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My Friend, My Cat Ó 2000

I was living in Utah when I heard what sounded like soft knocking at the door. Getting up from watching TV I looked through the viewer to see who it was. Not seeing anyone I suspected that it might just be some kids playing pranks again of knocking and running off.

A few minutes latter there was another knock on the door. This time I noticed that it sounded more like someone rattling the door.

I opened the door and saw nobody. About to close the door again there was a small sound. I turned back around and looked around. There was no one there. Again came that soft sound. Looking down I found a kitten. It looked like a couple of months old.

It looked up to me, lifting its paw and let off another small meow.

I picked up the small bundle of fur. It was a boy. It had dark dusty brown fur with black ribs along the side like that of a tiger.

I took him inside, poured a bowl of milk and put it on the floor for him to drink. I thought to myself how nice it would be to have a pet, but the apartment complex that I lived in did not allow pets. There was no way I could keep a kitten in the house without being caught.

I called my girlfriend. She had her own house on the other side of town and already had a cat around the house. I thought that her children would enjoy another cat. She agreed and I took him straight over.

The next day I called Mary to find out about the kitten. She told me he had disappeared. I was feeling sad about this because I did not think such a small kitten would survive on its own.

That night I again heard a rattling of the door. This time I looked out and down. There was the kitten again.

It was late in the evening so I called Mary and told her that I would take the cat over the next day. I put the kitten in the bathroom with some paper on the floor in case he messed up.

I was unable to sleep, the kitten kept crying. I looked in on him and saw that he was shivering. I just left the door open figuring that he would find a warm place on the carpet or one of the chairs. Instead he came to my bed and climbed up the side. He walked right over to me and laid down right in my armpit. Within seconds he fell asleep.

The next day I again dropped the kitten off with Mary. Arriving back home the phone was ringing. It was Mary, the kitten had sneaked through a door and got out of the house. That evening there was another rattling of the door with a kitten on the other side.

After another night with the kitten sleeping in my armpit I again took him over to Mary's again. This time one of the children was holding him while I talked with Mary. He wiggled out of her son's arms and ran away.

We looked for him without success. Finally I had to go.

I had driven half way home when a head poked out from under the seat.

I turned around and returned him to Mary's house. We were sitting in her living room discussing what we would do with him when he climbed up onto the back of the couch and stretched his body from the back of the couch to my shoulder. Mary told me that he was claiming me and there was nothing I could do to change that.

Turning my head he closed his eyes and purred in a smug manner as if to agree totally with us.

Upon the determination that I was adopted a name was the next order of the day. Looking at him I again thought of how the stripes on his back reminded me of a tiger. "Tiga" I said, it being swedish for tiger. He purred with his approval as he turned to me.

He loved to play with the water when I was filling the bathtub. He would sit on the side and swat the water as it came out of the faucet. He also enjoyed splashing the water in my face while I was sitting in the tub.

The apartment had been built for college students to share. It had four bedrooms with two baths between adjacent rooms. I had the apartment to myself so I kept one tub full at all times to add some humidity to the place.

One day when I had returned from the lab I found a trail of water on the carpet. Following the trail I found Tiga shivering in the corner of the living room. He had apparently fell into the tub while he was playing with the water.

My father had asked me to move back home in order to help him with taking care of my mother, who had parkinsons. He had recently had a heart attack and felt that he would need help caring for her.

I had made arrangements for a mover to transport my things and was going to drive my car to Georgia. Dad flew out to travel back with me, to help with the driving.

Dad did not like animals in the house. I naturally wanted to bring Tiga back to Georgia with me but Dad objected strongly. After a long argument I just turned to Tiga and said, "It is up to you now. If you want to come to Georgia with me you have to convince him."

Tiga was lying on a chair in the living room across from where Dad was sitting. He looked at me for a long time. He than sat up and looked at Dad. With no response from Dad, he got down from the chair and walked over to where Dad was sitting. He sat down again and continued to stare into Dad's eyes. Dad got uneasy with Tiga staring at him so intently. After about fifteen minutes Dad told him, "NO, I will not agree to your traveling in the car with us."

