Styx

[Hepcat]

Scout likes to join her uncles wherever they're flaked out on the floor. Here she is yesterday with Cowboy in the entrance by the door:



And in the upstairs hallway:

[Nosferatu79]

There's such a sweetness about a little one joining their elders, wanting to be accepted, and being accepted I love these updates, and it's so nice to see they're getting along happily Just the peacefulness of them sitting together warms the heart.

[Hepcat]

The WOMAN just showed me this letter that she sent to Animal Control in January:

Dear People at Animal Control,

Our beloved Styx died on Tuesday January 20, 2015 of complications from pneumonia brought on by his FIV.

I am writing for several reasons and I know that you understand our stress and heartache at this time.

1. Months from now, receiving a notice for Styx's tag renewal would just reopen the wounds.

2. Styx was a stray who hung around the Main and Gerrard area on and off from about 2006 to  July 2009.  He was so skinny that a neighbor named him 'Sticks' .. another neighbor cried when she saw him and went out and got him some high protein food. During this time period, he was in the area on and off.  There was a period of over a year that we never saw him and thought that the poor stray had died a sad lonely death but found out in 2009 that the elderly woman on the corner had been caring for him over the winter of 2008 - 2009 .. feeding him and providing him with a box for shelter.  He was not around in the Spring and she was concerned as she was scheduled to go in for heart surgery.

You might recall this was during the services strike.  At some point in June of 2009, Styx turned up looking in our back sliders, a skinny ugly black cat in whom I had no interest.  I told another neighbor who had fed him in the past that there was good news/bad news .. the good news was that Styx was alive, the bad news was that he was back.  One reason that he and some other Toms turned up was due to a couple of unfixed females in heat.  I never wanted to get involved with Styx but a few weeks after his return, it was obvious that he'd been in a fight and had an abscess on his cheek.  We attempted to help him but couldn't until a neighbor helped me get him into a carrier.  She then called you and told you that she  had a feral cat to be picked up.

Styx was scared and afraid, never feral and the woman had a history of putting cats to sleep because she was afraid that they had 'those diseases' .. I waited with her for Animal Control to arrive and truthfully told the agent that Styx wasn't feral and that the elderly woman on the corner was caring for him but that she was in hospital having a quadruple bypass.  Your agent agreed that Styx was calm and not a feral cat.

This was on July 10, 2009 and a day or so later, the neighbor told me that there was a picture of Styx on your website.  (The MAN) called your vet and stated that we wanted to adopt Styx.  We had little hope that this sick skinny cat would be considered adoptable and (The MAN) called almost everyday to enforce his intention of adopting #507590.

On August 1, 2009 we adopted Styx.  Receipt Number R09-043772 .. PID P448428.  He seemed to know or recognize us right away (he was in your hospital area with sneezing) and we knew from your tests that he had FIV but wanted to give the poor guy a chance.  The short form is that we took him home and carefully blended him in with our other three cats (we never wanted four cats) where they formed a posse of love.  In time, no one could believe that he'd once been called 'Ugly Blackie' or had been skinny.

This tough looking street fighter was a lover of babies and would greet them and their parents on the way to day care.  He and our older cat, Ace, would sit on the porch and race to see who they could greet first.  Many people on the way to therapy on Main Street would tell us that knowing that the cats would be waiting was making coming to therapy better.  One little girl with her mom would bring the cats treats and became family friends.

Styx should be at his usual place, cuddled next to my left side as I use the laptop computer or on our laps but last Wednesday we noticed that he appeared to have a cold and took him in to the vet on Thursday morning where he was given an antibiotic  shot for his upper respiratory infection (as was one of our other cats, Deuce) .. Styx started to go down hill on Sunday, he slept wrapped up in a blanket on my chest Sunday evening and was brought back to the vet on Monday morning where he was still lively and again was interested in what the vet had on his computer.  Styx was given Baytril and we were told to plug in our humidifier .. in the end we had to have the vet open early for an emergency visit on Tuesday morning .. we tried to save him, had him on IVs but he wasn't strong enough as strokes and the FIV had kicked in and he died around noon.

Maybe I'm crazy for writing this but we never thanked you for giving Styx a chance and for all the love that because of your kindness, understanding and caring for animals that enabled Styx to give us and others (including all the cats in the area) over five years of love and joy.  That your vet CM gave Styx a chance when he was a beat up seeming unadoptable stray without a future.

We are beating our selves up for not being able to save Styx.  In our head we know that you guys did enable us to save him but that the clock was ticking from day one.  In our hearts, we will miss him the rest of our lives and hope that he knew that we loved him and did our best for him.

Thank you for your past kindness to Styx .. we are going crazy with grief.

[Flower]

Poor Styx .. 

[Hepcat]

Scout will have completed her rigorous five month Halloween cat training program on Friday.



