about 19 years ago I came across a photo of a very unusual looking cat asleep in a bath of water on the SomethingAwful forums and started reading up on them (Bengals)
Few month's later I put a deposit down on this little guy from the breeder and called him Pepper
He grew into an amazing cat that was always by my side. After a few months, we picked up a sister of his from the next litter.
He would always want to be where I was, so if I would go to bed, he would come up. If I went on my computer, he came and laid on my computer
About 3 years ago he started having seizures and we took him to the vet who told us he had about 24 hours to live and we should euthanise. We wanted to do what was best for him, but I couldn't just have him put to sleep without giving him a chance to fight it. The vet pleaded with us to consider his quality of life. For 7 days we did everything for him, held him while he went to the litter tray, minced up raw meat for him to eat, wet his paws to encourage him to drink etc.
After that, he got better. He had a year of amazing health
But unfortunately, the thrombosis came back and he had a few bouts of it. Each time having to relearn how to walk. He absolutely amazed us every time. Going from being 100% dependent on us, to fighting his way back to being able to use his legs again. This is him when he had about 50% use of his rear legs again;
You can see how he is knuckling his joints, but making it work. We tried all sorts to help him out at these stages - splits, bandages, various dressings. at one point I'd managed to use a cat bandage with two pieces of flexible wood and elastic bands to replicate as much of his tendon use as possible to help him out. About 2 weeks after this photo he was chasing birds in the garden.
Working from home during all this was a god send obviously - I cant imagine having to go to work and leaving him behind like that. He had absolutely everything we could give him to give him the best life he could have - time in the garden in the sun, constant toys and fuss, he even had swordfish steaks.
We celebrated his 18th Birthday on the 27th December 2021. he had a platter of tuna, salmon, prawns and various treats that he likes.
Unfortunately on my birthday late feb he suffered another attack and this one seemed more severe. We gave him the usual treatment but he was slow on the rehab compared to before and we had a feeling his time was coming. It seemed so unfair as apart from his legs, he was in such great shape for his age and people never believed his age when we told them. He passed away on 7th March while we were waiting for the emergency vet. This is him the day before he died.
We don't have kids, and our cats made such a huge impact in our lives. We were absolutely gutted, but we were also really happy that we had those extra years with him and that he got to enjoy so much more of his life. We got a bronze statue of him made for the garden to go where he always used to love to sit.
This is his sister Tess, the day it arrived.
By this time she was well into her 17th year and approaching 18 herself. Was hard seeing her walk round the house looking for him and crying for him. We decided to take a risk and take her on a small holiday with us, so booked a motorhome to do the Scottish coast 500 tour. We got her acclimatised to driving in the car in advance, so it didn't feel like a huge risk, but we were still worried. Luckily she really took to it and everyone we met absolutely loved her.
Her first waterfall
First camp site
First beach
and briefly being the most northernmost cat on the GB mainland
She is still with us, and is 18 in 6 days.
To keep her company, we decided to get her a playmate. We initially decided on one, then put a deposit down, then decided on another, then talked ourselves out of it and said we'd wait to see how they got on. Then we found out the second breeder, that we really wanted to go with, was ending their breeding programme so we were a bit gutted. 2 weeks before we went to pick up the other kitten, we saw that the one we had originally wanted but talked ourselves out of, was still available and she was only 30 minutes away from the other breeder we were going to.
Trouble is that breeder was 5 hours drive away in Old Windsor! So we had a 5 hour drive down on the friday, stayed in the worst travelodge known to mankind, then picked up 2 different cats from 2 different breeders and drove back which took us 7 hours of absolute chaos.
Kittens getting hungry, kittens needing a poo, kittens just wanting to be kittens instead of being in a car for 7 hours etc! Once we got home they hated each other as well so that was fun! Luckily we got them to be friendly within 4 days and now they are thick as thieves
We are working on Tess as given her age and the fact she has always had a spicy temper, she is not thrilled to say the least and is attacking on sight but we are starting to see little glimmers of change in her behaviour which is good. We'll get there eventually!