Tiga's eyes narrowed. His head lowered without breaking eye contact. Again Dad responded, "No, you are not coming."

Dad was not wearing any shoes. Tiga walked over to Dad's feet and glared over his shoulder at Dad. A third time he responded in the negative.

Tiga reached down and nipped Dad on the big toe. Dad let out a howl.

Tiga jumped up on his lap, placed his front paws against his chest and came nose to nose with my father. There was a very soft growl in his throat, just enough to be clearly heard.

With shock in his eyes Dad agreed.

Tiga closed his eyes and changed his growl to a purr.

He got down from Dad's lap and sat on the couch next to Dad. He looked up to me, closed his eyes and continued to purr. He had won his argument.

I did not have a cage for him to travel in. He had always traveled well so I did not think he needed one.

Tiga had often road with me in the car. He would sit in the back window or on the back of my seat with his body draped over my shoulder. Even when walking in the park I never had to worry about him. He always stayed right with me or would come running whenever I called for him. So all I got in preparation was a leash and harness.

When I was explaining to Dad that I was not going to keep Tiga in a cage he strongly objected until Tiga came over to us and glared at him. He relented saying that he did not want his toe bit again.

Just as a precaution I put a small litter box on the floor of the back seat and we were off. During the entire trip he never complained about the trip. He would spend most of the time watching the world go by from the back window or my shoulder. When he got tired and wanted to nap he would do so either on the back seat or under Dad's legs.

Upon arrival at my parent's home in Georgia he immediately inspected the entire house before returning to the living room to claim his chair.

Mom objected to having a cat in the house. Dad immediately warned her that if she did not want to get bit she had better leave him alone. She asked no more questions.

I did not like the smell of a litter box and neither did my parents. Tiga had shown curiosity about the toilet after times he saw me using it. He would jump up on the seat to sniff and look inside. I had heard about being able to train cats to use the toilet instead, and checked with a pet store for any kind of kit.

The kit consisted of two plastic seat covers, one a solid white, the other fully transparent. Both covers had perforations in concentric circles. Along with the covers there was a small pouch of catnip that I was to add to the litter that I would place on the covers.

I assembled the kit according to instructions. I had kept Tiga in all day without his litter box so he was ready to go pretty bad. He kept insisting that I let him out. When his insistence became desperate and I could see that he was exercising considerable restraint I carried him to the bathroom and showed him the setup by putting him on it.

He got down and inspected the cover. I picked him up again and put him on it. Sniffing he realized that with the litter he could use it.

I would watch him for a couple of days to take him in to the bathroom when he needed to go. By the forth day he went in on his own, accepting it as his new litter box.

Every few days I would remove a ring in the white cover, revealing the water underneath. After the last ring was removed I began to remove the rings of the transparent cover until he was just using the toilet seat to balance on when using the toilet.

When he needed to go he became very insistent that others get out of his way. More than once he would go to the door and rattle it until he was let in. Several times I would let him in and then he would proceed to try to push me off the toilet so he could use it.

The problem came when he started to try using toilet paper. He had seen me using it after I was done and he was certain that he should also use it. Except he did not have the concept of what to do with it. Instead of wiping himself, he would end up filling the toilet with the paper. It took months to break him of this habit, only then by fixing the dispenser so that he could not roll the paper.

Using the toilet paper was not the only thing he attempted to imitate. When he would finish he also would try to flush the toilet. He just did not have the weight to depress the lever. Yet, one day he did manage to depress the lever to flush the toilet. His success did not encourage repeating the action. For, when he succeeded his paws slid off the handle and he fell over, head first into the trash can. I heard the sounds of his yelling and the toilet flushing together. I had to pull him out of the trash can.

The next obstical to his living in the house was the coming of his maturity and thus, starting to spray. To relieve this future problem I delivered him to the Vet for some minor surgury.