I'm a bit concerned that she won't be ready to fill Styx's shoes come Saturday. It's been tough to keep her applying herself to her studies. Rather than doing her homework she likes to goof off with Cowboy and Ace:

















Ace has been a particularly bad influence since he keeps taking her to the track:







 

[Mord]

 I like that little bugger, I think that she will definitely be up for the task on Saturday.

[Count_Zirock]

Oh, what a little sweetie!

Sent from my HUAWEI Y336-A1 using Tapatalk

[Hepcat]

I like that little bugger, I think that she will definitely be up for the task on Saturday.

Hopefully, hopefully. She's got a tough act to follow though. Styx was born to the role! He lived for Halloween. To begin with, he was well versed in the finer points of trick or treating:







Blessed with unerring balance he could ride the pine with the best of them:



He was adept at terrorizing the neighbourhood simply by unleashing another side of his persona:



And to top it off he had his own personal graveyard that he liked to visit at this time of the year:

[Hepcat]

Scout made sure all was in readiness earlier today. Here she is making sure we'd included everything in the boys' bag:





And the girls' bag:





She noticed that we'd forgotten to put the big Halloween lollipop in the bags!



Here she is inspecting the front porch:



















Across the street:













And relaxing with a quick snack before the rush of little tricksters:





 

[Flower]

Great photos .. the ones with the crows are extra cool.  Did Scout get the lollipops in the bags on time?

[Hepcat]

Yes, one big vertically striped orange, purple and white lollipop to each bag! The WOMAN had to help Scout twist tie the bags closed though.

[Hepcat]

Here are some photos from Xmas a few years back. First here's Phoebe(2005-2008) in the large bedroom:









The Christmas tree:







Here's Deuce(2006?-2015) beside it:



The tree is a fiber optic one to which we add multiple strands of seven(!) colour C6 LED lights and decorate it with predominantly silvery or white decorations including lots of little birds. Adding multitudes of silver icicles and swaths of angel hair turns the tree into a scene from a magical wintry wonderland where a riot of colour can be seen breaking through a haze of snow and ice. Unfortunately, The MAN has never been able to capture the effect with the camera.

Here's Phoebe with her soul mate Blizzard while he still shone brightly:











So after we'd taken down the tree in January 2007, we put Blizzard in the upstairs closet. One day the following summer I opened the closet door and Phoebe discovered that her long lost friend was dwelling there! She happily lay down beneath him again.

Here's Styx(2000?-2015) with Blizzard:







Here's Cowboy with Blizzard:



Here's Blizzard out on the front porch with Deuce:

[Flower]

The last photo with Deuce and Phoebe on the lawn is magic!

R.I.P. to Styx, Deuce and Phoebe .. 

[Hepcat]

A bit of household togetherness:

Scout and Cowboy



Scout and Ace





Cowboy, Scout and Ace

[Hepcat]

So it was sixteen years ago earlier this month that I saw a wild looking long-haired black cat in the northeast corner window of the Bay store on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto where the Toronto Humane Society was showcasing pets for adoption. Being bereft of cats at the time the thought that popped into my head was "That's the cat for me!" I was told that he was perhaps two years old and I decided to name him Ace after the Bat-Hound.

A few years later on a summer's day Ace was nowhere to be found when I came home from work on a Friday. Nor did he reappear the following morning. Monday morning though I had a phone message at work. It seems Ace had been discovered late Friday afternoon by the elevators from the parking garage just outside the second floor lost and found office of Sears in downtown Toronto just north of the Bay store. Since the Sears store downtown is about six miles away from my house, I was somewhat puzzled but I assumed that Ace must have hitched a ride downtown to revisit the Bay store but got mixed up a bit. Nonetheless he'd been taken home (fifteen miles away!) by one of the women and I retrieved him from the Sears lost and found office the following day.

By last summer Ace was a senior citizen in cat terms and had slowed down somewhat. The vet told us that his kidneys were no longer functioning at peak efficiency and that a slow deterioration in his kidney function could be expected at his age. But on Sunday December 12th we found Ace curled up inside the console TV in the basement. I recognized this immediately as the behaviour of a cat hiding from the unseen enemy causing him pain. Off to the vet we went on Monday. Blood work on Tuesday revealed a certain liver enzyme's count at 623 when the maximum level should be no higher than 158. A possible cause was a malfunctioning thyroid which could easily be treated. But further blood work revealed that his thyroid was fine.

A liver tumour was therefore the dreaded diagnosis. The vet told us that even for a young cat there would be nothing he could do except prescribe a pain killer. I resigned myself to Ace having only a few weeks to live. His condition deteriorated very rapidly. By Sunday evening I had to face the reality that his time on this earth was near an end. I broke down at that point. But I couldn't bear to see my friend suffer and steadily lose all dignity. We took him back to the vet on Wednesday morning where he was given an injection and died in my arms.

R.I.P my beloved furry friend Ace (December 1998? - 21 December 2016)

Unlike our other cats Ace had no time for the paparazzi and refused to ham it up for the cameras. As a result we don't have very many good shots of Ace. Here are some decent ones (Ace is the big one):