Teddy's Story
Next week will be our 1 year anniversary with this sweet guy!
We felt a huge void in our lives after losing Jasper last March. I started thinking about a cat we met at Petco about 6 months prior, his name was "Teddy", because he was like a big teddy bear; coincidentally, we used to call Jasper "Bear", because we was like a big, roly-poly Pooh bear. Similar to Jasper's story, someone had dumped him off too, and he also found a porch to call home until it got too cold outside.
He's a Mackerel tabby like Jasper, but with a slightly smaller build, however people were still remarking on how big he was at the store, so maybe our definition of "big" was slightly askew after having a 20+ lb. cat. Joel and I both felt compelled to get him as a brother for Jasper, but knew Jasper wouldn't have anything to do with that; this was a single cat household, as far as he was concerned.
I would think about him from time to time, wondering how he was doing and if he ever found a home. Then I thought - we weren't able to save Jasper, but we could save this little guy. Holly tracked him down to the rescue that he was at, and I immediately contacted the owner. She was surprised, shocked even, that anyone could have bonded with him at Petco. Evidentally, he really hated going to Petco, and only spent one day there because he hissed at everyone, and had too many complaints; however, we didn't see that side of him at all. He was a little aloof, but enjoyed the attention from us, even rubbed his face against my fingers. Was it meant to be?
When we picked him up, he seemed a lot smaller than I remembered. Memory is subjective though, so maybe I was just remembering him bigger like Jasper. He wasn't eating well, his paw pads were swollen and rough, he paced around anxiously, and was missing a canine tooth. The vet took x-rays, and found two more broken teeth. What happened to this guy? We got the teeth fixed, and over time his paws healed, but suffers from seizures due to feline hyperesthesia; which actually explains a lot. Maybe this was why someone dumped him off? He's estimated to be about 10 years old, but the vet is starting to think he may be younger, which would really be in his favor. When he's not having an attack though, he's fine, we just have to be careful about how we handle him. He's been started on antibiotics and steroids, and goes back to the vet next week to get on something to help maintain. It won't cure him, but should help control it.
I'm really glad we met him that day at Petco back in 2012. He helped us during a hard time, and now we're helping him.