There are cat people and there are dog people. And I am, most assuredly, dog people.
But over the past year my heart was stolen by a 7-1/2 pound ball of gray, tiger-striped American short-hair.
He first appeared just after the 4th-of-July holiday last summer, poking his tiny, kitten head out from under the gazebo on the sales/display lot, site of my day job.
He was skittish. I was curious.
Obviously, he had been abandoned on my stone-graveled acre. Over the next few days I coaxed him out with a small pan of kitten-chow.
It became a ritual. I would arrive for work in the morning, fill his bowl and then shake the contents. Out would pop his head and, when I’d gone inside, he’d come out and eat.
Over the next few weeks he got bigger and acquired a name: Raoul.
This was because his every declaration came out Rowl! His interrogatories: Rowl?
As July turned to August Raoul grew and, despite the appearance of his eyes not yet “opening”, he expanded his field of exploration, roaming the vast openess of my sales lot chasing grasshoppers and butterflies.
He also warmed to his human benefactor, breaking off whatever he was doing to great me on the dead run when I arrived in the morning. He would follow me to the doorstep of my office, then turn away and scoot under the gazebo.
I’d sit on the floor of the gazebo. He’d come out and do figure eights between my legs, allowing me to lift him, gently, with my foot. Soon I was picking him up.
It was also this time when I realized that there was a reason his eyes had not yet “opened”.
He had no eyes!
Now the decision I’d been mulling - whether or not to take him inside my office - became clear. There would be no way he could survive the winter, much less avoid getting flattened trying to cross Route 230, if he was blind.
If I took him to the shelter, well, I didn’t like his odds. So one day when he let me pick him up I carried him inside. A new chapter in our relationship began.
In September we had our first Doctor’s appointment. Raoul was a hit with the staff at the Neffsville Veterinary Clinic, as well as with his doctor, Dr. Blythe. It was determined that he was likely seven weeks old when I found him.
But when Dr. Blythe returned with the results of his blood tests, her mood had darkened.
He had tested positive for Feline Leukemia Virus. Would I allow her to draw more blood for another test, to be certain this wasn’t a false positive?
Sadly, the result was the same.
Dr. Blythe figured Raoul had picked up the virus in utero, likely the reason his eyes never developed.
“This doesn’t have to be a death sentence,” she said, noting if I kept him isolated from other animals, and he didn’t become ill, he might live 5 years, maybe more.
With a cat-hating, 12-year-old Springer Spaniel at home, not to mention the occasional “fresh air” visits by my daughter’s equally cat-hating Great Dane, adding Raoul to the mix there was not an option.
And so he became my resident assistant. Despite being blind, he’d scamper around the 10-by-16 environs of the office, “swimming” under furniture; climbing up the screen of a sample window propped against the wall; playing - with delight bordering on ecstasy - with the catnip-infused straw balls I’d buy him.
There was a brief moment, in November, when our relationship soured after he had been neutered and sank into a depression, as one might after losing one’s testicles.
But he got over that and returned to jumping on my lap and taking part in his favorite pasttime: allowing me to roll him on his back and hold him, like a baby, in the crook of my arm while he took a nap.
Winter became spring and spring turned to summer. I went on a home-improvement-project vacation the third week of July and when I checked in on him, it appeared that he had not touched his food.
Nor did he eat over my first few days back in the office. He was, obviously, a very sick cat.
The trip to the vet confirmed that the virus had erupted with a vengeance, hitting the fast-forward button on his life. A life now measured in days.
Heartbreakingly, there was only one choice to make. Raoul went, blessedly, quickly as I stroked him.
He’d had a great year. A year he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
And my life had been better for that year.
