Doe and Hope

Description

The wonderfully well modeled black cat with a finely detailed black coat, pricked ears and eyes tightly shut, sitting with his tail tucked in amidst a gentle but prolonged snooze.

Rene the cat, for that is his name, is in fantastic condition and requires very little looking after as he has recently been diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome - also known as Sleeping Beauty Disease - where sufferers fall into deep sleeps that can last for weeks.

He first developed the disorder in September 2008 after recovering from a bout of feline distemper. His mother Julie, 10, said ‘He had a dose of distemper that lasted for about a week but he never really recovered properly from it. Afterwards we found out that it was the start of a sleep mode, which comes before the deep sleeps. He started to fall asleep at school and was rambling about things that didn’t make sense, like the dog down the road Bernard being his best friend it really scared us, we didn’t know what to do. It just didn’t seem like Rene was the son we used to know, he was like a different cat altogether.’

Rene now sleeps for twelve days at a time and deeply enough for twenty-two hours. We then wake him just long enough to give him some food and take him to the toilet, after which, he simply falls back to sleep.

He now needs someone else to take on the challenge of looking after the doziest cat in Britain.