He has been a part of my life as long as Kim has been a part of my life. He was part of the package when we married.
I did not know him his first three years but I hear he was a Holy terror during that time. My mother-in-law....who has had a good many cats...has deemed him one of the craziest, wildest, naughtiest cats ever. That is saying a lot.
When I first moved in Tito and i did not get along. The cat flipping hated me. I walked by and he scratched me. He would sit on the edge of the couch and I would try to walk out of his way and he would stretch so far to get his claws in me he would often fall off the couch. Served him right!
When i sat down on the couch he would jump up and proceed to stick his butt in my face. If i objected he would hiss and scratch me. He clawed my clothes, he peed in my shoes. He was not accepting this change that he had no say in. He had been perfectly content with my mother-in-law in the house and me in another town. His routine had been disturbed and he was not amused.
It took me moving out...the first time... for him to decide I was Okay.
A year of Kim being in charge of the house made Tito decide maybe I wasn't so bad.
So when i moved back, he was much nicer. MUCH. He never scratched on purpose. He did still put his butt in my face...he apparently decided this was something all people actually liked and he continued that until the day he died.
He, was the only male cat in a house full of female cats for the last few years. He played second cat in charge for many years. When "head cat" Tasu died we wondered if he would take over that position. He did.
Not like Tasu...but he was definitely the head cat.
In the last couple years he had been struck with dementia. Sometimes he would just walk around and yowl seeming confused. The youngest cat, Snake, would go and find him and lead him back to where he needed to be. All of the cats seemed accept his position in the pecking order, his age, and even his failing health. They allowed him to sit where he wanted, eat what he wanted...even if they were eating it at the time and he pushed them out of the way...they put up with his chronic and room clearing diarrhea and they often seemed to try to keep him turned in the right direction in the cat box...which we were quite grateful for.
So you might be asking why did you keep him these last couple years? I mean the dementia and chronic diarrhea really were enough to put him down some time ago. But he seemed happy and not in pain and then there was the fact that he took care of me...Something both Kim and I were quite aware of.
When I was sick,he was one of my life forces. He sat with me hour after hour and purred. When I passed out cold on the floor he was the one head butting me as I came to. When I weighed 80 lbs and was freezing all the time he sat on me and kept me warm. Not just him, there were others... but consistently always he was there. He was devoted to me. I became part of his family.
So we made the decision that as long as he seemed happy we would wait. So wait we did until Saturday morning. Then it was time.
So Tito...I will miss you...thanks for being my cat.
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