Goodbye Julio

This post was inevitable.  We live on a quiet-ish road and our family cats have always been outdoor cats.  This means that if they don't learn about cars, they will get hit by one.

Julio seemed to have more sense than other cats and would get out of the way of the cars and gravel trucks that come up and down the road.  One time is all it takes.

He was the most sociable cat we ever had.

He was a very people oriented cat.  He had to be where his people were.  He had to see what you were doing.  It was almost like he was checking to see if you were doing things properly.

When we went away on family holidays, we usually had the neighbours come in and feed him.  This actually traumatised our friendly cat. It wasn't enough contact for him.  I don't think he even liked it when we went to work.  We took to sending him to a cat hotel when we went away.  It was an expense we could have done without, but we didn't want him to be upset.

We are already missing this cat terribly but it seems that the local wildlife will not miss him.  He was the apex predator in the area.  Migratory songbirds, stoats (pictured above) and field voles are now safe. He even caught a bat or two.  It does seem that there were many more birds in the garden this morning . . . .  

I get that accidents happen.  Cats are hit by cars all the time.  After finding his body we knew that he had died instantly (slight comfort there).  It was the cowardly way his remains were thrown over the stone wall afterwards that upset us.   The person who did that didn't come up to tell us what had happened.  We had to make the discovery on our own.

His body is now under the cedar tree in our own pet cemetery.  We miss you darling boy.