My beautiful Tiger

I have always loved animals, and even as a small child wanted to know all about them. I would have done a veterinary degree, but to get in I'd have had to do biology, and that meant dissecting frogs. I wouldn't have a problem with opening an animal to operate, but it somehow doesn't seem right that an innocent animal should die just so that I can practice.

Anyway, in my childhood and teens I never really had much dealing with cats: sure, I used to stroke the cats that passed through the garden, but that's not the same as living with one. Many members of my family kept dogs (we couldn't because my Mum is allergic to them), so I considered myself a 'dog person'. Besides which, my opinion of cats had been coloured by those horrible Siamese in 'Lady and the Tramp'!

When I moved into my second year at Uni (Lancaster, England), one of my friends (now my partner) bought an ex-council-house, and I moved in there. During the first winter in the house, we became aware of a ginger tabby who regularly sat outside the window just watching. He never let us near him, and just sat and watched; then he would move into the next garden and do the same thing. He used to progress around all the houses in the area, peering in one at a time. If anyone tried to approach him, he moved on, and we just assume that he was a feral stray who didn't like human contact.

We got used to this, and eventually didn't give it much thought. Then one day, we were bringing the shopping in from the car, and he walked in with us. Just like that. He started purring and rubbing against us as if he'd known us for years, and claimed 'stroke' from both hands of both of us. He sat on the floor in front of the couch, and stayed with us all evening, never once requesting to be let out.

When we wanted to go to bed, we had a bit of a quandary: we didn't want to put him out, but we didn't want to come down to a mess on the floor in the morning. Eventually, my partner came up with the idea of putting down a paint-tray filled with builders sand (those were things we had lying around in the house), and we shut him in the kitchen and went to bed with fingers crossed.

Coming down in the morning, I honestly expected to find a huge puddle, or a pile of 'cat-mess' somewhere, but instead there was a neatly covered up lump in the paint-tray. You could have knocked me over with a feather: if that had been a dog, the kitchen would probably have been in chaos! We put him out before we left for Uni, and already I was hoping he would be back that night.

Sure enough, when we got back later that day, he came back into the house. We didn't have to coax or tempt him, he just walked in as if he owned the place. This pattern carried on for several days: the litter tray at night, and putting him out during the day. I say 'putting', because he always seemed reluctant to leave the house. We bought a pack of tinned cat-food from the paper shop on the estate, and fed him from an old plate. Come the weekend, we decided to buy a litter tray and litter, and a food bowl for him. We still weren't sure that he would stay, and all of our friends and family kept warning us not to get too attached, because "a stray cat never sticks around for long".

The thing was, he didn't behave like a stray: he was immaculately trained to the point that we couldn't get him to come onto the furniture until we covered one end of the sofa with a dust sheet. Only then would he curl up beside us, rather than on the floor at our feet. Although always friendly to both of us, he was slightly wary of my partner, and over the next few weeks, we discovered that he was always a bit nervous around men.

Once he had been with us for several weeks, we decided that he seemed to be sticking around, and fitted a cat flap for him so that he could come and go at leisure. We also bought him a collar. I've never seen an animal suddenly change so much as he did once we put the collar on him. He seemed to know take that as a signal that we had accepted him and weren't going to get rid of him, and instantly became more settled and started leaving the house more readily. He always came back when called, though.

When he first came to us, we had tried putting a poster up in the shop, asking if anyone was missing a cat, but nobody ever got in touch. We made enquiries among our neighbours, and some of the local kids reckoned that he'd been hanging around the estate for about 9 months, but that nobody had ever seen him before then. Our theory is that he was owned by a couple (or family), and that he was the woman's cat, but was abused by the man (he was also terrified of Hoovers and the bathroom). This would explain his training, his love of me, and his wariness around men.

Now that we were sure he wasn't going to leave, we took him to the vet and had him micro-chipped, neutered, flea-treated, wormed and vaccinated. The vet estimated him to be about 3 years old, but he was very skinny, and his teeth were more like those of a much older cat. She did say, though, that the life-expectancy of a British stray is 2 years, so if he'd spent 9 months as one then he'd already used almost half of his life!

Tiger was possibly the most intelligent animal I've ever come across: he had a phenomenal grasp of English, and was capable of understanding virtually anything that we said to him. My partner is forever forgetting where he's left his keys, and would say to Tiger: "where's my car/house keys", and Tiger would disappear from the room. Two minutes later, he would either re-appear with the keys in his mouth, or would come into the room, meow and then turn around for you to follow him to wherever the keys were. He could do the same thing with his comb, my jewellery, random tools of Richards, my Uni books, and an assortment of other items.

The only problem that Tiger ever had was relating back to his time as a stray: he had terrible teeth and gums. We had to take him to the vet every couple of months for an injection to treat gingivitis; inflammation of the gums. Tiger would always try and pretend that his gums weren't bothering him, but eventually he would start to drool slightly, and then he would go off and get the vet's card from my desk and bring it to one of us. That was our cue to book a vet's appointment!

