When I went to Bide-A-Wee to adopt a cat, a place I had adopted from before, I picked out a large orange cat that looked to be about two years old. I went into the petting room to see if he was the cat for me and when we got into the room he spent most of his time exploring and very little time brushing against me. He was a beautiful cat and I decided to adopt him. When I went to the counter to pay the fee and fill out paperwork, the worker, without hesitation, said: I don't think you want this cat. The statement struck me as funny because I was at an adoption facility that was there solely to recycle animals to new owners. She removed a paper from the cats' file and reading from it, she said: This cat has been here for two years and has been adopted and returned three times. When I asked her why she said: Previous owners claimed that he meowed too much, scratched in the litter box excessively, wouldn't get off the bed and when you tried to get him off the bed he would attack. I found the list amusing and told the young woman that I would take the cat. I took Milo home in a cab and let him out in my apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
I swear to god, the first thing that cat did when let out of the box was to, of course, walk around the apartment. while I set up his litter box. Once that was done he went to the littler box and scratched in it for a good twenty minutes, but he didn't use it. I watched him and began to laugh and the minute I began to laugh he looked at me as though my response was unexpected. I lifted him out of the box and he immediately ran to my bedroom and jumped on the bed and sat in the middle of it daring me to say something. As an experiment I went to lift him off the bed and he made a mad, crazy leap through the air which startled me so much so that I backed quickly away and slammed the bedroom door closed and began laughing some more. I don't mind a cat on the bed; I was just curious to see what he'd do.
For the next few months Milo spent his days running, and I mean running, around my apartment. He would gain speed, reach a wall or corner, and he would simply change direction by jumping up on the wall with all four paws and springing off in another direction which allowed his run to continue. When he got to the living room he headed for the curtains and would climb up those hanging at the top and looking back at me to see what I thought. I couldn't stop laughing. Sometimes when I laughed he looked offended somehow. I assumed all this energy was from having been pent up for two years in a cage and that soon he would get it out of his system. His next project was escaping the apartment, and riding the elevator down to the lobby. We lived on the 12th floor and when he successfully made it, because there was only one elevator in the building, I would have to call the elevator again and push each button to see where he had gotten off. It was always the lobby.
Even though Milo made me laugh he was also a little bastard. He was mean. He was a punk. When you went to feed him, he'd knock the bowl out of your hand. He would never let me come near him but for my boyfriend he was all purrs and cuddles. Which if I tell the truth annoyed me. I was with that cat all day and he glared at me like I was an idiot. My boyfriend would waltz in and the cat was like: High-five, low-five, dude let's get a beer. I had put Milo on a feeding schedule (8am & 5pm) and if it got to be five minutes past that time he would go around the apartment knocking things off of coffee tables or from the top of the refrigerator. He was angry and I suspect his previous three owners were not nice to him. The funny thing about him scratching in the box is that when he did use it, he'd scratch forever but he never once covered his waste. So in order for him to stop scratching for 20-30 minutes, you had to scoop litter over the waste and only then would he stop.
About a year after we got Milo we moved from Brooklyn to a small village near Poughkeepsie named Crompond, NY. We lived in a house now with one acre of land. I had hoped that the larger living quarters would be fun for Milo as we had an upstairs with stairs for him to climb. But it wasn't enough. He still wanted more space. I kept him inside because I was fearful that he would get lost. One day he escaped out the kitchen door and I was beside myself but at 5 o'clock Milo was at the door for supper. I made sure that he was fed at 8 o'clock and began to let him out for the day, and every single time without fail he returned at 5 remaining inside for the evening. Once a deer wandered into our back yard and I watched incredulously as Milo leaped onto the back of the deer and hung on until until the deer left. He did this with dogs too that might have wandered onto our property. This cat had no fear and he was strong. I once tried to bathe him, with my boyfriend's help, and we couldn't hold him. He was like a furry muscle. Another time the house became infested with fleas and I had to take him to the vet to get deloused. I told the vet that she had to be careful because he was strong. She assured me that vets have special gloves and that they were used to dealing with such animals. When I returned hours later, she rushed to greet me and said: We had to knock him out. Four of us couldn't handle him.
