My food bowl has more food in it at suppertime than it did a few days ago. It’s only about a teaspoon more, but I notice. Our housemate, Zeus, died suddenly on January 7th. He used to eat my food. He had cajones.
Well, he really didn’t have them. Mom took them. She trapped him when he first started showing up on our back porch and had him neutered. He was not a happy kitty. He was hissing and spitting in the trap. I heard him! I was a little scared, to tell you the truth. I didn’t know what that noise was outside. Mom didn’t tell me she was going to trap a wild beast.
After he was released, he was too upset with being trapped to relax enough to live with us. Mom was sad about this but she was patient with him and kept feeding him. He started to trust her and moved in on our front porch. He brought his girlfriend.
The two of them used to come with Mom and me on my walks. Mom got upset by this because she was always afraid they would get hit by a car, but they wouldn’t listen to her. They followed us all the time.
Mom says Zeus’ girlfriend is the reason he trusts her. Saki, that’s her name and she lives with us inside now too, would come right up to Mom when she brought the food outside.
Zeus saw her and didn’t want to miss out so he decided to overcome his fear and come up to Mom to eat right away too. Plus he was like me. He loved FOOD!
Which brings me back to my food. He used to steal it. When Mom was filling my dish, he would jump up on the counter and I would see him eating out of my bowl. And what’s worse, you ask? MOM LET HIM!!!!! She let him steal her food too.
Mom doesn’t even let ME steal her food. This cat was something else.
He was the scarediest scaredy-cat I’ve ever met: he needed his girlfriend to comfort him for everything, even his first vet visit where he was diagnosed with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV). He wasn’t sick; his immune system was just a little weaker than other cats.
Mom is very sad. She loved Zeus. I bet Saki is very sad too, but she doesn’t come down from upstairs and I don’t go up there very often because of my Arthur-itis. Wasabi comes downstairs, though. He misses Zeus. There’s even a chance that Zeus is his biological Daddy because Wasabi was born on our back porch just before Zeus started coming around.
We will always love you, Zeus, even though you were a dinner thief.