Albert Whiskers - Is this the furry face of an addict?

Hello Friends,
Well, Albert Whiskers has something to confess today. He needs to take himself in hand or I may have to find a local primary school prepared to let him attend their D.A.R.E sessions. Yes, I'm afraid he's showing all the early signs of addiction. 

I know he's cute, but he is developing a serious habit. No, he hasn't been taking over my greenhouse with hydroponics & heat lamps and he hasn't been caught smoking behind the shed.......This or rather THESE are the culprits:

'Dreamies', the 'treats cats crave'. What IS is in these things? They are like crack cocaine for cats! Albert Whiskers absolutely loves them. Once he's had one, he'd do absolutely anything to obtain 
another one. I'm convinced he'd stand on the corner of our street & barter his his bed, bowl & blanket just to get hold of his next packet!

The ingredients listed on the packet are vegetable protein, cereals, oils & fats, meat & animal derivatives, minerals, fish & fish derivatives, etc......nothing really untypical in the composition of dry cat food.
'Shake the pouch & watch your cat come running' .........He certainly does come running, zipping under your feet, positively sprinting in the direction of the bag, meowing like a cat who hasn't been fed for a month. 'Feed up to 20 pieces a day'......well, good job he can't read, because Albert Whiskers only gets about 8 pieces a day, & not every single day, either. I have bought many different cat treats over the years, including some rather interesting green herbal ones made from compressed catnip, but I've never known any cat treat to have such an effect on a cat as these. Intrigued by this, I decided to take a closer look.

This, friends, is a 'Dreamie'. And this is a 'Dreamie' up close........if not exactly in focus!

In the interests of citizen science, I decided to eat one myself this morning to see what all the fuss is about. This one is 'Scrumptious salmon' flavour. With a glass of water & bottle of mouthwash at the ready, I cut one open & investigated the inside. The coating is a very crispy cereal-type material, quite biscuity, but light, with a vaguely savoury flavour. There's a tiny bit of paste inside which I scooped out on the tip of a knife. It's a little bit like the inside of a chocolate truffle in texture, but obviously fishy instead of sweet. I wouldn't particularly elect to eat another one, but it wasn't actually unpleasant. It reminded me a little of those scampi flavour crisps which were around in the 80s, although not as salty or overbearingly sort of 'rock-pooly'. Bearing in mind that cats, & not curious women of a certain age are the intended demographic for these treats, the experience was not as overwhelmingly fishy as I'd anticipated. Perhaps they taste stronger to Albert Whiskers? Perhaps it's not just the flavour he loves, but the very crispy texture. I don't know, but last night, his addiction moved up a level as he realised he might be able to extract them from the packet himself!

So, in conclusion to my experiment, I don't really feel I've got to the bottom of why Albert Whiskers loves 'Dreamies' so much. Suffice it to say that he does. We will continue to ration them (despite the modest calorie content of 2 per piece) & hope that we do not have to report him booking himself into Rehab any time soon!

Until next time, when I will be talking about overwintering chillies & my attempt to build a clay flowerpot room heater. 
Oh....& I've responded to feedback about it being difficult if not impossible to comment on my blog posts by altering my settings. Thanks those readers who flagged this up. Have tested new settings, should be fine now.
Have a great week, everyone,
C x