IF you are not the guardian of any four-legged fur-covered mammals, you may find this strange.

In fact, even if you are, you probably will, but I have just spent the best part of a Saturday making a two-hour round trip to our nearest electrical emporium to buy an infra-red heat ray lamp for a cat. Yes, a cat, and not even a full-scale one at that.

It was for Izzy, our special needs cat who was the runt of a litter of three but is beating all of the odds by making it to her first birthday despite never having grown larger than a small kitten. Her sisters have become large, inquisitive and irritating in equal measures, whilst Izzy contents herself with hobbling about the place and venturing no further than the terrace for a spot of sunlight.

So Sue decided that rather than raging against the dying of the light as summer draws to a close, she would bring the summer to Izzy with a heat lamp. Rather fortunately, along with her dwarfism, her sight is not too great so there was no need to ask for a special pair of miniature sunglasses for her.

All of this kind of effort for a cat that only has a very slim chance of survival is pure anathema to our neighbours. In my rather simplistic view, I see the French as being divided into two camps when it comes to pet ownership. There are the paysans and the metropolitans. The paysans, rather predictably, live in the countryside and keep animals to eat, to fetch or chase things to eat, or to eat things that will potentially eat their things to eat, such as corn-nibbling rats, a cat being seen as the lesser of two evils when compared to a rat.

Animals are not things to get too sentimental about. There is not too much point in getting attached to your pony when it could end up on your dinner plate. Sentimental attachment will only serve to spoil your appetite, and that will never do.

The metropolitan French are a different animal entirely. Bourgeois gentlemen with huge bellies can be seen taking the tiniest, daintiest, most well-coiffed dogs imaginable for a morning pipi, as if that dog was the single most important thing in their universe. The dog serves no purpose: it couldn't chase a rabbit, a hare would probably box it to death, it won't scare away intruders over 18 inches tall, but it is cherished for what it is, a source of pleasure.

Another startling sight amongst the metropolitan French, that still largely shun the world of cut-price flights and holiday in their own country, is the way that they take their cats on holiday with them. Stop off at any motorway service station and you will probably spot someone taking a cat for a walk on a lead, and a walk around any resort will unearth tethered cats and Parisian apartment cats with their noses pressed to the glass watching the ocean.

As naturalised honorary French people, to which category do we belong? Despite geographically being paysans we are truly metropolitans at heart, and imagine how jealous the others would be if I put tiny Izzy on a lead with a bow on her head, along with her tiny sunglasses.