Puff Daddy

My cat!  He is quite a sight and quite the pain :)  He is now nearly 14 years old.  Back in May of 1997, he was found in a mulch pile with four of his siblings.  My then boyfriend brought the whole litter home.  Well I am allergic to cats, cat scratches in particular.  But when he showed me the box of 5 babies I knew one (at least) was mine.  We took them up to the Humane Society to drop off the ones we were not intent on keeping.  I had asked the vet tech which of the kitties were female as I prefer all female pets.  I believe there were two in the litter who fit the bill.  I chose the rowdier orange and white one, the rest were left behind to find homes elsewhere.  So we get home and go through the name selection process and so she was named.  We were also told the kittens were maybe 4 weeks old and probably not properly weened yet, but since someone discarded them what could ya do?  So little Puff came home and made friends with the dog sisters, Lexus and Claire.  Lexus was a beautiful black Chow Chow/Bassett Hound mix and Claire was my rescued Greyhound.  The three got along just fine.

Not long down the road, maybe a month or so, I notice Puff has some extra business down there behind her tail.  Come to find out she was not a she but a he.  It took a while to start referring to him as a boy, thank goodness we didn't pick a more feminine name either.  During his kitten years up till the time he was about 7 or 8, he was a fiesty cat.  Oh boy!  He would run through the house and out of nowhere jump up and grab hold of your arm if you were walking by and just hang on, or do the drive-by bite of your calf and keep going.  Once he got too close to a burning candle and all his whiskers were burnt off one side of his face.  Just a few years ago in fact, he was again on the coffee table with a candle and my brother-in-law smelled something burning.  It was Puff again.  This time it was his tail.  Nothing serious, just singed but still!  So we now no longer do candles at all.  It is just safer this way.
Over the years Puff picked up quite a few nicknames.  Puff, Puffy, Puffer Belly, P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Dee, Buddy, and Fat Ass.  He has grown to a healthy 20 pounds on the dot (just weighed him about 10 seconds ago).  Had to be sure I didn't exaggerate his rubenesque stature. 

He is definitely a character.  Over the years he has become quite the lover.  Always wanting his forehead kissed, will lick my arm like a dog would, lays on the bed with me and snores like a 70 year old man.  He's been through a couple sets of dogs and is the best cat around dogs really.  He discovered he likes to go outside and sit in the sun just this past fall.  Puff is my current dog's, Jing-Mei, best friend and partner in crime when it comes to begging or waking me up at 5:15 every morning.  We are all on a pretty exact schedule.

Sometimes I look at Puff and wonder what I would ever do without him.  He's been with me so long and although he is not a "fancy" cat, he is beautiful to me.  I hope everyone has a Puff Daddy of some sort in their home.