He was in my arms when he came to after surgury. He slowly opened his eyes. I started to stroke his head but he reached out to me and pushed my hand away. It was days before he would let me touch him again.

Over time Tiga grew to be rather large, he ate very well. It was not very long that he won my parents over. And with the acceptance of one cat they found easy the acceptance of others. My mother began to feed the neighborhood cats so that we developed a fair size feline family outside.

Among these cats Tiga gained supremacy that appeared unquestioned. He was the one that decided which cats were allowed to stay and who had to leave. Even the raccoons and opossums had to have his acceptance, though these were more difficult for him to chase off. No matter what it was, if he did not believe it deserved to stay he would chase it off. This lead to many fights that he would win. But the coons sometimes left him with a need of medical attention.

He took his duties very seriously. He was clearly the protector of all weaker cats.

One day I was sitting on the porch reading I observed that a larger cat was smacking around a kitten. Tiga got up from his perch on the garden wall, stretched, and jumped down to the ground. He walked over to the two cats, meowed and sat. It was as if he was having a discussion with the older cat. Suddenly he sprang at the older cat. They tumbled over. The other cat ran for his life with Tiga on his heals up to the edge of the garden.

Slowly he walked back to the kitten. He sat down close to the kitten and checked it for injury. When he had finished he gave a couple of scornful meows and swatted the kitten hard enough to role him over a couple of times.

Getting up he walked back to the wall to return to his position on top of the wall.

One morning I was working in my little office at home. I heard Tiga yelling for me from outside the office door. When I opened the door he started walking down the hallway meowing as he went.

I followed him to the door that leads to the porch where he kept meowing for to go out. When I opened the door he rushed out and stopped just a couple of feet from the door and yelled again. I looked to find him standing over an injured kitten. It was badly torn up. He looked at the kitten and back to me.

We took the kitten in to the bathroom where I did what I could for it. Tiga stayed right there the entire time, supervising my every action. I cleaned the wounds then placed her in a box to hope for recovery.

Tiga positioned himself in a chair where he could look down into the box to keep an eye on her. When I fed him he insisted I feed her also.

After a couple of weeks the kitten appeared well enough to return to its mother.

After this we would find that the mothers would bring their kittens to us that were sick or injured. The kitten that we helped became one of these mothers that recognized our care.

When I got home he would almost always be waiting for me. He usually was sitting outside the garage watching the road for me. Sometimes he would wait midway on the long driveway and ride in my lap the rest of the way to the house.

He continued to enjoy sleeping with me. He would rest at the foot of the bed until I was ready to go to sleep. When I turned off the lights he would come to the head of the bed, push his way under the covers next to me and lay down with his head on my arm.

At time he would take a nap with me if I laid down to rest. I would lay there trying to read but falling asleep despite my efforts. He I would awake with him laying flat on his back in imitation of me.

Not only did he attempt to assume many of my habits, but I discovered that he snored. Especially when he would be laying on his back I would hear his soft snore.

I had brought home a woman I was dating to meet the family. As we were preparing to leave she was stroking Tiga's neck. He purred happily until she said to me that he loved her so she was saying he was voting for me to marry her. (We had not discussed marriage.)

I was speechless, Tiga was not. He looked up to me, long and hard. He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, then back to me. He got up, walked over to her legs, reached out and left four bleeding cuts on her ankle. There was no more discussion of marriage.

As I stroked his back one day I noticed lumps along his spine. They appeared to be getting bigger over the next couple of weeks. The Vet said that they were tumors. He suggested that he could operate but that it would be costly. I scheduled the operation for the next day.

When I got him home I continued to worry about finding more tumors. They had not been malignant but since there were several of them I was worried more might have existed. My fears were realized when I found more tumors about a year latter. Again he went through surgury.

This time when he awoke with me holding him he did not push me away. He grabbed my hand and held on tightly.