Each Christmas, I had to take Tiger home for the holidays, and because of Mum's allergies, he wasn't allowed out of my room. This never phased him, though: my partner made him a scratching post from some lumps of wood and a length of old carpet, and Tiger just used to curl up on my bed for the holidays. After Christmas, I was allowed to carry him downstairs (he wasn't allowed on the hall carpets) to get some of the leftover turkey from the fridge, and even Mum fell in love with him.

Over the couple of years after we got him (or rather, he got us), I suffered from depression, eventually receiving treatment in 2003/4. I lost count of the number of times that I cried into his furry sides, and I honestly don't know if I would have got through that period without him. Although Tiger eventually learnt to trust my partner completely, he was very much 'my cat'. He considered me to be his owner, while my partner was just that: his owner's partner. That meant that Richard was someone to be respected and, even, loved, but it was me that Tiger adored. You can't imagine (or maybe you can), what a difference that made to my self-esteem, at a time when there wasn't much of that to go around.

Towards the end of 2004, he developed an abscess in one of his teeth, and we had him into the vet's to have the tooth removed. When we collected him, the vet commented that there seemed to be a lump under Tiger's tongue. She said that this could be scar tissue from an old injury, but warned us that it could be cancerous. We asked if we couldn't just have it removed, and she told us that removing it would be a really expensive procedure, and that we should just keep an eye on him to make sure that it didn't start to cause him problems. If it did, she said, we should bring him back in and they would see what they could do about it.

Anyway, as spring rolled in, his gingivitis started to flare up again, and we booked him in for another check-up and injection. My partner had started to notice Tiger lying around more when I wasn't there, but for me, there was no difference, because he always perked up whenever I arrived home. The vet had a look at his mouth, and told us that the lump had increased in size, and that it must be cancer. She booked us a surgery appointment for a couple of weeks time, and sent me home in tears.

In the days running up to his operation, my partner noticed him spending more and more time lying disconsolately somewhere. He would sit with his mouth slightly open, and rub his tongue on the roof of his mouth. He also started to have trouble eating. This hadn't been unusual, because he always struggled slightly when his gingivitis was playing up, but now he would try a couple of pieces and then give up, wandering off to lie down somewhere. Still, whenever I arrived home, he got up and came to see me, followed me around and behaved just like his usual self, only lying down again if I wasn't in the room.

At that point, I was spending a year working for BAE Systems, as part of my degree. On the day of Tiger's operation, I dropped him off at the vet's on my way to work, and they agreed to call me when the operation was over, so that I could let my partner know to go and collect him whenever lectures finished. About two o'clock in the afternoon, the surgeon phoned me to say that he had Tiger under anaesthetic, and had had a look, but that he couldn't operate. The tumor covered the whole of the area under the tongue, and had also started progressing down Tiger's throat. If he removed it, he would also remove most of the blood vessels that enable temperature-control, and Tiger would suffer for the rest of his life.

I could hardly talk. This was my baby; he was my child. I couldn't take in what the surgeon was saying. We had known that this was a possibility, but it still hurt to hear it confirmed. I couldn't imagine life without Tiger. Who would comfort me when I was down? Who would I cuddle when my partner wasn't there? What would the house be like without that little furry presence? I became aware that the surgeon was still talking:

"Would you like me to put him down just now? I don't need to bring him round from the anaesthetic".

Even the suggestion hurt. I couldn't let Tiger go without saying goodbye. Without letting him know that I was sorry. Sorry for what, I couldn't tell you. Sorry for taking him to the vets; sorry for not taking him sooner; sorry for not being able to do anything for him; sorry that we hadn't had him for longer, or treated him better. I told the surgeon that I wanted to see him first, and that we would book him in later.

When I got off the phone, my colleagues were all staring at me: my face was covered in tears, and my pale blue shirt had turned a darker blue above my chest. I went to the toilet (restroom) to try and calm down; to splash my face with cold water. Not that it made any difference, because I was still crying so hard that I don't think my skin even noticed. When I got back out, my boss took one look at me and sent me home. That drive back was one of the hardest I've ever done: the only one harder was when I tried to drive home after my Gran was give 24 hours to live. That time I had to return to Lancaster and get my partner to drive me home instead. This time I made it myself. Just.

We spoke to the vet about what to do, and she said that although it was starting to cause problems, it was nothing serious yet. She said that we should keep an eye on him, and if it started to cause him distress, we should bring him back in. Incidentally, I asked her how much it would have been to get the tumor removed at Christmas. £160, she said. £160! "Really expensive", she had said. I couldn't believe it: I thought by 'really expensive', she meant more like £1600, and that, we couldn't have afforded. We got him a £40 injection once every two-three months, for heaven's sake. We could have pulled together £160. Needless to say, we changed vets after that: how could I carry on using a surgery who caused the loss of my baby for a measly £160?

Anyway, over the next few weeks, Tiger's condition started to get worse. At first, he was still hiding it from me, but eventually he couldn't even manage that. That was when we knew it was time to say goodbye. I wanted him buried somewhere that I could still 'visit', though, and we knew that we wouldn't be staying in the Lancaster house once we graduated. I phoned my parents and arranged to visit them and have Tiger put down at their local vets and then buried in the corner of their garden that our childhood rabbits and guinea-pigs were in.

On Monday the 12th of May, 2005, we took our gorgeous ginger tabby to the vets around the corner from my parents. That date will be forever burned into my memory, and it's also engraved on the stone that my partner lovingly carved to place over Tiger's grave. Mum drove us to the surgery, because I was barely holding back tears, and every so often they broke through and obscured my vision.

Tiger knew what was happening. I'm convinced of it. He spent the night before curled up on my pillow with his head by mine, and neither of us slept much. That morning, he stayed close by me, and whenever I went up to him, he rubbed his head on me as if to say that he understood what I was doing, and it was okay. Over the weekend, the tumour had started to constrict his breathing slightly, and my heart nearly broke listening to the faint wheezing in his throat. I think it was that that enabled me to do what had to be done. The thought of him suffering was even worse than the thought of losing him.

Even though he had now started losing weight, and was unusually quiet for him (he had been a very vocal cat), the vet looked at us in surprise when we put Tiger on the table and asked for him to be put down. "What's the problem", the vet asked, looking at me as if I was about to kill a perfectly healthy cat. I told him, and the vet looked into Tiger's throat and didn't ask any more questions. He just turned and prepared a syringe of anaesthetic.

I watched in despair, as the vet put the syringe in Tiger's right front leg and pushed the plunger half way. I wanted to tell the vet to stop; that it was a terrible mistake and that Tiger would be fine. I didn't, though; I just stood by, feeling the guiltiest I've ever felt in my life. I felt like I had betrayed him somehow.

I had never expected Tiger to collapse so quickly: I thought anaesthetic would take a while to take effect. He literally fell to the table as the vet pushed the plunger, his little legs crumpling under him. Then he lay on the table, still alive, but unconscious.

The vet said "when I push this the rest of the way, that'll be him gone. Are you okay for me to continue?"

I couldn't talk, so I just nodded. I felt like saying: "of course it's not okay", but even if I had been going to, I couldn't have got it out. My throat had closed up and the tears flowed from my eyes without a hope of my stopping them. The vet emptied the syringe and Tiger stopped breathing. He lay on the table looking exactly as if he was sleeping, but I knew there was no way he was going to get up ever again. The vet picked up the body that suddenly seemed so small, and placed him gently in the large shoe-box that my Mum had looked out for us that morning.

I picked it up and hugged it to my chest as I was escorted out of a side door to prevent my crazed appearance from upsetting the waiting clients. Mum stayed behind to sort things out with the vet, as my partner and I walked up to where the car was parked. I clutched the box as if my life depended on it, and I felt as if my heart would burst from my chest. I don't think I've ever cried so hard, and when we got to the car I leaned against it as my body was racked with sobs that I couldn't prevent. Richard put his arm around my shoulder, but he didn't say anything because there wasn't any point. What could he say?

When we got back to the house, I opened the box and removed Tiger's green collar. We had bought that one for him about a year before, and it's emerald green contrasted beautifully with his coat. Knowing how upset he had been before we first put a collar on him, and then after that, whenever he lost his collar, I couldn't bury him without one. Instead, we had brought one of his old ones, and put that on in place of the green one. We couldn't send him to wherever he was going without him feeling like he was owned, could we?

I sat beside the box, stroking the tiny body that had meant so much to me. Even my Dad, who isn't particularly keen on cats, came over and stroked the still-warm fur. Putting the lid back on the box was one of the hardest things I've ever done, because it felt so final. I knew that once I put the lid on the box, I would never see Tiger again. Crying as if I would never stop, I replaced the lid and we carried it down to the bottom of the garden with a spade.

There, we dug a deep grave, and placed the box in the bottom. I remember it was a green 'Clarks' box. I can still picture it sitting in the bottom of the hole, and I didn't want to put the soil on top because then he'd really be gone. Slowly, we filled up the hole and then seated the stone over the top to mark the last resting place of the closest thing I've ever had to a child. My beautiful Tiger.

Today, I can look back and enjoy the time that we had with him, but I still miss him, and writing this today brought tears back to my eyes. I now have four wonderful cats, but they're not Tiger, and I'm not sure anything will ever fill the hole that he's left inside. I hope this is the closest that I ever come to understanding what it's like to lose a child. The gravestone is still there, but the grave is now covered with grass and tiny flowers, and the stone is almost hidden behind a mass of plants. We don't mow that corner of the garden, and it is instead left as a natural shrine to those creatures that have shared our lives.