Tigger, April 1990 - June 19, 2010

In previous blog entries, I may have made mention of my cat, Tigger. I acquired Tigger in 2007, when the previous owners of Tigger moved into a subsidized complex called the Bronfman Buildings in Montreal. Pets are not allowed in the Bronfman Buildings under any circumstances, so these people had to find homes for three different cats. As I already had Ouija living with me at the time, I agreed to accept one of the cats. I ended up agreeing to take Tigger, who was at that time 17 years old. One of the reasons that I took such an old cat was that there were fears that it would be difficult to find a home for him. The other two available cats were each about four years old, and many people do not want an old cat.

So, after the second Passover Seder of 2007, which I attended at the apartment of the people who were giving me Tigger, I walked home with Tigger in a carrier.

I soon reached my apartment on Beaucourt Street, and opened the door of the carrier. Tigger went out, and immediately hid in a lower kitchen cupboard. He remained in that cupboard for about two days, coming out only to get food and use the litter box.

Eventually, Tigger got tired of living in a cupboard, and got used to living in a new apartment. There was, of course, the issue of which cat would be the dominant one.. At first, Ouija, having been there longer, used to swat at Tigger whenever he came near her, Eventually, Tigger began to swat back. Finally, a point was reached where they could sit a couple of feet away from each other without fighting.

At first, Tigger seemed a bit more rambunctious than Ouija. He still had claws on his back paws, and I often felt them when he was crawling all over me. As time went on, he seemed to become more gentle. I remember him coming onto my bed a day or two after my father had died, and I felt almost in a state of bliss with Tigger being beside me.

In late May 2008, I came home one day to find that Ouija had died, and now Tigger was the only cat that I had.

Tigger remained with me through the troubles
of the following year, and he moved with me to my present apartment on Bourret Street. He eventually got used to the new apartment.

But Father Time eventually began to catch up with Tigger. This past April, Tigger turned 20 years old. He was already starting to walk more slowly, and he seemed to be dragging one of his back legs a little. Around the first week in April, one side of his face puffed up, and one morning, I awoke to see blood all over his body. The veterinarian I brought him to concluded that he must have gotten a puncture wound in one of his cheeks, and the swollen cheek must have been the result of the wound getting infected. The infected area had then opened up, leaving him all bloody. He was given an antibiotic shot, and I was instructed to apply cold compresses to his cheek three times a day. Further tests revealed that his blood sugar was elevated, so from then on, he was given Purina DM cat food, which was designed for diabetic cats.

When he got home from the trip to the veterinarian, Tigger was very tired and only wanted to sleep. However, within a few days, he started to perk up. The new food must have agreed with him. He began to gain a little bit of weight. He suddenly acquired new urges to climb up and jump onto things, even though his coordination was a bit off. He started wanting to sleep on top of a table. Eventually, he wanted to spend much of his time on a shelf in a wall unit which was behind the table.

But the improvement in his condition was not permanent. One day, I heard a thrashing noise behind me. Tigger had fallen off the shelf and into the space behind the wall unit. He was having trouble extricating himself from there. A few minutes later, he managed to crawl out on his own.

Tigger seemed to remain about the same until about a week ago. A friend visiting me noticed that Tigger looked a lot scrawnier than he had looked a week earlier. On Thursday night, July 17, Hydro - Quebec had scheduled a power outage for 11 PM. As I was struggling to finish with the computer before the power went out, I heard a thrashing noise behind me. Tigger had again fallen behind the wall unit, and was lying face up on a folded cardbord box. At that point, the power went out, and everything was plunged into darkness.

After the power went on again, I was able to extricate Tigger from his predicament. I then removed everything from behind the wall unit, and pushed the wall unit closer to the wall. I hoped that there would now no longer be any room for Tigger to be able to fall behind the wall unit.

But now, I noticed that there was a gap between the wall unit and the table in front of it. I didn't know if I should now move the table closer to the wall unit as well. Within a couple of hours, I had my answer. There was a noise, and Tigger was now on the floor under the table. He had presumably fallen from the table. The table was now moved closer to the wall unit.

Friday, July 18, was an extremely hot day, and I had a lot of trouble moving around. So I did not find it strange that Tigger didn't feel like moving around much either. I went out for a few hours in the evening, and came home to find Tigger curled up on a sofa chair and resting or sleeping.

I eventually went to bed myself and slept for a few hours, awaking at about 5:30 AM. I went to look in on Tigger, expecting him to have gone out onto the balcony when it became daylight. He was not on the balcony. I eventually found him sprawled on the floor near the sofa chair where I had last seen him. I had at first not noticed him in the still-darkened living room. I picked him up and sat in the sofa chair for a while with him. I was already crying, although I was not sure why. Eventually, he started to squirm around, and I put him down on the floor.

I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I went again to check on Tigger. He was sitting on the floor in the same place, but he seemed more alert and was lookin around.

I went to sleep for a few more hours. When I awoke, Tigger was no longer in the living room, and had apparently gone onto the balcony. I started to make myself breakfast, and then I saw Tigger stumbling into the living room. There was blood on the side of his face which had bled two months earlier, and there was also blood on his paw. I could not figure out what had happened. I am on the fourth floor, and the balcony is not attached to a fire escape. Could Tigger have been attacked by a crow?

The veterinary clinic where I had gone previously is open on Saturday mornings, but I did not know if the veterinarian herself was in that day. I had also been planning to go out that morning. I then remembered the instructions I had received on using cold compresses on Tigger. I used a cold compress, and then cradled Tigger for a while until he started to squirm. I put him down on the floor, and then noticed how he would try to stand up and then flop down on one side. He still seemed to be able to move around, as I started to daydream and then suddenly noticed that he was now several feet away from me.

He was now resting comfortably, so I decided to go away for a few hours and administer the cold compress when I got back. I would probably have to bring him to see the vet on Monday, as the clinic is not open on Sundays.

I went out, and immediately felt the heat outdoors. I felt that I had probably made the right decision in not attempting to bring him to the vet on such a hot day.

I arrived home around 2:30 PM. Tigger had now moved onto the balcony. He was on his side and breathing rapidly.

I had no idea what to do. I went indoors to drink some water. Before I could do anything, the phone rang. It was some idiot telemarketer trying to sell me something called "Solo". I screamed at the telemarketer and hung up. Within a minute, the phone rang again. I let the answering machine take it. It was obviously the same idiot, as he did not leave a message.

By that point, I felt that the best thing to do was to bring Tigger indoors and try to get him to drink water, even if I had to hold him up over the bowl to do so. I went back onto the balcony. Tigger had stopped panting, but he did not seem to be breathing. The flies were buzzing around his head, but he exhibhited no reaction to them. I brought him indoors, but there was no longer any movement from him. Tigger was gone.

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A few hours later, I spoke with a friend on the phone. She had had experience in dealing with another cat in his final hours. She felt that Tigger must have been having a series of mini strokes over the last few weeks. His falling off the wall unit and the table had probably occured because he had lost his sense of balance due to the mini strokes. The bleeding on the balcony may also been caused by a stroke rather than by an injury. And one last stroke probably killed him just as I was getting home. I am not a doctor or a veterinarian, so I don't know whether or not this conclusion makes any sense. And it is not feasible to autopsy a dead cat.

Farewell, sweet Tigger. In pacem, requies.