Beefer arrived in the car park one day in 2009, crying for food, looking quite skeletal and rough. We fed him biscuits every day, thinking he was on his last legs and that we could make his last days a little easier for him. He gradually started to stay around rather than running off and keeping his distance, until he was waiting for us with head butts every day. He was a feral tomcat, wild at heart, and managed to keep the neighbouring toms away from his girls. There are several Beefer-lookalikes living wild in the Campo.
One day, he looked at his biscuits, tried to eat them, then screamed and clawed at me, then followed me, lashing out at me. We felt awful when we realised he hadn't been able to eat for days because his teeth/gums were so painful; the other strays had been eating his biscuits, not him. He was telling me off, he couldn't understand why I was putting all this lovely food down that was hurting him.
From then on, we devised a method of feeding him one large tin of cat food whizzed with half a tin of water into a liquid, split into two meals a day. He could lap it up and it didn't hurt him. He became healthier and filled out a bit, got a glossy coat, especially after topical worm and flea treatments.
One Sunday in January 2011 was the last time we saw Beefer.
If we hadn't kept him going, we wouldn't have the Lovely Lily. Lily has so many of his features, she couldn't be anyone else's.
He was a fine cat indeed.
Thursday 24 March 2011
Beefer, Lily's Dad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment