I just got a very sad email from my friends back home in Canada.  Seems that
their cat Rory got out and got run over by a car out in front of their
house.  They have 2 small kids and were building a deck and things got crazy
and he escaped :-(
I'm very sad about this.  Rory was a magnificent cat, about 11 years old.
He was 1/2 Maine Coon and 1/2 Japanese Bobtail.  He was at least 20 lbs of
steely grey fluffiness.  He came from the same people we got Vino from,
except that he had Maine Coon in him instead of Birman, like Vino does.  His
tail was about 3 inches long and I always used to make my friend mad by
calling him Stubby.  We got Vino from these people because we loved Rory so
much.
Rory was a one family cat.  He loved his owners, Lenore and Glenn,
unconditionally.  But it was hard for others to get close to him.  Clipping
his claws was impossible and he was banned from many vet's offices.  Lenore
found a wonderful vet who used to come to the house to treat Rory wearing
leather gloves.  About 6 years ago, he got that problem with the crystals in
the urinary tract (don't remember the name).  My friends spent $800 to save
him and never fed him anything but the best food after that.  He was very
loved.
I still remember one time, when he was only 3 months old but already as big
as a nearly full grown cat.  He had backed one of our friends into the
bathroom and would not let him out.  Matt was over 6 feet tall and not
normally scared of kittens.  But Rory could be a formidable foe.
Here are a couple of pictures of him:
http://tinyurl.com/6zbrq
http://tinyurl.com/5urqw
Goodbye Rory, I will always remember you.
--
Britta
Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered
in fur!
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album