Fluff

Fluff 1990? - August 13, 2004 (aka Fluffball, Fluffer, Gray Dot, Dot, Crossed Paws, Crossy)

We first met Fluff on a cross-country skiing trip to Northern Michigan, the weekend of January 11-12, 1992. We were staying at a resort halfway between Cadillac and Manistee in Michigan’s lower peninsula. Fluff appeared begging for food, so we gave her some cheese. She had the most annoying, loud, and demanding meows as she begged. When we left the cabin for the day, we let her stay, where she found a cozy spot on the bed to curl up on. She looked like a big cat with all that long white fur, but when we petted her we could feel her ribs, so we knew she needed a home; we also noticed she had been front-declawed. It seemed heartless to leave a cat abandoned outside without the means to escape or defend herself. We made inquiries with the resort owner, who told us that the previous owner had been feeding her. “If you want her, you can have her” was his attitude. We didn’t want to adopt a third cat, since Sparkle and Leo didn’t really get along that well, but thought we could find a no-kill shelter that could take her in. When we were ready to leave the next day, we picked her up (she protested thinking we were kicking her out of the cabin) and drove away with her. My initial thinking was to drop her off at the famous Fried’s animal shelter in Michigan City, Indiana, which was on our way home. But by the time we got in the area, it was getting dark, and not knowing precisely where the shelter was, I never found it. In retrospect, I firmly believe the Cat Gods hid the sign from my view, since we have passed this shelter numerous times since then. When we got home and made a few calls to no-kill shelters, we realized that waiting lists were several months long, so we reluctantly decided to adopt her after all.

The next day we brought her to our vet to check against the nasties and get her vaccinated. Her weight was 6 pounds, and she had already been spayed and front-declawed. The vet estimated her age to be between 1 and 2 years old. She was obviously someone’s pet at some time, and had either been dumped or escaped near the resort where we found her.

In just a year her weight had doubled to 12 pounds, and she quickly adjusted to life with us. She gained even more weight the following year, and weighed up to 16 pounds at one time. Our vet shook her head one year when she gained a pound after being on a weight maintenance diet! The vets called her obese or overweight. One vet tech discreetly referred to her as being Rubenesque. One of our friends called her a Pillow with Legs. In the year 2000 she lost a few pounds and looked almost svelte in the remaining years of her life.

We tried several names with her, including some that reflected on her wintry condition when we met her, but nothing quite fit. I almost named her Toonces, for the Saturday Night Live cat who recklessly drove a car, based on our drive home from Michigan, when she stood on my legs as I was driving, put her front paws on the steering wheel, and looked out the front windshield, but we decided that was too silly. We tried Puff, Garrison Keillor’s cat, but there was no response. Then we tried calling her Fluff, and she seemed to respond to that. Our vet was unimpressed with our lack of originality, but we always insisted that she never be called Fluffy; she was much too sassy for such a frilly name. Other nicknames soon followed; Fluffer, Fluffball, and Dot (for her gray dot) were our favorites.

As it turned out, she and Sparkle got along pretty well, and she stood her ground with Leo. She taught us that having 3 cats was not too many cats for our household, to the point where having only two makes the house feel empty, which was how we felt that summer when Leo disappeared. When we adopted Toby a year later, she quickly developed a special bond with him. She loved to cuddle with him, they’d groom each other, and play fight. Despite her not having front claws, she more than held her own. Her favorite, effective strategy was to grab his head with her front legs and rabbit kick with her rear legs. Some time after Sparkle left us Toby began to distance himself from Fluff, and even started to dominate her (something he did with Sparkle; we suspect he needed to assert himself as the alpha cat). In the last few years of her life, she no longer cuddled with Toby.

It took awhile to warm up to her, but gradually we got used to her demanding meows and incorporated them into our own vocabulary when things didn’t go our way. In fact, we admired her spirit and feistiness which manifested itself in her meows. The first winter after we adopted her she developed laryngitis (we called it meowyngitis :-) and we discovered how eerily silent it was without her loud meowing; she would open her mouth to meow but hardly anything would come out. Gradually she modified her meows depending on the urgency, knowing that we paid attention to her. In fact, she managed to master the Silent Meow, where she would open and close her mouth but no sound would come out, to great effectiveness.