About a year after the move to our new home I ordered an oak bed to be delivered. They came, unloaded and set up the new bed and then left. They were done by about noon. When 5 o'clock came there was no Milo. By 6 o'clock I knew something was wrong. I drove around the hamlet looking for a cat that might have been run over. I called and I called. I put food out. I did everything to learn of his whereabouts. At 11 o'clock I picked my boyfriend up at the train station and had to tell him Milo was gone. I'd never seen my boyfriend upset like that night. It was like I had told him his high-five, low-five let's get a beer buddy had died. I felt horrible. At 1am I realized that Milo had to have gotten into the moving van and I placed a call, leaving a message, to the store that had delivered the bed. The next day they hadn't called so I called them again reaching the owner who said: I asked the delivery men and they said they saw no cat. I waited another day to see if Milo would return and he hadn't so I again called the store and this time he tells me that at the delivery after mine a cat flew our of the back of the van and ran off into the woods. I begged the man for the address of that delivery and he refused to give it to me sighting confidentiality. I begged him some more to call the client and to ask if I could come over and look for my cat. After some hours he called me back and gave me the address. I immediately drove to the location, which was an hour away by car and in another state. When I got there I knocked on the door of the man who had been the next delivery and he was like: Good luck. I hear animals screaming in those woods all day and night. I was in Pomona, New Jersey. I returned home and made 100 flyers to hand out complete with Milo's picture. I returned to Pomona and attempted to hand out the flyer to everyone I saw. Everyone I encountered was a Hasidim and wouldn't touch my flyer. So I began putting them in mailboxes until I had no more to give out. He had already been gone for four days now but I felt sure he wasn't dead. I returned home to a silent boyfriend and a sick heart. Five more days passed and we got a call that someone had found Milo. We rushed back to Pomona and three little kids had found him. They saw my flyer and made a game out of calling his name and had enticed him closer with a can of tuna. When we got him home and let him out of the box Milo had bags under his eyes. He sat next to the box and literally keeled over from exhaustion. I picked him up, put him on the bed and there he slept for five days. When he woke up he was a changed cat. He was sweet. He stopped running around the house. He stopped being a little bastard. If he could have done the dishes for me he would have. Us getting him back, looking for him, him being home was the message he needed to hear that he was loved. And he was forever changed.
My boyfriend and I broke up and I moved to Williamstown, MA taking Milo with me. My new boyfriend had a dog. When Milo and I arrived Milo made it clear to the dog who was boss by clawing the dog's eye resulting in an ER visit. Forever there after when Milo entered into the room where the dog was, the dog tucked her snout in and down and followed Milo only with her eyes. She was terrified of Milo. One day I was out of the porch with Milo and a small group of dogs came down the street. When they spotted Milo on the porch they collectively crossed the street, passed our house, and then returned to our side of the street and continued on. It was in Williamstown that Milo was hit by a car. I was in the house having an argument when suddenly I heard him howling. I ran outside, got him, and could see his back legs were useless. The vet informed that his pelvis was broken and that if he doesn't pee in 24 hours I'd have to put him down. I put him in an empty room, quiet and dark, and finally I saw that he had peed. But he couldn't stand and instead drug himself across the floor for food and bathroom. I was heartbroken. One moth to the day of the accident that cat got up healed and was ready to go! And then Milo and I moved over to the other side of Sears Pass and into Vermont.
In Vermont I lived on nine acres in an area known for it's wild cats (bobcats), and everyone with a cat will tell you that you shouldn't let your cat out because a wild cat would cause it harm. Because I had seen Milo chase deer this was never a thing I worried about. Beginning in Williamstown I had no longer had a need to provide Milo with a litter box. He hated them and he preferred to be outside. This was true in Vermont as well. What I learned in Vermont about Milo is that if I was there he owned it too. As far as one could see was his roaming territory. He was protective of me and would wallop anyone he thought was going to harm me. In all of our time together he only went after one person who was yelling at me. Anyone in the way of him and a cat were also subject to attack. One day while I was studying a Vermont State trouper came to my door. I beckoned her in and she entered placing her hand on her gun and asked: Do you own an orange cat? Because she had put her hand on her gun, I laughed and said: What did he do, rob a bank? She said: No, but he did send your neighbour to the emergency room. It seems my neighbour had a cat too and that Milo and her cat had begun to fight. The lady tried to break up the fight with a broom and Milo had leapt through the air and knocked her back through her kitchen door. He had clawed her considerably requiring stitches if I remember correctly. I had to pay her medical bills, and Milo was placed on permanent house arrest. I was further informed that should he ever escape I had to call this neighbour so she could lock the windows and doors. That was the end of Milo's days on the run. It was sad. He moaned about being inside for a good six months and he escaped now and then but seemed to come home after a short time happy to nap. After I graduated Milo and I moved to Buffalo, NY for work.
