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| RIP Trix August 1999 ~ August 2014 |
In the summer of 1999, we found out that the mother of my mother's cat was pregnant with a new litter. My mother knowing that I loved cats asked me if I would be interested in having a kitten. Now at the time I was living on Welfare with barely enough money to feed myself and my two children that I did not think it was a good idea to have a cat, so I thought hard on the right answer to give. Finally, I said that if there was a black kitten in the litter, I would take it.
The reason I said that was that the cat in question was a beautiful white cat, known for having beautiful white kittens. It was highly unlikely that she would have a black kitten, so I felt pretty smug with my ingenious solution.
Towards the end of August the kittens were born...
Lo and behold there was ONE black kitten in the bunch!
Since I had promised I would take a black kitten if she had one, I could not back down, so in early October, the cute little bundle of black joy was delivered to me.
I had not told my children that we were getting a kitten, just in case something happened and we wound up not getting him. My daughter was away at school when I received the kitten, so that day I stuffed the kitten in my coat, and off I went to meet her at the bus.
She got off the bus and we started walking home when within a few steps, she hears a little meowing sound. She stops and asks me if I've heard a kitten. I say no and we continue walking towards home. Again she hears the soft meowing of a kitten. She stops again trying to figure out where the sound comes from. She hears the sound again and this time notices that the sound is emanating from my coat. She asks me if I have a kitten in my coat looking at me that way a child does when they know we are trying to pull the wool over their eyes. I lower the zip and out pops a black little head.
My daughter was ecstatic!
Since he had come to us in October, so close to Halloween, and him being a black cat, we decided to name him Trix.
Over the next year, that kitten barely laid a foot on the ground as she always had him in her arms. In fact on a few occasions I was called to her school to come and pick up our cat. She would stuff Trix into her backpack and bring him to school. She would often dress him up in her dolls clothes, he was so cute with a bonnet. Such a good boy to let her do all those things.
Trix was quite a mischievous kitten, on almost a daily basis he would get into our garbage can, tipping it over and making a mess. He would climb our kitchen cupboards and go hide up there close to the ceiling. I admit he spent a bit of time in our basement, especially when we were away from the house.
Time passed and we moved one place an another. Everywhere we went, we had to be able to bring Trix with us. Eventually (in 2002) we moved back to the Ottawa area. By that time we had also adopted a little sister, a pretty white fluffy girl from another litter.
At some point, Trix had developed a litter box issue. Every once in a while he would pee on furniture or clean laundry, but that did not deter our love for him and we tried to correct him of this nasty habit (which would never really work BTW)
In April 2006 his little sister passed away suddenly.
Over time Trix had become considerable overweight, so December 2006, January 2007, we decided to try and put him on a diet. We stopped giving him people food (chicken mostly) and changed his food. He did not take well to this and decided to simply stop eating. It took a while for us to notice and by that time, he had developed Fatty Liver Disease, which can be very fatal for cats.
We brought him to the vet and they told us he was in very bad shape. They could try treating him but it would be VERY expensive and there was only a 50/50 chance that he would make it. After looking at my daughter's tear filled eyes, we decided to go for the treatment and hope for the best.
For a week he was hospitalized. They gave him several meds and force fed him though a tube inserted directly in his stomach. After a week or so, he was brought home where we continued to force feed him every two hours a set amount of food through a large syringe and gave his all his medication at set times. We did this for a week or two and brought him back to the vet for a check up.
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| Trix at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital being treated for Fatty Liver Disease |
Good news! He had pulled through. All his levels had stabilized and he had started eating on his own again.
Around that time we started fostering for a cat rescue organization. Trix would take in scared little orphan, often feral kittens, and mother them. He would help raise them and become well adjusted social and friendly kittens. Over the course of the next few years he raised many kittens and would always get a little depressed when they got adopted to their forever homes. Eventually, after losing many babies, it's like he decided he no longer wanted to get attached to them and stopped being a "momma cat".
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| Trix and one of his "babies" Coco |
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| Trix and one of his "babies" Gabriel |
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| Trix and one of his "babies" Huckleberry Finn |
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| Trix with one of his last "babies" Shanti on April 20, 2014 |
About two months ago, we noticed that Trix was no longer his usual self. We brought him to the vet and other than having some abscesses in his groin area, which could explain his slightly elevated white blood cell count, he seemed fine. They put him on antibiotics to help get rid of his abscesses and he healed.
Last week we noticed he seemed to have lost a lot of weight. Over the weekend he had developed breathing difficulties. Very worried at this point we booked another vet visit.
Today we find out he has advanced cancer and he can no longer be treated. He doesn't have much longer to live. His chest belly and lungs are filled with fluid making it very difficult for him to breathe. They implied that it would be best for us to let him go, but understood that we needed to come to terms with all this.
As I write this I am preparing to say goodbye to our lovely 15 year old boy. By this time next week Trix will have crossed over to the rainbow bridge.
We will miss our beautiful black cat.
***Update: Trix crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge on Friday August 22nd 2014 at about 9:25 PM He is being cremated and his ashes are to be returned to us in a lovely urn in the shape of a black cat.
RIP Trix August 1999 to August 2014.
