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| Name: |
Columbus
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Age: |
Sixteen years old
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| Gender: |
Male
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Kind: |
Cat
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| Home: |
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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Columbus
came to us on our farm in Illinois when he was a kitten. He would
walk with me from barn to barn when I fed the animals twice a day. He used to
sleep with the pot belly pigs. They had an old quilt they slept under and he
slept on top of them. In his hay day he weighed 23 pounds. We have many
nicknames for this guy, "head butt" cause he head butts everything, including
table legs and causes drinks to spill. We call him "Columbus, the fur lined
speed bump," as when he's stretched out on his side, he looks like a speed
bump.
When I had to leave the farm we had lots of cats. I could only take two, and I
picked him because he was my shadow, and his sister cause she's the opposite
and no one would adopt a cat they couldn't find. When she had her first
litter of nine kittens, he would take them into a big red wing chair and bathe
them. He kept stealing them from his sister, and bathed them from head to
toe. She got so nervous that she hid all of them at night. We'd have to play
"find the kittens" every morning as she put them in some poor places.
Columbus always lead the way for us.
When we moved to New Mexico, he did well. Suddenly after being here a year he
started losing weight. He was down to seven pounds. The vet could not figure it
out. And even did exploratory surgery. We changed his diet and he came back
to life. We called the new food "kitty viagra" as he chased his sister for
months (both have been fixed). Several years later after he had recovered, he
began to lose weight again. This time only down to fourteen pounds. He had cancer
of the thyroid. We had the radioactive "beans" put in him and he stayed at
the vet's office for four weeks until he didn't trip the gieger counter within three
feet.
Once he had gained weight and was doing well again, we moved into a new house.
There is a electrical floor plug. He spends hours every day sitting on top of
it. One day I was petting him, I felt a lump in his neck. Back to the vet.
The vet said it was cancerous. But the radioactive beans prevented him from
other treatment. That night he sat on the floor plug as usual while we cried.
That was two years ago. His tumor is gone. Whatever is in that floor plug we
think is what healed him. When he sits on top of it we say: "he's plugged in
again." He'd doing well. The vet is thrilled and doesn't care what did it.
From the pictures you can see he follows me everywhere. He's a people cat. As
soon as someone is at the door, he and the dog go to greet whomever it is.
When people come over he must greet everyone.
Sadly at sixteen, and being heavy, his hips are shot. So now he has an odd walk.
He's on the kitty version of South Beach diet, as are the other two cats. The
vet is hoping losing some weight will make walking easier. He doesn't seem to
be losing an ounce!
He has one other oddity. I love birds, and crows and corvids specially. When
he meows, he makes the sound of a crow cawing. Not a cat meow at all. People
who don't know him and hear this start looking up in the air. Then they say,
"did your cat make that bird noise?"
He and Buddy our dog are sitting next to me as I type. Columbus always has
his eye on me! Columbus loves the inner tubes as long as they are out of the
water, and the sink on hot days.
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