![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Scruffy, 1993-2010
Rick found him this morning, he is no longer. He was leaning up against the neighbor's fence in a typical position, suggesting he probably died in his sleep.
Here he was in happier times:
He was a foundling in northern Vermont in the fall of 1993, when my youngest stepson, Richard-Thomas, found him in the barn. Eventually, we figured out he'd crossed the border from Quebec (we lived across the street from the border).
At that point, he was junior cat, and he wanted very much to be senior cat, and he'd pick a lot of fights with Tiger and Gandalf. He bonded very strongly with me, curling up in my arms to sleep at night, disappearing while I was asleep, then re-appearing right before I woke so it would seem like he'd been there all night. :)
After Gandalf was eaten by a fisher cat in 1995, the constant fighting was taking a toll on both Scruffy and Tiger, so I got Cooper, a female rescue cat. She was, if anything, worse, but the fights did stop.
He moved with me to SoCal in 1998 (where both Cooper and Tiger wandered off, possibly into the clenches of coyotes that roamed the canyon behind the apartment complex), then to NorCal in 1999. There, he became Rick's cat, sleeping curled up in Rick's arms.
We moved to Menlo Park in 2000, and he picked fights with the neighbor cats for quite a while. Eventually, though, he learned how to get along with them, and it was great to see him stop fighting other cats all the time and get some kitty friends. It also reduced the vet bills -- I was tired of caring for abscesses.
In 2007, Scruffy had a growth, so we took him to the doctor. He had a heart murmur and got an echocardiogram and was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy. Then he underwent surgery for cancer. This particular form is common at the site of an injection and it was at his wrist, so it's possible that his prior fighter history was a factor.
A couple months later, the cancer returned, and he had to have the leg amputated. But he managed fine! It was quite heartwarming to see. An hour after returning home, he jumped onto the dining room table. However, he didn't know that he wouldn't be able to jump back down. It took him about three days to figure out how to walk rather than run-pant-run.
With age, he got less and less willing to go places -- it's only this year that he stopped sleeping with us, and we missed that, but he just wasn't as mobile.
It became obvious that he was being tormented by birds in the yard due to his deafness, so last summer we got him a kitten, Captain Jack. They didn't get along at first, but eventually did:
CJ got run over in February, and Scruffy really took that hard. Unfortunately, that's also about when Scruffy had the saddle thrombus and we had to take him to the emergency vet and found out that he had congestive heart failure. Since then, he's been on several heart meds a day. The condition stemmed from hyperthyroidism, common in older cats.
The medications made him anti-continent, as it were. He was never a cat who sprayed or did his business in unapproved places, and I always appreciated that about him. The diuretics for the heart failure changed that, unfortunately. We can now put our oriental carpets back, but, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
almelina said yesterday, "I'd rather have him pee on the floor."
We got Tanner in early March. I don't have photos of them together -- they were finally getting along well, and they'd touch noses, but they didn't spend a lot of time together and especiallly not when people were around. So I feel sad I don't have pictures, especially since I have a new camera.
It was obvious that Scruffy was fading, and I learned some things I didn't know about cats, and maybe his life could have been longer and better had I known them. But that's experience to use for the future. I loved every day he was with us, and I'm glad I had that time with him.
All my cats have been indoor/outdoor. He's not the oldest cat I've had -- that'd have been Squeaker or Paula, both of whom lasted over 18 years -- but he is the one that I spent the most time with.
Here he was in happier times:
He was a foundling in northern Vermont in the fall of 1993, when my youngest stepson, Richard-Thomas, found him in the barn. Eventually, we figured out he'd crossed the border from Quebec (we lived across the street from the border).
At that point, he was junior cat, and he wanted very much to be senior cat, and he'd pick a lot of fights with Tiger and Gandalf. He bonded very strongly with me, curling up in my arms to sleep at night, disappearing while I was asleep, then re-appearing right before I woke so it would seem like he'd been there all night. :)
After Gandalf was eaten by a fisher cat in 1995, the constant fighting was taking a toll on both Scruffy and Tiger, so I got Cooper, a female rescue cat. She was, if anything, worse, but the fights did stop.
He moved with me to SoCal in 1998 (where both Cooper and Tiger wandered off, possibly into the clenches of coyotes that roamed the canyon behind the apartment complex), then to NorCal in 1999. There, he became Rick's cat, sleeping curled up in Rick's arms.
We moved to Menlo Park in 2000, and he picked fights with the neighbor cats for quite a while. Eventually, though, he learned how to get along with them, and it was great to see him stop fighting other cats all the time and get some kitty friends. It also reduced the vet bills -- I was tired of caring for abscesses.
In 2007, Scruffy had a growth, so we took him to the doctor. He had a heart murmur and got an echocardiogram and was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy. Then he underwent surgery for cancer. This particular form is common at the site of an injection and it was at his wrist, so it's possible that his prior fighter history was a factor.
A couple months later, the cancer returned, and he had to have the leg amputated. But he managed fine! It was quite heartwarming to see. An hour after returning home, he jumped onto the dining room table. However, he didn't know that he wouldn't be able to jump back down. It took him about three days to figure out how to walk rather than run-pant-run.
With age, he got less and less willing to go places -- it's only this year that he stopped sleeping with us, and we missed that, but he just wasn't as mobile.
It became obvious that he was being tormented by birds in the yard due to his deafness, so last summer we got him a kitten, Captain Jack. They didn't get along at first, but eventually did:
CJ got run over in February, and Scruffy really took that hard. Unfortunately, that's also about when Scruffy had the saddle thrombus and we had to take him to the emergency vet and found out that he had congestive heart failure. Since then, he's been on several heart meds a day. The condition stemmed from hyperthyroidism, common in older cats.
The medications made him anti-continent, as it were. He was never a cat who sprayed or did his business in unapproved places, and I always appreciated that about him. The diuretics for the heart failure changed that, unfortunately. We can now put our oriental carpets back, but, as
almelina said yesterday, "I'd rather have him pee on the floor."We got Tanner in early March. I don't have photos of them together -- they were finally getting along well, and they'd touch noses, but they didn't spend a lot of time together and especiallly not when people were around. So I feel sad I don't have pictures, especially since I have a new camera.
It was obvious that Scruffy was fading, and I learned some things I didn't know about cats, and maybe his life could have been longer and better had I known them. But that's experience to use for the future. I loved every day he was with us, and I'm glad I had that time with him.
All my cats have been indoor/outdoor. He's not the oldest cat I've had -- that'd have been Squeaker or Paula, both of whom lasted over 18 years -- but he is the one that I spent the most time with.