We found a hotel that allowed pets. It was very expensive and we knew we could not afford to stay long. Luckily some friends heard of our situation and offered us a room in their home. Unfortunently, they were allergic to cats. Another friend offered to keep Tiga. They quickly found that their cat and Tiga had personality conflicts the entire night.

We checked into a pet hotel. They were all too expensive. We went to our Vet to help us out until we could get things settled.

We stayed at our friend's home for about three months before we found and bought a new home. The first thing I did was to pick up Tiga from the Vet's. I had sorely missed him.

He was thinner than when I had left him, having loss his appitite. It was several days of living in the house before he started to perk up and become his old self. He spent a lot of time in my lap. I think he felt abandoned.

Our neighbors had dogs. The son of our neighbors was walking his dog and came over to say hello. I had picked up Tiga to safely introduce him to the dog.

The dog was very friendly. Tiga even reached out so they could sniff nose to nose, but when the dog came close he lunged out with all claws blazing. I had to drag him into the house.

A couple of days latter I looked outside. I saw Tiga in middle of the driveway facing off two dogs that had been accustomed to having free roaming privaliges of the yard. He would not let them come any closer than the edge of the yard.

Tiga had never gained all of the bulk that he had prior to his time in the Vet's care, but we started to notice that he was starting to lose weight again. We were not seriously concerned until he stopped eating more than a few bites of food. It was another couple of days that he would not eat at all. We took him to the Vet who gave him antibiotics and vitamins.

Over the next couple of weeks I would give him liquids with a dropper and liquefied his food to also give it to him through a dropper. His appetite never came back. He started to get weak and unsteady on his feet. Even with the obvious difficulty in walking he would struggle to be with me wherever I went.

When he reached the point that he could only walk a few steps before falling over I could not stand watching his suffering any longer. I did not want to loss him but I did not want him to suffer if there was no hope for recovery, the Vet could not give such hopes. Tiga likely had either organ failure from old age or cancer again.

I kept talking to him, wishing him to recover, asking if he needed to go. I finally called the Vet to meet me at his office. Tears filled my eyes the entire way to the office. I held him close while my wife drove.

At the Vet's he talked with us about putting him asleep, affirming that there was not reasonable hope of his recovery, but asking if we were ready for parting. He had me put Tiga on the ground and call to him. He turned to me but appeared to not be really certain exactly where I was.

The Doc asked if we were certain we wanted to do it. I knew I was not ready to lose my friend, but then I could not let him suffer needlessly. I picked him up and asked him if he wanted to leave and stop suffering. I do not know if he understood me but he struggled to reach my neck to wrap his paws around my neck as he so often did. He would not let go. I felt his squeezing my neck with the little strength he had and pressing his cheek against mine. I told the Vet we were not ready.

Back home I continued to try to feed him with the dropper. Each day he was clearly weaker. Yet, each day he would cling to my neck with all the strength he could muster.

Even when all he could do was crawl and it would take him an hour to move across the room he still will crawl from the bed I made for him to my office to just be in the room with me. He insisted on spending every last moment with me.

Each night I could not imagine him lasting till morning, but he did. Each morning I feared going out to see that he was dead, but he would hang on.

The day came that he could not swallow anything I tried to give him. He could not move at all from his bed. At best he could twitch his legs and move his head. But still he responded to my voice. I took in a movie marathon that day to sit while holding him. I kept assuring him of my love and that it was alright if he had to leave. The latter part of the day he was unconscience but twitching most of the time.

That night when I was telling him goodnight he lifted his head, giving a silent meow, while reaching with his paw. I took his paw and he closed his paw around my finger. I knew he was saying Goodbye. The next morning I did find that he passed in the night.

We buried him in a little coffin in the back yard, next to where he usually spent his days.

People say that animals do not have emotions. My friend did. He showed more love than I found from most people. He showed a truer friend as well. He had more character than most people I have met. He was a human in a small fury body, He was my true friend.

All rights reserved by George William Sweeney

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