On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:21:53 -0500, Brian Link wrote:

Since I've recently arrived here in order to seek help with our new
cat, I thought I'd share a short happy ending story.. =)

At one point, we had four cats. Howard the adopted stray, Roy the
adopted "unwanted" cat, Abbey the queen and Tiger the farm cat.

Over time, Howard, Roy and Abbey all passed away. This left Tiger, the
most playful and social of them all with no other cats in the
household.

Since we'd been adopting strays and what-not, we thought we'd treat
ourselves and buy a purebred. This way too, we may be able to pick a
high-energy breed that would keep Tiger entertained. Even though Tiger
was friendly and playful, none of the other cats had every really
whole-heartedly played with him. He'd often settle for riding them
around the house like little horses. We settled on Bengal.

When it became clear that Abbey would need to be put down (cancer), we
started looking for a Bengal. We found a breeder that had some new
kittens, so we visited and fell in love with the breed. We chose a
little boy cat, and put our down payment down, and waited for him to
be weaned.

Those weeks between Abbey's departure and the new kitten were horrible
for everyone. Tiger was listless and we were still grieving (it's so
hard to put a beloved pet down).

We got the new kitten, and named him Louis Armstrong because the
Bengals all had such strong-looking arms, and my son is a jazz
musician. We brought him home and popped the carrier down on the floor
for Tiger to inspect. At first he hissed for an instant, then settled
down and looked very curious (I've never seen him aggressive with
another cat). I gingerly removed the kitten, and held him carefully.
Tiger walked over slowly and sniffed and sniffed and sniffed. He then
layed right down and started grooming Louis!

Though we took a few days and carefully supervised their time
together, Tiger immediately took to parenting Louis. He would groom
him, "herd" him to a comfy couch or the food dishes, and lay down near
his carrier at bed time.

I was just thinking about this tonight when I got home from work. I
opened the door, and there they were on the couch. Tiger, the big
fluffy Maine Coon-alike, and Louis, the lean and wiry leopard laying
right on top of him like he was a big throw-rug. Sleeping with
beatific expressions on their faces.

Brian Link, Minnesota Countertenor
----------------------------------
"I think animal testing is a terrible idea;
they get all nervous and give the wrong answers."
- regmech

Tiger sounds like a great cat. It is wonderful that the two kitties
"clicked". I understand that Bengals can open doors -- especially the
refrigerator door. Best of luck to all. MLB