So we named this chubby fellow, "Pappy" - We took him in, had him checked out at the vet's office and it turned out he had a few infected absesses in his mouth and he lost most of his teeth. If we hadn't rescued him, he would have died from it, the vet's told us at the time. So we felt good about that. We moved back east to Maryland and we looked forward to having Pappy as part of the family.
We had never taken in a feral cat before and we made some newb mistakes, but eventually, he became comfortable with us. While we were never at the point where we could pick him up, as his life on the streets made him nervous around people (especially when we were standing up), we could feed him treats and pet him. He and Pepe would constantly try to scam us for more treats. They would put on this cute little show of nuzzling each other that would melt the coldest of hearts. When he was comfortable enough to sleep in the middle of our home office on his back, snoozing away, with his tongue usually hanging out of his mouth due to his toothlessness while my wife and I were on our computers, we were very happy that he felt safe and comfortable in his new environment, our home.
2 years later, and another cross-country move back to California, Pappy, now 10 years old, hadn't been doing so well ever since we moved back. We attributed his withdrawn mood and behavior as still recovering from the cross country flight. I had jokingly called it at the time that he'd gone jungle rogue on us, having sort of reverted to his behavior when he first was brought into our home. The last few days he hadn't been eating, so I took him to the vet's yesterday and he was going to stay the night there for observation and they would run tests on him this morning.
I get a call from our wonderful vet at about 9:30am this morning and sadly, it turned out that Pappy had a huge tumor in his liver. It was too far spread and his skin was quite jaundiced (yellow). Some vets would try to bleed further money from us and give us false hope and simply prolong the cat's suffering. Fortunately, our vet was honest and had Pappy's best interest in mind and said that it would be best to put Pappy down to end his suffering, to which we agreed.
Pappy was under anaesthesia this whole time, so we got dressed in a hurry and drove over to the vet's office and said our final goodbyes to one of the most gentle and sweetest cats I'll ever know.
While we certainly wish Pappy to still be with us now, we take some comfort in the fact that we ended the agony that he was going through. So in a sense, we did rescue him one last time.
Funny thing, I've always been a dog person, but dammit if this wasn't a wonderful cat. Just an absolutely wonderful disposition.
Godspeed, sweet Pappy, we love you and will always remember and appreciate the short time we had together.
from douchebags like Neph. The only thing that can be learned from idiots like this is how their true character shines through. In the end, they simply don't matter. 