Foxy came to live with me when I had an apartment on Renfrew's main street, and I already had two cats at that time. He was the same colour as one I had (Coco) and the young lady who brought him to my door thought that one of my boys had escaped. I looked at him in her arms, sighed, and said "No, he's not mine, but I'll look after him." And our friendship was born.
He was about six months old when he came to live with me. I don't know where he spent the first six months of his life, but whoever he was with lost a great cat.
Foxy could jump - and he had incredible agility. He liked to sit atop a six-foot tall narrow cabinet I had in the hallway, and he reached the top by first leaping onto a stair bannister (about 3 feet up) and then leapt the rest of the way from there. The stairs had a large post at one end, which was a shallow pyramid shape, and he would lie on that and turn his head upside down to look at me.
Iain likes to remember the time Foxy somehow managed to get onto the porch roof, and sat outside the second story window looking in. Since we wanted to go to work we couldn't wait for him to find his way back down, so Iain had to climb up and get him. Foxy accepted Iain as important to me, but wouldn't allow him to come between us: if Iain's arm was around me in bed, Foxy would calmly pull at it until Iain moved it, so Foxy could take his usual spot cuddled next to me. He almost always slept with me, and as he got older he would curl up under the covers next to me.
In the morning when I read the paper, he would settle into my lap while I finished my coffee. He started and ended every day with me. And he was a bit of a "guard-cat"; I can remember him hearing someone at the door, and a growl escaping his throat as he listened for an intruder.
He was an excellent hunter. One time when we were at the cottage, he escaped outside; gone for no more than five minutes, he came back with a chipmunk in his mouth. Another time, Iain and I came home to find him lying on the lawn, looking rather majestic, and when we called to him we heard a "scree-scree" noise. He quickly pawed at whatever he was holding down, so we went to investigate. It was a bat, which we made him let go (at least we were able to save the little guy).
Foxy was 21 when he left us. He was healthy for all but a day or two at the end (except for the time he decided to leap from a chair back onto the wood stove - that required a visit or two to the vet). He was a loving little guy, always acting like I was his mom; when he came to the door, I didn't really need or want another cat, but I feel like he was sent to me as a gift. I was lucky.
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