I was in the city again and I just didn't feel letting Milo out was a good idea but I did so every once in awhile so he could have fun. But again he seemed happy to curl up on the sofa. In time I felt as though he was losing weight and not so eager to come when called. I took him to the vet and was told he was in liver failure. I did not find out until the end that I was feeding him IAM's cat food and was actually feeding him to his death. (IAM's at that time was poisoned with some ingredient that was causing animals to have liver and kidney failure). I can barely tell this part of the story as it pains me greatly all these years later. Milo taught me unconditional love and he loved me deeply. He began to stop eating and he stopped sleeping with me. When I would go to get him at bedtime, he would stay for only a moment and then leave. And then one night, I called him and he came as he hadn't in months. He was his old self. I went to work, returned home, and he seemed worse. I drove all the way down to The Bronx on Friday evening for a Saturday appointment with the best vet I had ever seen and he said: You can try this medication but if it doesn't work you have to put him down. I drove all the way back to Buffalo, gave Milo a dose of the medicine and he climbed into the bathtub and made a sound I can still hear in my head. He couldn't do it anymore and was begging me to put him down. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. When he stopped breathing I knew that the most wonderful cat in the world was gone. I bawled like a baby. I had him cremated and I took his ashes everywhere until such time that I could bury him in a permanent place. He is with me here in Mexico.
It took me years to get another cat. I picked one out that looked like Milo but he turned out to be a sweet dud. So I went out and got Arlo who looks nothing like Milo but who has the exact same personality and I am in love once again with a cat.
I swear to god, the first thing that cat did when let out of the box was to, of course, walk around the apartment. while I set up his litter box. Once that was done he went to the littler box and scratched in it for a good twenty minutes, but he didn't use it. I watched him and began to laugh and the minute I began to laugh he looked at me as though my response was unexpected. I lifted him out of the box and he immediately ran to my bedroom and jumped on the bed and sat in the middle of it daring me to say something. As an experiment I went to lift him off the bed and he made a mad, crazy leap through the air which startled me so much so that I backed quickly away and slammed the bedroom door closed and began laughing some more. I don't mind a cat on the bed; I was just curious to see what he'd do.
For the next few months Milo spent his days running, and I mean running, around my apartment. He would gain speed, reach a wall or corner, and he would simply change direction by jumping up on the wall with all four paws and springing off in another direction which allowed his run to continue. When he got to the living room he headed for the curtains and would climb up those hanging at the top and looking back at me to see what I thought. I couldn't stop laughing. Sometimes when I laughed he looked offended somehow. I assumed all this energy was from having been pent up for two years in a cage and that soon he would get it out of his system. His next project was escaping the apartment, and riding the elevator down to the lobby. We lived on the 12th floor and when he successfully made it, because there was only one elevator in the building, I would have to call the elevator again and push each button to see where he had gotten off. It was always the lobby.
Even though Milo made me laugh he was also a little bastard. He was mean. He was a punk. When you went to feed him, he'd knock the bowl out of your hand. He would never let me come near him but for my boyfriend he was all purrs and cuddles. Which if I tell the truth annoyed me. I was with that cat all day and he glared at me like I was an idiot. My boyfriend would waltz in and the cat was like: High-five, low-five, dude let's get a beer. I had put Milo on a feeding schedule (8am & 5pm) and if it got to be five minutes past that time he would go around the apartment knocking things off of coffee tables or from the top of the refrigerator. He was angry and I suspect his previous three owners were not nice to him. The funny thing about him scratching in the box is that when he did use it, he'd scratch forever but he never once covered his waste. So in order for him to stop scratching for 20-30 minutes, you had to scoop litter over the waste and only then would he stop.
About a year after we got Milo we moved from Brooklyn to a small village near Poughkeepsie named Crompond, NY. We lived in a house now with one acre of land. I had hoped that the larger living quarters would be fun for Milo as we had an upstairs with stairs for him to climb. But it wasn't enough. He still wanted more space. I kept him inside because I was fearful that he would get lost. One day he escaped out the kitchen door and I was beside myself but at 5 o'clock Milo was at the door for supper. I made sure that he was fed at 8 o'clock and began to let him out for the day, and every single time without fail he returned at 5 remaining inside for the evening. Once a deer wandered into our back yard and I watched incredulously as Milo leaped onto the back of the deer and hung on until until the deer left. He did this with dogs too that might have wandered onto our property. This cat had no fear and he was strong. I once tried to bathe him, with my boyfriend's help, and we couldn't hold him. He was like a furry muscle. Another time the house became infested with fleas and I had to take him to the vet to get deloused. I told the vet that she had to be careful because he was strong. She assured me that vets have special gloves and that they were used to dealing with such animals. When I returned hours later, she rushed to greet me and said: We had to knock him out. Four of us couldn't handle him.
