In Loving Memory: Solo The Tuxedo Cat
One night a few months ago [end of March 2016], Solo, one of our rescue cats living in shelters around our home, seemed to be acting in a weird way; according to my husband Raul, he looked a bit shaky and non-responsive. Late afternoon the following day, my husband was able to catch him. We managed to check him out and found nothing visibly wrong; so we decided to keep him in the garage for a while, observe him more closely and take him to the vet if needed. But Solo had other plans, and managed to escape by squeezing through a very small space under the garage door, which we keep cracked open for ventilation. Since he was very agile in the process and looked much more responsive than in the previous night, we decided to just keep an eye on him for the next day or two, and try to catch him again if it didn’t look like he was getting any better. Unfortunately, that was the last time we saw him alive.
Solo stopped coming for food, which wasn’t his typical behavior; he was quite a glutton and was always the first one to come for food and snacks. As he answered to his name and always came when called, we started calling him and looking for him every day, everywhere. He never came. We spread the word in the neighborhood, got permission to check everyone’s yards, spread flyers around, etc. Nothing. Almost a week after he had disappeared, we noticed a opossum walking around in the middle of the day in a neighbor’s backyard. The opossum also seemed to be shaky and in a daze, like Solo. Anyone who knows anything about opossums also knows that they never come out in the daylight, unless there’s something wrong with them. We immediately thought about the possibility that both Solo and the opossum had been poisoned. We went to talk to the neighbor, who denied having done anything like putting out rat poison or any other dangerous product. We did see a mouse trap laying around, but he said it was not his, and that a falcon had picked it up to get the mouse trapped in it and dropped it on his property… After that conversation, we went back home with the suspicion that something was up. The next day, I got the feeling to check the area around our shed again (which we had already done many times during the week). This time, however, we found poor Solo’s body; he was on the ground, in an area close to our fence but inside the yard of the neighbor we had spoken to the day before. What a painful and shocking thing to see… I started crying because of the sad way he died, as well as the condition of his body, which already was in the first stages of decomposition; and also for not having had the chance for a proper goodbye. But I also cried for not having realized how seriously ill he was and tried to do more about it; for not having been able to find him a permanent home soon enough; for the deep pain I witnessed and felt in my husband, who had developed a soft spot for Solo; but above all, I cried for the kind of world we live in, where where too many living beings suffer from neglect and ill-treatment, and where too many are killed so casually and mindlessly, often just for our convenience. And so it goes that it’s common place, and even considered acceptable to catch a poor mouse that’s just trying to survive with a horrible trap and poisoned food, without thinking or caring about the falcon who might also die from eating the poisoned mouse; or the opossum or the cat, among other living beings, who might die from eating the leftover poisoned food.
After my husband asked permission to enter the neighbor’s backyard, we went together to pick up Solo’s remains and bring him back to our house, the place that was never meant to be his permanent home but was the only home he knew for the almost three years of his life, ever since he was just a little kitten hiding with his siblings under our shed. We buried him in our backyard, saying our final goodbyes to that sweet, gentle and friendly soul. Ironically, just a couple of weeks after we had buried Solo, someone called and asked if he was still available for adoption. They were looking for a Tuxedo male to keep company with a Tuxedo female who had recently lost her companion. Solo would have been perfect. He was very loving and protective of the other cats in the colony, especially his smaller siblings; and he was the only one who befriended Bobby, an outsider cat who joined our rescue group for a while. The call came two weeks too late.
I wrote Solo’s sad story to honor his memory and bring attention to the fact that we still have rescue cats available for adoption, who need safe forever homes with loving, caring people.
I’m also honoring his memory by making his story the first post of my new blog, Gi’s Critters – The Website For The Obsessive Compulsive and Overly Sensitive Animal Lovers.
Gisele Marasca-Vargas; 07/06/2016
One night a few months ago [end of March 2016], Solo, one of our rescue cats living in shelters around our home, seemed to be acting in a weird way; according to my husband Raul, he looked a bit shaky and non-responsive. Late afternoon the following day, my husband was able to catch him. We managed to check him out and found nothing visibly wrong; so we decided to keep him in the garage for a while, observe him more closely and take him to the vet if needed. But Solo had other plans, and managed to escape by squeezing through a very small space under the garage door, which we keep cracked open for ventilation. Since he was very agile in the process and looked much more responsive than in the previous night, we decided to just keep an eye on him for the next day or two, and try to catch him again if it didn’t look like he was getting any better. Unfortunately, that was the last time we saw him alive.
Solo stopped coming for food, which wasn’t his typical behavior; he was quite a glutton and was always the first one to come for food and snacks. As he answered to his name and always came when called, we started calling him and looking for him every day, everywhere. He never came. We spread the word in the neighborhood, got permission to check everyone’s yards, spread flyers around, etc. Nothing. Almost a week after he had disappeared, we noticed a opossum walking around in the middle of the day in a neighbor’s backyard. The opossum also seemed to be shaky and in a daze, like Solo. Anyone who knows anything about opossums also knows that they never come out in the daylight, unless there’s something wrong with them. We immediately thought about the possibility that both Solo and the opossum had been poisoned. We went to talk to the neighbor, who denied having done anything like putting out rat poison or any other dangerous product. We did see a mouse trap laying around, but he said it was not his, and that a falcon had picked it up to get the mouse trapped in it and dropped it on his property… After that conversation, we went back home with the suspicion that something was up. The next day, I got the feeling to check the area around our shed again (which we had already done many times during the week). This time, however, we found poor Solo’s body; he was on the ground, in an area close to our fence but inside the yard of the neighbor we had spoken to the day before. What a painful and shocking thing to see… I started crying because of the sad way he died, as well as the condition of his body, which already was in the first stages of decomposition; and also for not having had the chance for a proper goodbye. But I also cried for not having realized how seriously ill he was and tried to do more about it; for not having been able to find him a permanent home soon enough; for the deep pain I witnessed and felt in my husband, who had developed a soft spot for Solo; but above all, I cried for the kind of world we live in, where where too many living beings suffer from neglect and ill-treatment, and where too many are killed so casually and mindlessly, often just for our convenience. And so it goes that it’s common place, and even considered acceptable to catch a poor mouse that’s just trying to survive with a horrible trap and poisoned food, without thinking or caring about the falcon who might also die from eating the poisoned mouse; or the opossum or the cat, among other living beings, who might die from eating the leftover poisoned food.
After my husband asked permission to enter the neighbor’s backyard, we went together to pick up Solo’s remains and bring him back to our house, the place that was never meant to be his permanent home but was the only home he knew for the almost three years of his life, ever since he was just a little kitten hiding with his siblings under our shed. We buried him in our backyard, saying our final goodbyes to that sweet, gentle and friendly soul. Ironically, just a couple of weeks after we had buried Solo, someone called and asked if he was still available for adoption. They were looking for a Tuxedo male to keep company with a Tuxedo female who had recently lost her companion. Solo would have been perfect. He was very loving and protective of the other cats in the colony, especially his smaller siblings; and he was the only one who befriended Bobby, an outsider cat who joined our rescue group for a while. The call came two weeks too late.
I wrote Solo’s sad story to honor his memory and bring attention to the fact that we still have rescue cats available for adoption, who need safe forever homes with loving, caring people.
I’m also honoring his memory by making his story the first post of my new blog, Gi’s Critters – The Website For The Obsessive Compulsive and Overly Sensitive Animal Lovers.
Gisele Marasca-Vargas; 07/06/2016