Hello!
I'm new
I've introduced myself in the appropriate thread but stumbled upon this thread and couldn't help telling you about my Chico ..
Here's his story:
In 2004 we (my friend and i, we lived together) got a little kitten called Coco, i never liked cats before we got Coco and really she shouldn't have made me love cats at all as she hated me! She is a proper grump and always scratched and bit at me for no reason but hey ho, i loved her regardless.
My friend was seeing a lad who lived about 20miles away and she started seeing a big fluff ball cat called Chico always hanging around, always wanting food and a fuss. She told me about him and told me that she'd found out his owners had had a baby and just shut him out, didn't try and find him a home or anything, just shut him out of their house so he was sleeping outside and getting fed at her fella's place cos they felt sorry for him
One day we went round there and as i was getting out of the car there he was, it was love at first sight for me - i sat on the driveway for 30mins fussing him and telling him how handsome he was and that was it, he was mine. I took him home that night.
Chico was always a cautious thing, always watching your feet (we assumed he'd been kicked at some stage) but he was so loving, he was also very stupid and on several occasions we'd find him with a gormless look on his face looking at the rain, sat in the middle of a puddle!! Coco and him had a fraught relationship but eventually tolerated each other, well she bullied him and he let her !
In 2008 around bonfire night Chico wasn't himself, this didn't worry us at first as he hated loud noises but after a few days we realised that there was something wrong, he'd gone off his food and was hiding behind a chair - we agreed to take him to the vet - went to work and my friend popped him down to the Vet's surgery - she called me in hysterics - it was heart failure. I flew home but he had been taken away to a special ICU unit about 10miles away, they told us they'd call us if there was any change, he picked up a bit around 8pm so we went to bed that night telling the nurse to let us know if anything changed. At 4am my friend came into my room, he'd gone.. slipped away gently in the night, there's nothing anyone could have done they said when we got there.
He was all wrapped up in a blue blanket, the life gone from his eyes - we cried heart sore and fussed him one last time.. Our Cheeks had gone to Rainbow Bridge before his time as he was only 7 but he's there waiting for me, I'm sure of it.
So there you go, that's my story. I've not been able to have any other pet since then, my friend moved out and took Coco with her at my request. Now I've been given the chance to re-home 2 unwanted cats, I'm taking it as the love i got from Chico for a few years was worth it, i wouldn't have swapped it for the earth. So that's where i am at the minute, ready to re-home but always remembering and loving my first boy, my Chico