Dude – The 27th Virtual Symposium - a Blog Post by redrockrascal

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2/1/2017 3:16 pm

Dude – The 27th Virtual Symposium

Back in May of 20 I wrote a of posts about my lil buddy Dude – he was a cat, a very cool cat. He had all the looks of a breed known as a “Chantilly”. When I first encountered him in 2009 he could fit in the palm of my hand. He was limping and had a gash on one of his front legs. Since he didn’t know who I was he started to limp away. I kneeled down and said “Hey lil dude”. He stopped, looked back at me and laid down. We got him to a vet and they told us his leg would be OK but he had blood test signs of one of the feline diseases. It could be he had the disease or had been vaccinated for it – no way to tell. We could either get him fixed up (for a lot of ) or put him down. We chose to give him a shot at life and I promised him I would do all I could to give him a good life.

My g/f at that time had another cat at that time who was an inside cat. So lil Dude (now his name) would need to survive outside until he chose to do otherwise – it was summer time. A neighbor thought he was part of the litter one of her cats was from, but didn’t know who their “owners” were. Both were outside cats and were surviving fairly well – lizards and mice are abundant around here. I built a shelf under one of our front windows where we placed a water source and a small bowl of food. It was up away from where other animals could not easily get to it and Dude could look into the house to see we were sitting on the couch. He and the other cat got to know each other through the screen. There is also a tall/thin full length window next to the front door and Dude would look into the house from time to time during the day – we called that “the face”. After a while we decided to leave the door open to see if Dude wanted to come in.

“the Face”.

One day after doing “the Face” thing he looked in the door and took some tentative steps in. The other cat was a bit surprised but didn’t object. Dude would eventually spend more time indoors and we set up “accommodations” for him inside too. When we went away for a weekend the neighbor would happily keep an eye on them. Dude was “the Man” around the neighborhood – he was totally cool with the other pets, people and other small animals in the area. He visited his brother (Snickers) and the little yappy they have, daily. When I was coming home from running errands or a date etc. he seemed to know when I turned the corner (which is 5 long front yards from my place) he knew it – day or night. Sometime I would see him dart across the street, after checking both ways, to our yard. By the time I got parked and out of the truck he was waiting there to greet me. He seemed to be fascinated with skunks – I don’t know how he dealt with the local family of foxes. When skunks would come foraging through our property Dude would sit up on the food shelf, or no top of one of my cars, and carefully watch them. If I went to bring him in he would shy away and kept his eyes on the skunks – after a while I just left him to his fascination.

He spent a lot of time watching over the neighborhood from a spot on top of a shed next to the garage.

From there he could see a lot of the neighborhood and he could watch me do yard work or car work etc. The overhang of the garage roof gave him shelter from summer rains. Anywhere I did yard work around the property Dude would eventually lay down on something and supervise me. The shed was his place whenever I went to look for him that was the first place to look. I never went up on his place, but there were nights when it was cold and I didn’t want him to freeze, I would stand under him trying to convince him it was gonna be better for him to be inside. Sometimes he went for the rattling a bowl of food “trick” and he would come down and inside – sometimes not so much. I eventually started leaving the side door to the garage open in cold/wet weather so he could at least be inside. I kept a small bowl of food and water on top of the washing machine at those times. Since he was pretty furry he didn’t seem to mind the cold much but some mornings he would be at the back door when I got up. There was a small period of time one winter when it was hard to find him. So one night I happened to shine a flashlight into the garage and a pair of eyes was staring back at me from the dark. He had made a garage space for himself on the hood of a project car I have. There was a pirate flag folded and sitting at the base of the windshield which was his spot to lay on. After that when I found him there I would call him “Capt’n Dude”, the car, which is silver and black is now called ”Capt’n Dude’s Pirate Volvo”.

Eventually he spent more time inside. He “watched” TV with me from his spot on the top of the couch or sitting on my chest. I would scratch his chin and sometimes he scratched mine. When I was on the phone he would lie on the desk or play with the cord. He also supervised me while I worked on the computer – evidently I need a lot of supervision. So I made a space for him on the desk where the warm air from the fan would blow on him. At night he would make his way into the bedroom and in the AMs he would be lying on the pillow and around my head – with his tail in my face . . . or mouth. From time to time he would try to pull the covers off my face and lick my forehead. So I would play chase the hand under the covers with him. I also picked up various lil toys for him when I saw something that might interest him. He always preferred to chase an old shoestring that I would dangle around him.

He would also do a “crazy cat” routine outside. He would run up one tree and suddenly stop in a crouched position and look around with his tail flicking around. Then dart down that tree and up another and assume the position, then down that tree and up another. Then as suddenly as he had started the routine it would end and he would park himself on the tree to “get some sun”. Part of my yard work included pruning the trees. I made sure there was plenty of room for him to get up the trees without getting snagged as an escape route in case a coyote or something was chasing him.

There is a lot more I could write about my lil buddy but this was a last minute thing. I wrote about what happened to Dude in May of 20 and I don’t like to think or write about that. Snickers came around a lot after that looking for Dude. Here are some links if you wish to read them.

Dude my lil cat buddy update plus

[post 36338]

Dude is gone now

Dude was smart, funny, loving and totally cool. My blog here is dedicated to Dude. The point of all this is I really miss my lil buddy Dude . . . a lot . . . daily.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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Dude – The 27th Virtual Symposium

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