Following Sparkle’s lead, she quickly got used to having a little milk in the morning, and would even lead the way to the refrigerator if we were so dense as not to figure out what she wanted. She’d often ask for a second helping. The conversation would go something like this:
Fluff: Meaaaaaow!
Us: Fluffer, you’ve had your milk.
Fluff: Meaaaow! And your point is? I want it Meoaaow!
But her favorite food was definitely cheese. When we had salads with cheese in them (our favorite summertime meal to avoid cooking), she always had to have some. Whenever we had food with cheese in it, she had to be offered the bowl or plate for her to lick after we’d finished. It was amusing to see her watch us as we ate, her head going from one of us to the other, wondering who would finish first. We often joked that because of her cheese addiction she must have been born in Wisconsin even though we found her in Michigan.

Her fur color was mostly white, very silky to the touch, with gray markings on her ears, a big gray dot on her back (hence her nickname Dot), and a very puffy gray tail. She had the silkiest, smoothest fur, and I loved to sink my nose into her side. She also had the most beautiful green eyes we’d ever seen in a cat, which contrasted so nicely with her white fur. She left her white fur everywhere, sometimes on backpacks and suitcases, so that when I traveled I often inadvertently carried some Fluffer fur, as we called it, as souvenirs and reminders.

It’s hard to remember when I started bonding with her, but a few incidents in the first year helped. We moved six months after we adopted her. When the movers came to move the furniture out of our house, we locked her in the bathroom. After awhile, she got upset and to calm her down I spent some time with her on my lap. At our new house, after Leo disappeared, I once took her on a long walk into our backyard, which had a number of trees. One tree had a split waist high. I was just contemplating a few moves to climb it when Fluff decided to climb it herself. She made sufficient headway but got scared at climbing back down. So I climbed up, picked her up, and placed her on the split for her to jump down. When I got down, she gave me a big rub in gratitude. This from a cat that seldom rubbed anyone! She was not really a lap cat, although she must have been on my lap early on since I have a picture to prove it! After Sparkle died, she developed a morning routine of cuddling on my lap with a towel wrapped around my waist as I sat on the toilet; I used those occasions to comb her fur. After a couple of years she stopped that routine. She loved to cuddle next to me on the couch, and I used that cuddle time to comb her long fur to prevent matting. I think she liked the massage-like feel of the comb on her back.

She loved going outdoors in the summertime, to lie in the grass in our backyard or go into our butterfly garden and sniff the catmint. Having learned from bitter experience at losing Leo by allowing him to roam at will, I had developed a harness and leash system for Fluff and Toby so that when they wanted to go outside I’d hook a leash to the harnesses they wore all the time. Fluff had a game she’d play with me, refusing to go out with the leash on, and waiting for me to look the other way when she would make a dash for the yard. Sometimes I would catch her, sometimes not. It was one of the times that I missed and went out to her with the leash that gave Toby the idea that he too could go for walks beyond the deck. The rest is history. Sometimes I would go with Toby down the long path into the back of our deep back yard, and Fluff, not wanting to be left behind, would follow us, leash dragging behind her.

Aside from her adventures outside, by and large she was literally a fixture in our house. She had a few favorite pieces of furniture in which she liked to lie, including a chair in the dining room (strategically located near the kitchen!) and for daytime snoozing, an old couch in the basement. Very little would faze her. A wall could be torn down with her very near, and she wouldn’t budge. Yet she wasn’t deaf! It’s just that her idea of exercise was to jump off her chair and walk to her food bowl.

She was really Daddy’s girl; Alison had Sparkle as her special cat, and later Toby fulfilled that role. Thus when she got sick and was diagnosed with lung cancer, it hit me extra hard. She gradually got weaker and spent most of her time in a closet. We were told that the only treatment was surgical removal of the affected nodes of the lung. We decided not to subject her to the surgery and, as she continued to weaken, made the sad decision to put her to sleep. I managed to find a housecall vet who would do this, and on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 we said our final goodbyes. We can take solace in knowing that we provided Fluff with a loving and secure home in the 12.5 years that we had her. All she wanted in life was food, a cozy shelter, and some affection. We gave her all those things and more.

Fluff looking through a chair at Alison's sister's house

Fluff waiting for her breakfast (or so she thought) at our table

Fluff enjoying some time outdoors

Fluff lying in the grass outdoors. This picture is the best of any I could find that shows off her beautiful green eyes. We also thought her white fur was set off nicely by the green grass.

Fluff lying in a packed suitcase, just before our trip to Scotland, summer of 2000. We wished we could have taken her along with us!

All of our cats loved to lie under the Christmas tree, but Fluff always looked the best under one, with her white fur contrasting with the green of the tree. We always considered her, and the other cats, to be the best packages we ever had.