Ironically, Sam was never supposed to be with me, he was picked up as an 8mo female to go to a fosterer, but as soon as he walked out of the carrier at the fosterers with his tail up, it was obvious he was a boy and too big for an 8mo, so he had to have a quick name change (ironically the woman who had been feeding him had named him Molly), and a vet visit showed he was 11-12 with a heart murmur and possible hyper-t, plus in desperate need of a dental, at which point he came to mine. When it came to his dental, he had to have all his teeth removed, and bloods showed he was borderline hyper-t as well as having raised liver enzymes. When he still had issues with his mouth and his weight, we decided not to put him up for rehoming, and keep him as a long term foster instead. When I changed rescues last year, I decided to keep him, even though I wasn’t in a great position to do so financially.
Everyone who met Sam fell in love with him, there was just something about him – partly because he would sit and beg to be picked up, and adored being cuddled and stroked. My only worry was that he would go to anyone, and he also loved to jump into cars, so he was chipped and collared just to be on the safe side. My neighbours thought he was a wonderful cat, and he loved them, very few people thought he was old, and he was mistaken for a girl a few times!! He could be too loving and demanding though, I had numerous conversations with people while holding him on my hip like a child, and sometimes you hadn’t even got your bum on the settee before he was diving on you, and trying to get up was tricky, he kept trying to get back on your knee as you were standing up!! He rarely came upstairs though, Molly must have scared him!!
Despite having no teeth, he was the boss of the street, and hated one of the neighbours cats – despite the neighbours cat being younger, bigger and having all his teeth, Sam never stopped picking on him, and he quickly learned to scream as soon as Sam approached, as someone would go and rescue him!! Mind you, he also asserted himself with my sister’s Jack Russell, to the point my sis couldn’t bring him round because Sam would pin him to the floor – I was worried that the dog might retaliate one day, my sis was more worried about the dog!!
While I knew he would never live to his late teens with all his health issues, I never expected to only have him in my life for 17 months, nor to lose him before the girls. I thought he might have come into my life to take over from Molly, but obviously not. I don’t think I will ever be lucky enough to share my life with such a wonderful cat again, I think he was a one in a million cat. RIP my little meerkat.
This time 2 weeks ago we were just having our final cuddles before going to the vet.
