17 March 2009

Goodbye Dumbo


Dumbo was my cat before I moved to Denmark. When I left, he stayed with my parents and became their cat. Last night my parents had to make the difficult decision to put him down. The vet that they took him to believed he had some kind of cancer. I am relieved to know that he is at peace now and not suffering.

You'll be missed, Dumbo. Not just by my parents. I will miss you and Molly will miss the chance to get to know you better. Molly never did understand why you wouldn't play ball with her or why you run away every time she tried to say hi.

It wasn't that he had big ears that I called him Dumbo. It was just that he was the only kitten of the outside cats that was stupid enough to let me talk to him. So he moved in and learned to use a litter box and share territory with our keeshond Shadow. We had to say goodbye to Shadow several years ago because of failing health. Now it was Dumbo's turn to move on.

He loved to lick out my dad's cereal bowl every morning. He was nicknamed "vulture" because of the way he'd wait for Dad to finish.

He is probably one of the few cats that had a stuffed toy with a squeaker. He didn't care about the squeaker, but he got his bunny to stop them from stealing my mon's stuffed sheep she had on her bed. As a young cat he would carry that thing all over the place and hug it. It was silly and adorable the same time.

Molly will always thank Dumbo for the origin of her bunny. She wouldn't have gotten him if it weren't for Dumbo and his bunny. She had the privilege of borrowing his bunny while she was visiting them in the states. She loved it so much that we found her a similar toy, although it lacks the bunny ears.

Sleep well, silly boy.

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