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| Name: |
Tiger
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Age: |
Six years, two months old
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| Gender: |
Male
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Kind: |
Cat
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| Home: |
North Carolina, USA
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Tiger's
mother, Lucky, had chosen me, and my family, as her new owners when
she was a stray over seven years ago. Soon after, when my father got custody
of my two brothers and I, my mother gave us Lucky so we would still be able
to have her in the years to follow.
She became a strictly outdoor cat at the trailer, as we lived on a three-acre
plot of land that was in an area of mostly farmland. We had thought my mother
had her spayed prior to giving her to us, but we were proven wrong when she
became pregnant! She had three little kittens underneath our trailer. A
fluffy gray tom who we named Tiger because of his stripes (which he no longer
has), a little black and white female, and a black and white tom. I remember
the first sight I had of Tiger; he was bouncing back and forth in the
insulation under the trailer and meowing, a little gray cotton ball, while
his littermates looked on apprehensively. I managed to coax them all out, and
they played with, around, and on my brother and I. We moved them and Lucky
onto our screened-in porch and secured her and her kittens in it. The kittens
became strictly indoor cats once they were weaned.
He's absolutely impatient when it's feeding time, and has the weirdest quirk
when he eats. Instead of eating out of the bowl, most of the time he'll paw
into the pellets, or the wet food, and then eat it off the floor! He'll mop
up the gravy in his very long toe-fur and suck it out, and he'll even do the
same with his water.
Tiger is the most talkative cat I've ever met. The only time he's quiet is
when he's asleep, on guard duty (unless an intruder is in the yard), or
pouting. He's very demanding as well, and will sit down in front of the door
if he wants to go out (which is all the time), when his water dish isn't
sufficiently clean,when he wants attention, or when he thinks it should be
feeding time, and will stare at you and whine until he knows we aren't going
to fulfill his demands, or when we do.
When he's outside, he'll often come running when you call his name, meowing
excitedly the whole way. Sometimes he'll just lay there and watch you as you
walk past him, and whine at you when you find him and bring him in. He seems
to be taking a liking to lying about in between the corn and bean rows now
that the plants are nice and tall, and seems to want to share his excitement
with everyone. If you walk past, he'll meow rapidly at you until he just has
to get up and start rubbing against you, wanting attention. If he's in the
beans, however, it's because he wants to ignore you.
He's also the biggest baby I know. I remember one time he was walking past
the couch and he saw his shadow from the light overhead. He jumped three feet
in the air, with a rapid "thump-thump-thump." He's a pushover when it comes
to our cats, but he's got an inflated ego when it comes to strangers walking
down the street. He'll stalk joggers, cyclists, dogs, cats, anything. If a
cat gets too close, he'll yowl at it, as close to ground as he can get, all
fluffed up. He'll put them clean out of the yard if they're too bold, because
he's the biggest cat in the neighborhood. Luckily, we're always there when
this happens, so we can get to them quickly, and he always comes quietly
without a fuss.
You can always tell what mood he's in by the color of his eyes. When he's
content and happy, they're pumpkin orange. When he's in a really bad mood,
they're a greenish-yellow or a pure yellow. And when he's in-between, they're
a yellowish green. I love him very much.
See more images of Tiger!
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