We adopted Tux in 1999 when he was 5 years old. His original family declawed him and gave him the not-so-original name, Tux. His family moved to Florida with him and a few other cats. Apparently Tux did not like Florida. I mean, come on, who does? So he started peeing on the carpet. The family did not like this, and they did not love him enough to figure out how to solve the problem. So they put him on an airplane and shipped him back to his veterinarian in Maryland. He was put into a cage with the hope that someone would adopt him. Nina was working at that vet office at that time. She interacted with Tux every day that she was there. She let him out of his cage, played with him, and began to see what an awesome cat he was. The problem was that he was an adult, so the chances of anyone adopting him were slim. People tend to prefer kittens. About 3 months went by, and he was still living in the cage. He was becoming more and more agitated and restless. So Nina decided that he deserved a good home, and that home was going to be ours.
We were living in an apartment in Carney, MD at the time. We already had one cat, Sugar. We weren't sure how she would respond to a new cat because she had always been an only child. When Nina first brought him home, he hid in the closet for a while. He was scared, of course. Soon he started coming out more, and immediately started knocking over our fake tree every night. We rigged up some sort of rope system to keep him from doing that. Slowly we began to learn his personality, and we realized that he was a really awesome cat.
When we moved to Arizona and bought our current house, we finally had a secure back yard where we could let the cats out. We quickly learned that Tux loved to be outside. He loved to sit on the patio by the fire pit and watch lizards and birds. Sometimes he would chase a lizard, but he never caught one. Sometimes he would munch on grass, which would always make him throw up a few hours later.
He enjoyed a few years of Arizona living, but then he started to get sick. He started having diarrhea all the time, and he started losing weight. Over a year and a half, he dropped from 12 pounds to 8 pounds. We tried many different foods, food additives, pills, liquids, and shots. Some things would help for a little while, but we could tell that he was slowly going down hill. Eventually he just stopped eating all together. We tried force feeding him, but he would only eat a small amount, and he would often throw up afterward. This is when we knew that he was not going to get better. The doctor said that he had intestinal cancer.
We did what we could to keep him comfortable. We gave him small amounts of food and water. We let him outside when it wasn't too hot out because we knew how much he loved to be outside. Eventually it got to the point where he was hiding in the closet all the time, and we could tell that he was suffering. We made the decision to have him euthanized. It's not an easy decision to make, but we knew that it was the right thing for him. We loved him so much, so we had to let him go.
Here is a list of some of his unique personality attributes:
He loved to play with strings and laser lights.
He loved to chew on ribbons and rubber bands.
He liked to drink water from the faucet.
He liked to burrow himself under the bed covers and sleep.
He liked to stand up on his back legs with his front paws against a wall. Then he would twist his head around to look around the room in a sort of upside down way.
He liked to go into the bathroom with everyone, and if you went in without him, he would stand outside the door and meow.
He liked to sit on your pile of dirty clothes while you showered.
He liked to hump Nina's slipper and a stuffed squirrel.
He was shy around new people but always very sweet.
He would steal your seat at the dinner table if you got up.
He knew his name and would meow if you said it.
He would greet us at the door when we came home.
He had bright green eyes.
He loved to play inside grocery bags.
He loved Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks.
We had 10 great years with him. He was a great cat, and he was our friend. We will miss you Tux.
4 comments:
We will miss you Tux!!
P.S. Not everyone hates Florida and pees on the floor-Sean and I have not peed on the carpet once (that I know of).
Great photos of little buddy and a very sweet posting. He was a great kitty and we'll miss him dearly.
I loved Tux as well. He always dressed sharp. One attribute that you missed was that he seemed to always have spare change. Not sure why, but Brian was always trying to shake it out.
Sorry for your loss, I can only imagine how hard it is to come to that decision, but it sounds like you gave him a good life. Your post made me laugh and cry (having 4 girlies of our own I can relate to some of the attributes - we too have one cat that likes to do the looking around the room upside down thing). We have one who likes to meow at walls for no apparent reason and lives only for canned food on weekends and to sit on your lap. One who loves giving hugs will let you carry her around like a monkey on your hip with one paw around your neck and who purrs so much she drools. One who will not let you fold your clean clothes because she must lay on them and if you try to take them out from under her she will think you are playing and try her best to stop you. Not to mention all 4 like to come into the bathroom at the same time if you are going...I think they know they have your undivided attention. I am glad to hear you gave him a second lease on life after the family couldn't "deal" with him. (Hey, if your kid wets the bed, do you put him up for adoption! This is why I went back to working in adoptions at our shelter instead of surrender.)
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