To the BEST CAT EVER!
Today was a bad day in our house. Really it's been a bad 2 weeks. Our generally fat, jolly, playful, frisky, bunny hunting, cat was showing signs of not feeling well. At first we thought it was his normal Spring Time weight loss he gets due to not sitting around under the covers and only going outside if he was DESPERATE to do his business. Two weeks ago however I noticed that his food was not disappearing as fast as it usually does, I also noticed that he wasn't hunting anymore. Right when I started to notice these changes he started going missing for days at a time. He never hung around the house anymore and would only come home for a few hours in the evening. Finally on Wednesday I noticed that he was skin and bones and it was even getting hard for him to walk. After making a couple of vet appointments, and having him go missing and miss those appointments we finally were able to get him in today. He was VERY bad off and pitiful, diagnosis Leukemia. They said even with treatment he would probably not make it and part of the treatment would have entailed me force feeding him a blended mixture of special food with a syringe...um no. So today Winston went to Heaven, and we are sure he's in Heaven because he was THE BEST CAT EVER!
We found Winston in August of 2002. I was HUGE preggo with O and way overdue. Since everyone says when you are overdue you should walk a lot, we were out on our nightly family walk around the neighborhood. When we arrived home from our walk we came into the driveway and heard a meowing. We quickly realized that a kitten, maybe about 4-5 weeks old, was stuck in the wheel well of Chris' car. Chris got him out, we brought him in the house, and I started thinking of all the people we knew who might want a kitten. We already had a cat and I didn't think Chris would be up for two. I started to make a phone call to give him away and Chris turns to me and says, "He's ours, and his name is Winston" (we had Winston tires at the time). I couldn't argue with that I love cats! Winston was deemed K's cat, and he was such a blessing at the time. I had O about a week later and K had a baby to take care of so she wasn't too jealous of O.
I am not a fan or cat boxes, who is really, so when we have a cat it must be an indoor/outdoor cat and it MUST do it's duty outside. I do not tolerate messes in my house. Winston was a cinch to house train, and NEVER had an accident in the house. Once we went on an extended weekend trip to the beach. When we got home I immediately noticed the cat urine/feces smell in the house. I searched until I found the source of the stench. We had accidentally locked Winston in the house the entire weekend, and he did his business in the bathtub! When we moved to Illinois it was late fall and the cold weather hit very quickly. Winston being a Cali cat did not like his bum in snow. So he started using the bathtub again and I quickly realized that he needed a cat box in the winter. I did this for 2 winters and then he must have adjusted and used outside from then on. So needless to say when I found a few instances of kitty pee in the house last week I knew he was sick. As a matter of fact last night he couldn't make it outside and used a bucket that one of the kids left on the floor. Good kitty until the end!
We have had many cats before and during Winston's time with us but NONE compared. We had a Siamese cat the entire time we lived in our house in Ca, and he was AWFUL! His name was Ramsey he was mean to the children, every time we had a baby he would pee all over the babies things, he was very stubborn and obnoxious. Needless to say he got left behind. We had a kitten once, can't remember his name, that we only had a couple of weeks because he kept peeing in Chris' lunch box. We had a kitten named Dotty, that scratched O all the time, peed in the house, was very accident prone, and ended up "sleeping" in the pool. She was pretty stupid. The only cat we ever had that was a close second to Winston was Ike, he rocked too and we think he met his demise from our mean neighbor, that was sad too. Then there was Sirius, we got him a couple of years ago thinking that Winston would like the company. We were wrong and the day Sirius disappeared was the best day of Winston's life.
Winston was very kind to children. He would tolerate a lot of abuse before he would give a little warning bite/scratch. When we had company over he was very social. Not at all like those cats that run and hide every time someone new came, he had to be right out in the middle of it all no matter how many people we had over.
Winston was a great hunter. Some of his prey included bunnies, rats, mice, bugs, squirrels, chipmunks, and an occasional bird. He always brought them in to us and was very proud of his catch.
He was also a lazy cat. He would sometimes refuse to use the stairs and the cat door and would cry until we let him out the sliding glass door. He would also sleep anywhere. A bomb could go off and that guy would not even flinch.
See I told you BEST CAT EVER! I will forever measure all cats against the Winston Scale. I am also sure none will ever measure up.
We found Winston in August of 2002. I was HUGE preggo with O and way overdue. Since everyone says when you are overdue you should walk a lot, we were out on our nightly family walk around the neighborhood. When we arrived home from our walk we came into the driveway and heard a meowing. We quickly realized that a kitten, maybe about 4-5 weeks old, was stuck in the wheel well of Chris' car. Chris got him out, we brought him in the house, and I started thinking of all the people we knew who might want a kitten. We already had a cat and I didn't think Chris would be up for two. I started to make a phone call to give him away and Chris turns to me and says, "He's ours, and his name is Winston" (we had Winston tires at the time). I couldn't argue with that I love cats! Winston was deemed K's cat, and he was such a blessing at the time. I had O about a week later and K had a baby to take care of so she wasn't too jealous of O.
I am not a fan or cat boxes, who is really, so when we have a cat it must be an indoor/outdoor cat and it MUST do it's duty outside. I do not tolerate messes in my house. Winston was a cinch to house train, and NEVER had an accident in the house. Once we went on an extended weekend trip to the beach. When we got home I immediately noticed the cat urine/feces smell in the house. I searched until I found the source of the stench. We had accidentally locked Winston in the house the entire weekend, and he did his business in the bathtub! When we moved to Illinois it was late fall and the cold weather hit very quickly. Winston being a Cali cat did not like his bum in snow. So he started using the bathtub again and I quickly realized that he needed a cat box in the winter. I did this for 2 winters and then he must have adjusted and used outside from then on. So needless to say when I found a few instances of kitty pee in the house last week I knew he was sick. As a matter of fact last night he couldn't make it outside and used a bucket that one of the kids left on the floor. Good kitty until the end!
We have had many cats before and during Winston's time with us but NONE compared. We had a Siamese cat the entire time we lived in our house in Ca, and he was AWFUL! His name was Ramsey he was mean to the children, every time we had a baby he would pee all over the babies things, he was very stubborn and obnoxious. Needless to say he got left behind. We had a kitten once, can't remember his name, that we only had a couple of weeks because he kept peeing in Chris' lunch box. We had a kitten named Dotty, that scratched O all the time, peed in the house, was very accident prone, and ended up "sleeping" in the pool. She was pretty stupid. The only cat we ever had that was a close second to Winston was Ike, he rocked too and we think he met his demise from our mean neighbor, that was sad too. Then there was Sirius, we got him a couple of years ago thinking that Winston would like the company. We were wrong and the day Sirius disappeared was the best day of Winston's life.
Winston was very kind to children. He would tolerate a lot of abuse before he would give a little warning bite/scratch. When we had company over he was very social. Not at all like those cats that run and hide every time someone new came, he had to be right out in the middle of it all no matter how many people we had over.
Winston was a great hunter. Some of his prey included bunnies, rats, mice, bugs, squirrels, chipmunks, and an occasional bird. He always brought them in to us and was very proud of his catch.
He was also a lazy cat. He would sometimes refuse to use the stairs and the cat door and would cry until we let him out the sliding glass door. He would also sleep anywhere. A bomb could go off and that guy would not even flinch.
See I told you BEST CAT EVER! I will forever measure all cats against the Winston Scale. I am also sure none will ever measure up.
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