rigorously to the program, I could tell they didn't believe me.

Jarvis also found the weigh-ins very stressful. Reluctantly, I stopped taking him to the weigh-ins after just a few weeks.

Anyway, without changing a thing, his weight is now down to a svelte 5.4kg. Ideally, he should be around 5kg, so let's hope that this trend continues!

Regular readers will know that my cat, Jarvis, has been on a special diet for the last few months in an effort to reduce his weight. This requires him to go for fortnightly weigh-ins at the vets.

Unfortunately, Jarvis always associates a visit to the vets with negative experiences and so he tends to get very agitated, often to the point of being sick. The vets also didn't seem to grasp the problem I was having in dealing with Jarvis' constant hunger. It's difficult for a pet owner not to feel terribly guilty when confronted with a hungry animal who doesn't understand that what you're doing is for his benefit.

So, perhaps against my better judgement, I've decided not to take him to any more weigh-ins. Of course, I haven't told the vets this, I don't want to be accused of neglect!