* * *
We adopted Tubby in the summer of 1997 from the no-kill shelter I volunteer for now. Fred and I went to look at cats and none of them really struck our fancy, until Fred saw a small (!) black and white cat hanging out on one of those cat trees. Fred petted him and scratched at the base of his tail. The cat reacted immediately by raising his ass, and Fred loved him.
As we filled out the paperwork, the lady running the shelter told us that his name was Jack and he’d been found with his sister. They’d thought at first that he was feral, but they were able to tame him.
We took him home.
He was a bit of an odd duck. It was as though he wanted to be friendly, but he just wasn’t sure how that went. The first night, he snuggled up to Fred’s back and then bit him.
“Jack” was never a name that fit him, so after a few days of deliberation and bringing up every name in the world that starts with “S”, we settled on the name “Snoopy.” It wasn’t until he was a few years old that we started calling him “Tubby”.
He didn’t have much use for the other cats. He didn’t pay much attention to them, except for his special relationship with Mr. Fancypants. He was willing to be physically close with the other cats, but he didn’t really go looking for it.
He was a funny, funny cat. We always knew that to get a decent picture, all we needed to do was point the camera at him and sooner or later he’d do something funny or bitchy or cute.
He was our protector. Last year a stray cat came through the pet door into the house, and Tubby chased him off. He was always calm and laid-back until the situation called for him to be a bad-ass, and then he was the baddest.
Who’s going to protect us now?
1997 – 2004.
Good boy, Tubby. Good boy.]]>
2004-01-28