Here are a couple of cat updates for this Feline Friday.

First, though, not to fear, there’s a Feline Friday photo gallery. Just click on this photo of Duke and Romeo to see the rest of this week’s cats.

Then the news.

Mr. Duke went for a check-up this week with his favorite vet, Ann Sakamoto at VCA in Kaneohe.

The very good news is that Duke lost just over two pounds since the beginning of February on the special MD diet. It’s a high protein diet that promotes weight loss and insulin production, prescribed for him given the history of diabetes in his immediate feline family. And although he’s still a substantial cat, he’s down to just 17-1/2 pounds from nearly 20 pounds when he weighed in on January 31. And, to quote our vice-president, “that’s a Big F…ing Deal!”

We’re aiming to get him closer to 15 pounds before leveling off. Toby and Romeo are next for the diet routine, although I don’t know if they need the fancy prescription diet food.

And the P-Cam? I wish I could report results, but so far the correct software settings have eluded me. I’m trying to set the “motion detection” parameters. First try: cats didn’t trigger the camera. Second try: Everything triggered the camera so it took photos at a constant 4 images per minute and uploaded to a hidden web file. After about 2,000 photos, the system choked. And I had no easy way to browse the 2000 incidivual pictures looking to catch a cat in the act. Third try: Still two sensitive, and trees moving in the breeze outside are triggering the camera. Fourth try: The trigger level is just right to capture people in motion, but cats seem to slip through without being detected. I’m beginning to wonder whether I can ever get it tweaked “just right”.

But I have collected lots of pictures of us opening the refrigerator or doing the dishes, since I forget to turn off the camera when we’re there.

And for your time-wasting pleasure on this Friday, you might try this video which has already gotten over 25 million views. It probably deserves them.