As a teenager (16 or so), I was given, by a friend, a pair of kittens barely old enough to ween, (but his parents made him get rid of them), that I had for a few years. The one ran away promptly after a few months (My dad was the kind of guy who left the doors open on nice mornings and didn’t care if the cat stayed or went, lol), so thereafter I just had the one, who had been named “Pablo.”
I sometimes took Pablo for rides, which he hated, but in general took good care of him all around. I was in College at the time (I went very early), but still living at home, and had a lot of work to do everyday, and I held him while doing schoolwork and let him stay with me all of the time. When he was just a small kitten, I would keep him on the bed when I took naps (so as to not let him escape like his sister), and we became pretty close. I’m a stomach sleeper, and he would often sleep on top of the blanket between my calves, I guess because it was safe. But the funny thing is that I would sometimes roll over and trap him in the blanket without knowing. Sometimes I would wake up because he’d cry out. After a while I think he got used to it, thought because he never yowled anymore.
He was the kind of cat that if you talked to him, he’d “talk” back. We had a pretty good understanding of each other, even if we couldn’t really talk. In my bedroom I had a sliding glass door that partitioned my room from the rest of the house. He learned to open it if he got shut out, which was a feat of strength! If that door was locked, he managed to learn to open the fireplace hatch in my fireplace (man was that a scary day!, I thought something was going to crawl out of the chimney and eat me, lol).
In the mornings, he would walk out with me to the car, and sit down next to the drivers side door, until I pulled away, and then go back to the house (as my dad left the doors open). At night if the door wasn’t open and he heard my car coming (he could hear it from about 2 blocks away, as we lived in a less densly populated area) he would panic and meow to get someone to open the door. But he eventually learned to jump into the fireplace in my room and ram the ashe door, and get out if he couldn’t get out another way. Then he’d run out to my parking spot and sit right next to where the front drivers door would be at its final position, and when I stepped out, he’d meow and meow.
Pablo was the best cat I ever had. Unfortunately, the neighbor, two plots down, would feed feral cats, who in turn killed the chickens of the neighbor between us. So the neighbor with the chickens took to baiting and poisoning all cats he could find. I moved out on my own just before turning 18, but Pablo stayed at home. Pablo was probably poisoned several times (he got sick off and on) before he finally succumbed (he was a large, strong, healthy cat). Dad thought he might have eaten a sickly bird or something a time or two, as he had always recovered, but oneday he found him on the doorstep. Dad later found out from the neighbor that it was the poison.
I’m not sure I’ll ever have a pet that can come close to being as great as that cat was, but I do know this, God loves us, and that’s why he gave us dominion over the Earth, animals included.
(I also have some great memories about my golden lab/pitt bull, who I had since I was a toddler and lived until my teens, but that’s another long story, haha. Suffice it to say, dog are seemingly simpler creatures, but rewarding in a very different way, and very, very loyal.)
I had two cats when I was about the same age. The first one wandered into our yard and I shared my burger. She quickly adopted me. She was huge, about knee high at her shoulders with tufted ears. She was also pregnant and had one kitten.
Both were outdoor cats and never tried to enter the house, in the winter they slept in the basement. They both had a strong dislike for dogs and would attack any that entered the yard. In summer they’d both walk with me to the lake several blocks away for a swim, they loved the water. They elicited some strange looks from tourists.
I’m so sorry that happened to you cute kitty!
My last cat was much like that. Followed us around like a dog, his tail happily straight up in the air (that means they’re happy and care-free - don’t trust a cat whose tail is down most of the time), conversed (it helps when you really understand nuances of animal speak; it ain’t just “mew” and “bark”), snuggled, trotted over when called, etc. Not to mention was trained NOT to do obnoxious things like counter-walking, curtain-climbing or any such things.
He was like a stereotypical dog.
That’s the other thing - for me, males are the best cats. (Females the best dogs. I’m the reverse of the stereotype for sex of the species. I also had dogs who were very cat-like - it seems the best animals are a mix of everything!)