Happy Tail: Skuggi (formerly Shadow)
Here at Annex Cat Rescue, there is nothing we love more than drafting “Happy Tails” or adoption success stories celebrating a cat or kitten’s triumphant — sometimes challenging — transition indoors to a loving forever home.
Typically, ACR’s adoptions team will ask a pet parent if they would like to be featured in a Happy Tail during a wellness check email sent on the first anniversary of the adoption. And typically, an ACR volunteer writer (OK, usually Kim) will interview the foster and adopter and relate the story.
But last fall, Valentina’s reply to her “adoptiversary” email about Skuggi (formerly Shadow) was so sparkling, detailed, and delightful, we just had to run with it verbatim. “He’s my grumpy goblin bastard child and I love him!” Valentina responded with trademark panache when we wrote to ask her permission to reprint her email. Read on the see why…
“I don’t know much of Skuggi’s provenance, but when I first met him, I was told pretty much right away that he was spicy but loveable. He was super-curious about his foster sister, but she had no time for him. His foster would have loved to keep him if their house cat would give him the time of day.
“My last two cats were a wonderful bonded senior pair that I found through ACR, a shy girl and her protector with FIV, who I had decided on after losing my first cat after nearly 11 wonderful years together. I fell in love with Skuggi’s unimpressed little face and his big body and knew he was mine when he first swatted at me for daring to pet him from face-on. If I didn’t take him home, I wasn’t sure anyone else would have the patience for his occasional biting, and he had been in foster care for so long already.
“I renamed him Skuggi, as a nod to his original name Shadow, and he settled in pretty quickly once I got him home a week later, climbing all over where I placed an extra stool or two so that he didn’t aggravate his arthritic legs more than he needed to. Every four weeks, we trek over to my favourite vet to administer his arthritis shot, but only after I’ve given him a double dose of gabapentin to make him a little more amenable to being picked up. While he’s there, the vet always schedules us with a few extra minutes in the room so that I can give him his monthly spa session — a thorough brushing and nail clipping while I have him a bit more relaxed.
“He’s a quiet boy on the ride to and from the vet and will pick up again his vocal theatrics once he’s freed from his carrier cage. He yells after every feeding and visit to the washroom. It is like the song of his people times a thousand discordant choirs. He sounds angry in the most horrific or pained way, but he’s really just letting you know his dissatisfaction at life, which I can tell you is a bald-faced lie.
“He will also tap you if you’re on the couch, from where he’s sitting at the base, staring up at you and crying extra loud if he wants to be fed again and I give in because I am a chump (and it’s the reason I use a much smaller scoop multiple times throughout the day. I’m trying to get his weight down from his current 19lbs.)
“Skuggi’s favourite sleep spots seem to change with the seasons: on the bed depending which blanket I’ve laid down for him (it’s where he’s sleeping as I write this), on the floor depending which fleece is laid there, in his open-faced carrier in the summer, and on the cushioned bench I bought for him just weeks after he moved in. I realized the other one didn’t allow him to lounge there quite like he so likes to do, flat on his back with feet up in the air. His nemesis is Fernando V, the raccoon that scales my roof and stares into the window most nights where Skuggi is lounging in the summer.
“He absolutely abhors any hands near his face when approached from the front; his eyes will go dead-eyed and stare at you for just long enough to be unnerving. But he loves head scritches! He’s a perfect black void of contradictions. He will also sometimes do a specific growl to indicate he’s thinking of violence. He is a purr monster, don’t let that content sound distract you from keeping your wits about you for any reason.
“I learned this lesson many times during the first few months of our cohabitation. He’s since mostly chilled out, loves cuddling on the couch with me, and sleeping in bed with me, but will sometimes revert to violence if my petting hand strays too far into his eyesight when I’m not being vigilant. I appreciate a man with boundaries.”
