the story of rufus
once olive turned about a year old, we thought she might be ready to have another cat in the house. we thought a lot about the KIND of cat that would mesh with her best. she is very possessive of us, because she bonded so much with us, and was used to being the center of the household, so we thought we should find somekitty who would not challenge that status but would also not be cowed by it, which meant an older cat.
we had a sort of shopping list for companion cats, then: older, calm, non-territorial, non-aggressive but with enough of a backbone to withstand kittenish "attacks" from olive, with some playfulness still there. then we started looking around. one day we were in petsmart, and the local animal rescue organizations had cages full of kitties for adoption, so i went over to look while iainzard waited to get some live crickets for his frog. i walked into the area, and immediately there was an orange cat who locked eyes with me, put his paw up to the cage and said, "mrow?" in a very appealing way. i scanned the cat cages, and there were some really adorable fluffy kitties there, mostly between kittenhood and two years old -- who could ever just "get rid" of a kitty? some had been abandoned, some lost and unclaimed, and others (and this is what i have a hard time understanding) had been given to the rescue organization by owners who no longer wanted them. while the cats were all appealing (if i had a farm i'd clearly be overrun by cats!), the one who really connected with me was the orange cat that i had seen when i first walked in.
the whole time i was looking at the cats, he kept his eyes trained on me, and when i walked over to his cage, he put both paws up on the cage and headbutted the grid between us, HARD. "come on," he seemed to be saying, "PET ME ALREADY!" what he actually said was something like, "mrow, waoorroww, MREEEEEOW!" -- a very charming "rowr"-y meow. i put my fingers in through the grid and he rubbed against them, all four paws kneading the floor of his cage. i read the card attached to the front: "tang, 9 years old, surrendered by owners who had no time for him -- neutered, FeIV-tested and cleared, not aggressive with other cats or dogs." he had been given his rabies shot on surrender, and seemed to be in good health. at that point, iain came in with his baggie of crickets, and we talked a bit about what a good match he could be for olive. The volunteer let me take him out, and he purred LOUDLY when i held him. i noticed, and to be honest was slightly freaked out by, his extra toes on all of his feet. i palpitated them, and they seemed fine -- they didn't seem to bother him. at that point, i think i had already decided he was going to be our cat, because i thought to myself, "well, his middle name will just have to be hemingway" after hemingway's tribe of polydactyl cats in key west. btw, olive has a middle name, too; hers is "sopwith," after the sopwith camel, because of the distintive bulls-eye markings she has on her sides.
(as i write this, rufus has climbed into my lap and is purring loudly as the computer keys click away).
it took us all of maybe five minutes to decide that we wanted him to come home with us, despite the fact of iain's disappointment with his tail (iain really prefers big bushy tails, but rufus has a sort of ratty tail, which i kind of love him even more for). we went home to get the carrier and by the time we got back, everything was all ready for us. we took him home along with his papers which gave evidence of a sad story: he had received all of his vaccinations after surrender, and he was fighting off a urinary tract infection even now. we got in touch with the volunteer who was fostering him, and she met us and gave us his medications; she was overjoyed that we had adopted him (i guess he was on the list to be "sent down" soon, and no one was very confident that such an old, sort of fugly fellow like rufus was going to be chosen, no matter how sweet-tempered and affectionate and smart he was).
he's an orange-y tiger with white tuxedo markings, overall a sort of "rufous" color -- so iain suggested 'rufus' should replace 'tang' as his name. it worked for me!
over the next week, he got to meet both our vet and olive -- both subjected him to untold indignities :). (the look he gave me when the vet took his temperature spoke volumes!) olive hissed at him and jumped on top of him a lot (and he never fought back), even when he was trying to use the litter box. i assumed this was the reason that a couple of times, rufus had decided to wet on iain's jeans that had been left on the floor, rather than going in the box.
in any case, the vet said he was in good health, but he needed to have his teeth cleaned (they had never been cleaned) and they wanted to monitor his infection. we had noticed that he was urinating very frequently, something made even more obvious because he tracked litter out of his tray pretty copiously, perhaps between his extra toes. there was a little blood in his urine, as well, and it formed very small clumps -- not the stalagtite lumps that we were used to even with the diminuitive olive. i had also noticed that sometimes he would wake suddenly and cry out (i fancied he might be having bad dreams) and run to look for a person; slowly it dawned on me that he might be in pain. the vet decided to go a bit further, and ordered xrays to see what might be up.
when the vet and his tattooed assistant (i swear he's one of those guys who learned to be a vet tech in prison; he's great with the animals and loves rufus's "cool extra toes -- they're creepy!") came back with the xrays, i could tell he was impressed with something on the films: a GIANT and jagged bladderstone that took up nearly a third of rufus's bladder capacity. no wonder he was peeing all the time -- he had no room for storage. and the lining of his bladder was extremely thick, because that jagged stone had been in there lacerating him for years. he would have to have surgery -- that would cost around $1500.
