Goodbye Taffy

[whiskedaway]

When I was five, my parents and I moved from the farm to the city. We had said goodbye to so many animals who had to be sold, and to top matters off, we lost our two beloved Siamese girls to cancer within the first few months of moving. So after we had settled in, my parents planned a trip to the AWL to get two kittens as they had decided the time was right to open our home to some new babies.

The first one who was chosen was Taffy, who was a Siamese x Abyssinian, and the other one was Sox, who was a black and white Moggie. It was January, 1993 and both kittens were about three months old. Over the years, Taffy became known by a variety of nicknames: Tiff Taff, Tiffy, Niff, Nifter.

The first few months, Sox settled in straight away, but Taffy found it much harder to adjust. She was scared of everyone and would hiss, run and hide to keep away from us. The only being in the house that she loved was Elley, our Hungarian Vizsla bitch, and she would cuddle up to Elley next to the heater every night.

When Taffy was about a year old, she somehow made her way into the shed and managed to fall into sump oil that had been left out. My parents tried for hours to get the sump oil out of her coat, knowing that she would die if she licked it, and made many calls to the concerned vet. Finally, at around 11pm they tried dishwashing detergent and that got the sump oil out. After that incident, Taffy was a changed cat. She still was a bit standoff-ish, but she knew that they had saved her life.

Over the years, Taffy proved that she really did have nine lives. She got into many cat fights and during one of them ended up with a slit in her ear that she always had. She got into the neighbour's shed and got a fishing hook stuck in her throat. She attacked our other neighbour's boxer and came out on top. And she became my dad's cat. She was devastated when he died when I was 14 and she was 9. She looked for him for ages.

After this, she became my sister's cat and loved her above all others. She hated Sox and would fight with her constantly, but as they both neared old age, the hatred became dislike and they learned to get along. Two years ago in December, Sox had to be PTS at the age of 16 due to kidney failure associated with old age. My sister became even more attached to Taffy, and my step-father believed that Taffy wouldn't last a year without her sister, Sox. But she proved she was a hardy little cat and actually started to look better for a while.

I moved out of home at the start of this year, and that was when I started to see the decline. Every time I visited, Taffy looked thinner and older. She became deaf and blind, and would spend her days sitting in the lounge room in the sunlight. We knew the time was close, though last Monday when I visited she looked better than she had in a while. But it was the calm before the storm, and this morning when my sister got up to feed her, Taffy was off her food and drinking a lot. She went to her spot in the sun and cried from how much pain she was in when she tried to lay down. My sister knew the time had come and took her to the vet, where she was PTS this morning due to the kidney failure that also got her sister. She would have been 18 next month.

RIP Taffy. We will always love you (especially my sister, as Taffy was her heart cat) and we will miss you. Run free with Sox, Elley, Gus and Dad.

Edited September 11, 2010 by whiskedaway

[Cheyd]

what a lovely tribute to Taffy, she sounds like a character who made her way into your hearts

RIP Taffy Bet she's met up with your dad and Sox over the bridge

[mrsgrumblebum]

Beautiful tribute ( my eyes are wet, but I'm not crying ) RIP Taffy have fun playing with Sox and your skin dad