MtH #21 Little Caesar Part 2

Little Caesar  Part 2

We had a house cat. An orange and white female who had been de-clawed and abandoned. We adopted her in November 2005, two years before we started maintaining the colony. Her name was Lillie. We were warned by the lady who ran the foster home that she would not tolerate other cats. It may have had something to do with the fact that not only did she lack claws, she had no teeth. No way to defend herself against a territorial female or a randy male. We loved her to pieces despite her opinion of cats in general, which was that they were  bottom-feeding abominations and beneath her contempt. 

Lillie knew what was going on downstairs in the studio but the cats (mostly kittens) were very quiet. So she ignored it for the most part. Then the Ogre arrived. A big scowling, spitting gas bag that meowed loudly right outside the basement door. And the humans seemed to like him. They even changed his name from the unofficial “Happy TFC” to the pompous “Little Caesar” because he looked like Edward G Robinson.

The humans wanted to keep him so they tried to get her used to the idea. Caesar himself had no problem with that, being a big gentle goof with no carnal intentions (no balls….literally) but she would get right in his face and screech at him. She sounded like a hell bent banshee. Finally one day he’d had enough. He swatted her, claws out. Blood was shed. He had to go. .

I might mention that by now he had stopped drooling and flatulating. His gums were healing and his diet was much improved over the daily three square rodents he’d been used to. When he was still wild, Patti found a half eaten  rat in his house (we had five cat houses made from coolers, insulation and straw). A RAT!!! No wonder he farted.

We gave him up to the Humane Society where he spent a week in a Pet Smart store. He was un-adoptable.

People want cute kittens. 

Time to shorten the story. We got him back against Humane Society policy (they don’t like back and forth…….I get it) and I made a deal with my brother Pat to give LC a home and I would subsidize expenses like vet fees. Pat lived alone in a roomy house in a quiet place 100 KMs from the city. They became close companions and although Little Caesar was fraught with a compromised immune system (most of our cats tested positive for FIV) he pretty much won the cat lottery and lived with Pat for 8 years. 

Little Caesar died, peacefully, from diabetes just four weeks ago in his home with Pat beside him. We buried him in the front yard.