keep in mind that we've had rufus perhaps two weeks at this point. the vet and i talked about this as the possible reason that his previous owners had surrendered him, not wanting to pay for the surgery; it also could have just been his symptoms of frequent and sometimes inappropriate urination that got on their nerves, and they didn't follow up to find out the cause. i asked the vet what he thought otherwise about rufus's prospects; he had no arthritis, his heart and lungs looked great, and other than a little anemia caused by years of internal bleeding, he was in wonderful shape. so there really wasn't any way that we weren't going to go forward with the surgery at that point.
the staff at the vet's office all know his story, how he was a rescue cat that usually wouldn't have had a chance, but that now he was going to be all better for the first time in years. that and his constant patient lovingness -- he even keeps purring when he's being given a shot! -- made them all devoted to him. he went in for the surgery, came through with flying colors, and has been just great ever since.
when he came home from the bladder surgery, he was the most pathetic animal you could imagine. he was wearing his giant cone, and when it caught on something (say, when olive jumped him and he tried to take refuge under the bed), he would just STOP, sadly, and go, "mrow :(" and stand there. he had a giant bandage on his side with a time-release pain medication patch, a row of stitches up his entire belly (all shaven), and two wide shaven strips off his wrists, just above his extra toes, for the IV -- the effect made his already-gigantic paws look like fluffy boxing gloves. after a few days, we had to rip off the sticky patch (remember that cheech & chong track "the other tapes" from the wedding album, where the doctor rips the bandages off the big, hairy motorcycle rider?), revealing a 4"x4" square of clearcut skin on his side (it's still pretty hairless, and i now call it his "kissy place" because it's so nice to smooch him there).
olive eventually got over the disappointment she experienced when THAT CAT (which is what i imagine she calls him) who was here a week and then went away for a week came back again. she slowly adjusted to his sharing her place, and in recent weeks has even been seen giving him a little lick on the cheek before she jumps on him and tries to ride him like a monkey at a dog rodeo. she is still a tad resentful of his presence, but adjusting. and almost immediately, she started leaving us alone for the night, at first because THAT CAT was curled up on the bed and later because she was curled up beside THAT CAT in her now-shared bed. very sweet.
okay, so that's the story of rufus -- i'll have to make another post about them together, and include photos of the kitties together (probably all i will get is a rolling ball of fur alternating between orange and tabby :) ).
but we LOVE rufus, our little peacemaker, our furry gandhi. he's a sweet boy!
we had a sort of shopping list for companion cats, then: older, calm, non-territorial, non-aggressive but with enough of a backbone to withstand kittenish "attacks" from olive, with some playfulness still there. then we started looking around. one day we were in petsmart, and the local animal rescue organizations had cages full of kitties for adoption, so i went over to look while iainzard waited to get some live crickets for his frog. i walked into the area, and immediately there was an orange cat who locked eyes with me, put his paw up to the cage and said, "mrow?" in a very appealing way. i scanned the cat cages, and there were some really adorable fluffy kitties there, mostly between kittenhood and two years old -- who could ever just "get rid" of a kitty? some had been abandoned, some lost and unclaimed, and others (and this is what i have a hard time understanding) had been given to the rescue organization by owners who no longer wanted them. while the cats were all appealing (if i had a farm i'd clearly be overrun by cats!), the one who really connected with me was the orange cat that i had seen when i first walked in.
the whole time i was looking at the cats, he kept his eyes trained on me, and when i walked over to his cage, he put both paws up on the cage and headbutted the grid between us, HARD. "come on," he seemed to be saying, "PET ME ALREADY!" what he actually said was something like, "mrow, waoorroww, MREEEEEOW!" -- a very charming "rowr"-y meow. i put my fingers in through the grid and he rubbed against them, all four paws kneading the floor of his cage. i read the card attached to the front: "tang, 9 years old, surrendered by owners who had no time for him -- neutered, FeIV-tested and cleared, not aggressive with other cats or dogs." he had been given his rabies shot on surrender, and seemed to be in good health. at that point, iain came in with his baggie of crickets, and we talked a bit about what a good match he could be for olive. The volunteer let me take him out, and he purred LOUDLY when i held him. i noticed, and to be honest was slightly freaked out by, his extra toes on all of his feet. i palpitated them, and they seemed fine -- they didn't seem to bother him. at that point, i think i had already decided he was going to be our cat, because i thought to myself, "well, his middle name will just have to be hemingway" after hemingway's tribe of polydactyl cats in key west. btw, olive has a middle name, too; hers is "sopwith," after the sopwith camel, because of the distintive bulls-eye markings she has on her sides.
