Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Day Two Hundred and Three

Actual Date: Thursday, October 14, 2010

I forgot to write about this when I wrote about last Thursday's events. One week ago, we lost our beloved Kitty Face.
When I got home after my Bible Study, the girls were in bed and Brian met me with a blank face at the door. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had found Kitty Face dead on the back porch.

We're not really sure what happened. I don't think he was that old. He came to us as a stray and he had been with us for about 8 years. He wasn't acting sick or anything so we're really perplexed as to why he would all of a sudden pass away.

I hope whatever happened, that it was quick and painless. Even though he was sometimes a brat, I hate to think of him having to suffer alone.

RIP Kitty Face

Here's a few of my favorite pictures of him through the years.

Kitty LOVED Christmas lights. Every year when Christmas would roll around, Kitty would spend his time laying on his back under the Christmas tree staring at the lights. It was so cute.

He was a lover.

And a fighter.

He was a really good hunter. I always said that he would have made some one a good barn cat because he was so good at hunting.

At one point Kitty stayed at my Parent's house for a few weeks while Brian and I were in the process of moving to Texas. Our house was sold but it was still a few weeks before we could get all of our stuff back to Texas. I think those few weeks were probably the longest of my Mom's life.

My parents have a doggie door at their house for their three Chiuauas and since Kitty Face was bigger than all of their dogs he learned to use the doggie door with ease. But a few days into his stay there he started causing trouble. He was hunting down mice and lizards and dragging them through the dog door. More than once the thing he brought in would still be half alive and ended up running around the house. My poor Mom was home most days by herself because my Dad had to work and because she's paralyzed and in a wheel chair, there was little she could do to catch whatever critter Kitty drug in.

She drew the line when a week or so later he drug in a half dead rabbit and let it go. It was bloody and scared to death. It hopped around her house frantically trying to find its way out. She called me up at work and told me "Come get this rabbit out of my house and take the cat with it!" I promised her that it would only be a few more days and then we'd be taking him with us to Texas. Then he'd be out of her hair for good.

That night, or maybe it was the next night, my Dad put 5 pounds of hamburger meat out on the counter to thaw. You know one of those huge Costco rolls of hamburger meat... They went out to run some errands and when they came back Kitty had eaten damn near the whole 5 pounds of raw hamburger meat!

He was such a trouble maker.

Here's the little butterball. Well actually, there was nothing 'little' about him. At his heaviest he was 24 pounds. The vet put him on a diet. He said we needed to feed him "Senior weight management cat food" because it had the least amount of calories. It helped and he was able to slim down to around 15-17 pounds. He was so big that we had to buy him small dog collar because none of the cat ones would fit!

In this picture you can see his rolls hanging over the sides. This is how he would have to sit to clean his tummy. If he tried to do it any other way, he would fall over. So he found if he sat up against the wall he could clean that big ol' belly to his hearts content. He was an obsessively clean kitty.

Here he is in the house that Brian owned when we first started dating. This is the house that we found him, or that he found us at.

He loved to jump back and forth across the hall and lay on either side of those little cut outs up there. It was the funniest thing to watch.

Here's another one of his quirks. Anytime we would pack our bags to go anywhere, we would turn around to find him in or on it.

I guess he didn't want us to forget him.

A lot of times he would lay on his back and tease us with his soft, fat, little fluffy little tummy. It was so soft we always wanted to pet it. He would allow it for about 5 seconds and then he would attack. More than once he drew blood on Brian's arm. I was never brave enough to go past 3 seconds.

Sleeping on his 'water bed.' It was the spa in our old house. Many times we would find him in the gazebo laying on the top of the spa because it was warm.

Sleeping on the snooze button.

Kitty TV. I bought a fish and within minutes I knew there was going to be trouble when I walked back in the room to find Kitty Face sitting on the counter (which he knew he wasn't allowed to do) staring at the fish.

Not all days with Kitty were great ones. He was a little brat at times. For some reason a few years ago he started to pee on our bathroom rugs. Not every day, not even every week, just randomly. But it got annoying very quickly. We took him to the vet to make sure he wasn't sick or something and he told us that he was probably just upset about all the new babies in the house. We told him to get over it and took him home.

It continued off and on for a good long while. We once even came home from a week long vacation to find that he had done it some time during our trip and our whole house reeked of cat pee. It was awful! That was the last straw. After Brian mopped the pee up with him, he threw him outside, where he was banished outside to live out the rest of his days as an outdoor cat.

After we moved to Texas for the second time, we let him stay inside for awhile so he could get used to this being his new home, and so he wouldn't run away. He did really good for a good long while but then all of a sudden he went back to his old ways. We were so frustrated we decided we could no longer deal with it, especially with a little baby crawling around. We decided we would turn him over to a no kill shelter where hopefully a little old lady with no kids would adopt him and they would both live happily ever after.

It was really hard to say good bye to him as Brian put him in his cage and headed off with him to the no kill shelter but I knew this was what was best for us and for him. When Brian got there he had to tell them that we were surrendering him because of his little "pee pants" problem and they told him, "Since he's a home-soiler we will have to put him down. We will take him, but he will be put down." Brian said that he was still mad from the last pee pants episode that he told them, "Well, I guess I'll leave him." And as he went to hand over the crate he took one last look inside and there was sweet little Kitty Face looking at him, in his words "With those little Puss and Boots eyes, and I couldn't do it!"

He brought him back home but we did make him stay outside. He didn't really seem to mind though. I think he liked it out there better.

Anyways, even though you were a brat sometimes we still miss you Kitty! You were a good kitty most of the time, and we thank you for that. I miss your fat little kitty face. You will always be my baby Tiger.

No comments: