Bob’s Story

Having just read the book “A Street Cat Named Bob” it brought to mind the story of our own Bob, a beautiful white Chinchilla who lived to the good age of fifteen, and to whom we said “Goodbye” in January 2016.

In 2001 Robyn  lost two of her much loved cats, one of whom was Sam, a much loved, gregarious, white Persian.  It was commented on by a number of people that he was “a cat in a million”, and he certainly lived up to that, personality-wise! Unfortunately, Sam had asthma and eye problems.  The only thing to use at that time for his asthma was cortisone, which was a life-save for him.

The breeder we had got him from kept her kittens in a very sorry state, and when Robyn took him when he was handed to her he was trembling so much she couldn’t leave him, so she and her husband at that time took him home.  He was a great worry health-wise, but a wonderful cat and she never regretted that decision.  His health deteriorated badly and he was euthenased on 11 August, 1997, two or three weeks prior to Princess Diana’s untimely death.  11 August would also have been Robyn’s father’s birthday had he been still alive, so it has been a very easy date to remember.  He was 11 years old at the time.

The second cat was a sweet natured cream Persian named Boulie.  He had been so named by the breeder because, to use her words, he was so “bee-ute-iful”!  It took us some years to realise that Boulie had gone blind.  We assume he had some sight in his earlier years.  We got him within a few weeks of getting Sam and they bonded immediately, and particularly more so as Boulie lost his sight over time – we realised later.  Unfortunately, Boulie grieved so much for Sam when he was euthenased he became quite demented, and we made the difficult decision, with our wonderful vet Vic Menrath of the Brisbane Cat Clinic, to also euthenase him a week later.  It was a very sad time for us!  Boulie was also just short of 11 when he died.

However, we still had our other cat, a beautiful blue, rather aloof, Persian appropriately named Sheba.  We loved her dearly, of course, and she lived a further five years, becoming rather demented in her old age.  She was euthanased when we realised she had become severely diabetic.  Unfortunately this happened on Christmas Eve in the year 2000. This decision was made in view of her age and the fact that she did not like being handled, and it would have distressed her far too much to be giving her blood tests and injections.  We later became very familiar with treating both asthma and diabetes.

We had, previous to Sheba’s demise, taken home from a local refuge a lovely Tortoiseshell domestic long haired female cat named Keisha.  Her owner had gone into care and Keisha had been placed in a refuge, where she was very withdrawn and unhappy.  It was because of this, not knowing at all what sort of personality she had, that we decided to take her home.  She settled in very quickly and had a habit of bullying poor old Sheba, but later, when the two boys, Sam and Bob, arrived on the scene she was smartly put in her place.  But she was a lovely little cat and particularly loved Ken, as all our cats have done!

Following Sheba’s death, in early 2001 Robyn decided to purchase a lovely Chinchilla kitten from a local pet shop at Carindale.  He was a beautiful boy, but developed severely ulcerated eyes, and when he was about three years old he also developed asthma.  He was another much loved cause for worry and concern, with frequent visits to the vet.  We hate to think of the cost over his 11 years with several lots of eye surgery and also asthma treatment.

Eventually a specialist vet at one of the many veterinary specialist centres we visited with him advised us to use a specially developed asthma puffer.  So every day, twice daily, he was given his inhalant.  He also had to have cortisone tablets on occasion as well.

Ken and I made the decision at the time, after  that we would stay with two cats.  However, the Cat Clinic at Mt Gravatt had other ideas and were keen for us to take a kitten which had been found living under a car in Paddington.  We resisted for a week or two, then went and saw this little, still partly grease covered (on his nose!) white Chinchilla kitten. He had been thoroughly washed, of course, and treated for intestinal worms, but some of the grease colouring still remained on his little face.

Anyway, the inevitable happened and we took him home, a decision which we never regretted.