(as i write this, rufus has climbed into my lap and is purring loudly as the computer keys click away).
it took us all of maybe five minutes to decide that we wanted him to come home with us, despite the fact of iain's disappointment with his tail (iain really prefers big bushy tails, but rufus has a sort of ratty tail, which i kind of love him even more for). we went home to get the carrier and by the time we got back, everything was all ready for us. we took him home along with his papers which gave evidence of a sad story: he had received all of his vaccinations after surrender, and he was fighting off a urinary tract infection even now. we got in touch with the volunteer who was fostering him, and she met us and gave us his medications; she was overjoyed that we had adopted him (i guess he was on the list to be "sent down" soon, and no one was very confident that such an old, sort of fugly fellow like rufus was going to be chosen, no matter how sweet-tempered and affectionate and smart he was).
he's an orange-y tiger with white tuxedo markings, overall a sort of "rufous" color -- so iain suggested 'rufus' should replace 'tang' as his name. it worked for me!
over the next week, he got to meet both our vet and olive -- both subjected him to untold indignities :). (the look he gave me when the vet took his temperature spoke volumes!) olive hissed at him and jumped on top of him a lot (and he never fought back), even when he was trying to use the litter box. i assumed this was the reason that a couple of times, rufus had decided to wet on iain's jeans that had been left on the floor, rather than going in the box.
in any case, the vet said he was in good health, but he needed to have his teeth cleaned (they had never been cleaned) and they wanted to monitor his infection. we had noticed that he was urinating very frequently, something made even more obvious because he tracked litter out of his tray pretty copiously, perhaps between his extra toes. there was a little blood in his urine, as well, and it formed very small clumps -- not the stalagtite lumps that we were used to even with the diminuitive olive. i had also noticed that sometimes he would wake suddenly and cry out (i fancied he might be having bad dreams) and run to look for a person; slowly it dawned on me that he might be in pain. the vet decided to go a bit further, and ordered xrays to see what might be up.
when the vet and his tattooed assistant (i swear he's one of those guys who learned to be a vet tech in prison; he's great with the animals and loves rufus's "cool extra toes -- they're creepy!") came back with the xrays, i could tell he was impressed with something on the films: a GIANT and jagged bladderstone that took up nearly a third of rufus's bladder capacity. no wonder he was peeing all the time -- he had no room for storage. and the lining of his bladder was extremely thick, because that jagged stone had been in there lacerating him for years. he would have to have surgery -- that would cost around $1500.
keep in mind that we've had rufus perhaps two weeks at this point. the vet and i talked about this as the possible reason that his previous owners had surrendered him, not wanting to pay for the surgery; it also could have just been his symptoms of frequent and sometimes inappropriate urination that got on their nerves, and they didn't follow up to find out the cause. i asked the vet what he thought otherwise about rufus's prospects; he had no arthritis, his heart and lungs looked great, and other than a little anemia caused by years of internal bleeding, he was in wonderful shape. so there really wasn't any way that we weren't going to go forward with the surgery at that point.
the staff at the vet's office all know his story, how he was a rescue cat that usually wouldn't have had a chance, but that now he was going to be all better for the first time in years. that and his constant patient lovingness -- he even keeps purring when he's being given a shot! -- made them all devoted to him. he went in for the surgery, came through with flying colors, and has been just great ever since.
when he came home from the bladder surgery, he was the most pathetic animal you could imagine. he was wearing his giant cone, and when it caught on something (say, when olive jumped him and he tried to take refuge under the bed), he would just STOP, sadly, and go, "mrow :(" and stand there. he had a giant bandage on his side with a time-release pain medication patch, a row of stitches up his entire belly (all shaven), and two wide shaven strips off his wrists, just above his extra toes, for the IV -- the effect made his already-gigantic paws look like fluffy boxing gloves. after a few days, we had to rip off the sticky patch (remember that cheech & chong track "the other tapes" from the wedding album, where the doctor rips the bandages off the big, hairy motorcycle rider?), revealing a 4"x4" square of clearcut skin on his side (it's still pretty hairless, and i now call it his "kissy place" because it's so nice to smooch him there).
olive eventually got over the disappointment she experienced when THAT CAT (which is what i imagine she calls him) who was here a week and then went away for a week came back again. she slowly adjusted to his sharing her place, and in recent weeks has even been seen giving him a little lick on the cheek before she jumps on him and tries to ride him like a monkey at a dog rodeo. she is still a tad resentful of his presence, but adjusting. and almost immediately, she started leaving us alone for the night, at first because THAT CAT was curled up on the bed and later because she was curled up beside THAT CAT in her now-shared bed. very sweet.
okay, so that's the story of rufus -- i'll have to make another post about them together, and include photos of the kitties together (probably all i will get is a rolling ball of fur alternating between orange and tabby :) ).
but we LOVE rufus, our little peacemaker, our furry gandhi. he's a sweet boy!