We had to let him go Monday morning, his liver numbers went off the chart and his system crashed.
I want this to be a celebration of him and his life, because he was an amazing cat and such a wonderful soul that it seems the right way to go about it. We had him in our lives for 13 incredible years. He was 17.5 years old.
He was still getting zoomies last week, both inside and during his supervised times outside in the back yard.
We have tons of memories, but some highlights include things like every time I'd bring in a piece of windblown litter from the front yard, he was right there because he simply had to sniff it and find out what it was.
He loved his toys, especially the leather tails that were on some of the mice that I regretfully had to cut off since he'd chew them (he never chewed anything else), and his little duckie that came with him from his first mama's house that survived and is now resting on one of the shelves of the cat tree.
He liked that cat tree that I got for him a couple years ago. The original intent for it since it was tall and sturdy was to give him a secondary way to get down from the top of the refrigerator because he was an extremely elevation oriented cat, and jumping down from the other side of the frig onto the counter and then to the tile floor was hard on his joints. But as with everything, he was such a big (not fat), long and long-legged cat that he barely fit into the caves in it. He'd make it work nonetheless, as he did with his purple microbead pillow.
He loved morning petting sessions.
He enjoyed having me throw a toy across the room so he could do chase-capture-play-kill even better.
He got great delight in dropping a mousie into his water bowl, and then nearly drowning himself in his attempts to retrieve it. He eventually figured out how to tip the bowl, just enough to drain some water, and make the mousie a whole lot easier to grab.
Being introduced to a harness was a feat of catly tolerance for him. He simply fell over the first few times I closed the snaps so it was fitted around him, to the point I could have dragged him across the floor (I didn't) LOL. But then he began to discover the wonders of Outside and realized the harness meant time in the outdoors, and he eventually would wait for me to put the harness on.
He would eat grasshoppers, but my partner kept telling him to spit out the legs since they'd make him throw up.
He really liked when a miller moth would make the mistake of coming in the house - he didn't have troubles with any of those body parts.
A few years before the squirrels decided our pine trees were their domain, we had a pair of blackbirds raising chicks in one of them, and a barely pinfeathered one got blown out of the nest. I found it, and realizing the nearest bird rescue was miles away asked Poppy what he thought. He looked at it, sort of sniffed at it, looked at me, sat down for a minute and then walked away. I could practically see him mentally shaking his head. (We got it to the rescue).
Our angel kitty Moffit hated the dogs that were next door at that time, and actually charged the fence one day and banged her front paws on the slats while the dogs went nuts on the other side. Poppy had a somewhat similar near-encounter with a HUGE Grand-daddy raccoon who was attempting to cross the backyard. He started to charge the 'coon but fortunately listened and stopped when my partner yelled NO!!
During the past few years, he'd sometimes simply sit on the deck, just observing his backyard.
One of my favorites is that he could parkour with the best of them. He'd jump onto the lid of a big trash barrel that we keep in the garage. From there he'd leap up, catch the side of a board that was screwed into the wall to hold garden hoses that's about three inches wide, and launch from that the rest of the way sideways and up just a bit further to the surface of a large upper shelf that my partner built for extra storage. If I hadn't had the good fortune to see it one time, I wouldn't have believed it. The angle apparently wasn't right for him to make it directly from the lid of the trash container to the top of the shelf because the container was usually placed so that it was partway under the shelf, so he came up with this.
He was smart, athletic even in his later years, gentle with us and thoughtful. He was a class act and such a true gentleman.
RIP little man, you were a gift 
I want this to be a celebration of him and his life, because he was an amazing cat and such a wonderful soul that it seems the right way to go about it. We had him in our lives for 13 incredible years. He was 17.5 years old.
He was still getting zoomies last week, both inside and during his supervised times outside in the back yard.
We have tons of memories, but some highlights include things like every time I'd bring in a piece of windblown litter from the front yard, he was right there because he simply had to sniff it and find out what it was.
He loved his toys, especially the leather tails that were on some of the mice that I regretfully had to cut off since he'd chew them (he never chewed anything else), and his little duckie that came with him from his first mama's house that survived and is now resting on one of the shelves of the cat tree.
He liked that cat tree that I got for him a couple years ago. The original intent for it since it was tall and sturdy was to give him a secondary way to get down from the top of the refrigerator because he was an extremely elevation oriented cat, and jumping down from the other side of the frig onto the counter and then to the tile floor was hard on his joints. But as with everything, he was such a big (not fat), long and long-legged cat that he barely fit into the caves in it. He'd make it work nonetheless, as he did with his purple microbead pillow.
He loved morning petting sessions.
He enjoyed having me throw a toy across the room so he could do chase-capture-play-kill even better.
He got great delight in dropping a mousie into his water bowl, and then nearly drowning himself in his attempts to retrieve it. He eventually figured out how to tip the bowl, just enough to drain some water, and make the mousie a whole lot easier to grab.
Being introduced to a harness was a feat of catly tolerance for him. He simply fell over the first few times I closed the snaps so it was fitted around him, to the point I could have dragged him across the floor (I didn't) LOL. But then he began to discover the wonders of Outside and realized the harness meant time in the outdoors, and he eventually would wait for me to put the harness on.
He would eat grasshoppers, but my partner kept telling him to spit out the legs since they'd make him throw up.
He really liked when a miller moth would make the mistake of coming in the house - he didn't have troubles with any of those body parts.
A few years before the squirrels decided our pine trees were their domain, we had a pair of blackbirds raising chicks in one of them, and a barely pinfeathered one got blown out of the nest. I found it, and realizing the nearest bird rescue was miles away asked Poppy what he thought. He looked at it, sort of sniffed at it, looked at me, sat down for a minute and then walked away. I could practically see him mentally shaking his head. (We got it to the rescue).
Our angel kitty Moffit hated the dogs that were next door at that time, and actually charged the fence one day and banged her front paws on the slats while the dogs went nuts on the other side. Poppy had a somewhat similar near-encounter with a HUGE Grand-daddy raccoon who was attempting to cross the backyard. He started to charge the 'coon but fortunately listened and stopped when my partner yelled NO!!
During the past few years, he'd sometimes simply sit on the deck, just observing his backyard.
One of my favorites is that he could parkour with the best of them. He'd jump onto the lid of a big trash barrel that we keep in the garage. From there he'd leap up, catch the side of a board that was screwed into the wall to hold garden hoses that's about three inches wide, and launch from that the rest of the way sideways and up just a bit further to the surface of a large upper shelf that my partner built for extra storage. If I hadn't had the good fortune to see it one time, I wouldn't have believed it. The angle apparently wasn't right for him to make it directly from the lid of the trash container to the top of the shelf because the container was usually placed so that it was partway under the shelf, so he came up with this.
He was smart, athletic even in his later years, gentle with us and thoughtful. He was a class act and such a true gentleman.
RIP little man, you were a gift
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The stories you shared have me smiling.
I remember reading your posts about how you would groom him. I also remember you mentioning how much he looked forward to wearing his harness because it led to adventurous outdoor excursions. Your love and devotion will always be treasured by him. 
He is running pain free at the bridge now. RIP sweet angel,
thank you 
I'm sending hugs to you as well 