About a year after the move to our new home I ordered an oak bed to be delivered. They came, unloaded and set up the new bed and then left. They were done by about noon. When 5 o'clock came there was no Milo. By 6 o'clock I knew something was wrong. I drove around the hamlet looking for a cat that might have been run over. I called and I called. I put food out. I did everything to learn of his whereabouts. At 11 o'clock I picked my boyfriend up at the train station and had to tell him Milo was gone. I'd never seen my boyfriend upset like that night. It was like I had told him his high-five, low-five let's get a beer buddy had died. I felt horrible. At 1am I realized that Milo had to have gotten into the moving van and I placed a call, leaving a message, to the store that had delivered the bed. The next day they hadn't called so I called them again reaching the owner who said: I asked the delivery men and they said they saw no cat. I waited another day to see if Milo would return and he hadn't so I again called the store and this time he tells me that at the delivery after mine a cat flew our of the back of the van and ran off into the woods. I begged the man for the address of that delivery and he refused to give it to me sighting confidentiality. I begged him some more to call the client and to ask if I could come over and look for my cat. After some hours he called me back and gave me the address. I immediately drove to the location, which was an hour away by car and in another state. When I got there I knocked on the door of the man who had been the next delivery and he was like: Good luck. I hear animals screaming in those woods all day and night. I was in Pomona, New Jersey. I returned home and made 100 flyers to hand out complete with Milo's picture. I returned to Pomona and attempted to hand out the flyer to everyone I saw. Everyone I encountered was a Hasidim and wouldn't touch my flyer. So I began putting them in mailboxes until I had no more to give out. He had already been gone for four days now but I felt sure he wasn't dead. I returned home to a silent boyfriend and a sick heart. Five more days passed and we got a call that someone had found Milo. We rushed back to Pomona and three little kids had found him. They saw my flyer and made a game out of calling his name and had enticed him closer with a can of tuna. When we got him home and let him out of the box Milo had bags under his eyes. He sat next to the box and literally keeled over from exhaustion. I picked him up, put him on the bed and there he slept for five days. When he woke up he was a changed cat. He was sweet. He stopped running around the house. He stopped being a little bastard. If he could have done the dishes for me he would have. Us getting him back, looking for him, him being home was the message he needed to hear that he was loved. And he was forever changed.
My boyfriend and I broke up and I moved to Williamstown, MA taking Milo with me. My new boyfriend had a dog. When Milo and I arrived Milo made it clear to the dog who was boss by clawing the dog's eye resulting in an ER visit. Forever there after when Milo entered into the room where the dog was, the dog tucked her snout in and down and followed Milo only with her eyes. She was terrified of Milo. One day I was out of the porch with Milo and a small group of dogs came down the street. When they spotted Milo on the porch they collectively crossed the street, passed our house, and then returned to our side of the street and continued on. It was in Williamstown that Milo was hit by a car. I was in the house having an argument when suddenly I heard him howling. I ran outside, got him, and could see his back legs were useless. The vet informed that his pelvis was broken and that if he doesn't pee in 24 hours I'd have to put him down. I put him in an empty room, quiet and dark, and finally I saw that he had peed. But he couldn't stand and instead drug himself across the floor for food and bathroom. I was heartbroken. One moth to the day of the accident that cat got up healed and was ready to go! And then Milo and I moved over to the other side of Sears Pass and into Vermont.
In Vermont I lived on nine acres in an area known for it's wild cats (bobcats), and everyone with a cat will tell you that you shouldn't let your cat out because a wild cat would cause it harm. Because I had seen Milo chase deer this was never a thing I worried about. Beginning in Williamstown I had no longer had a need to provide Milo with a litter box. He hated them and he preferred to be outside. This was true in Vermont as well. What I learned in Vermont about Milo is that if I was there he owned it too. As far as one could see was his roaming territory. He was protective of me and would wallop anyone he thought was going to harm me. In all of our time together he only went after one person who was yelling at me. Anyone in the way of him and a cat were also subject to attack. One day while I was studying a Vermont State trouper came to my door. I beckoned her in and she entered placing her hand on her gun and asked: Do you own an orange cat? Because she had put her hand on her gun, I laughed and said: What did he do, rob a bank? She said: No, but he did send your neighbour to the emergency room. It seems my neighbour had a cat too and that Milo and her cat had begun to fight. The lady tried to break up the fight with a broom and Milo had leapt through the air and knocked her back through her kitchen door. He had clawed her considerably requiring stitches if I remember correctly. I had to pay her medical bills, and Milo was placed on permanent house arrest. I was further informed that should he ever escape I had to call this neighbour so she could lock the windows and doors. That was the end of Milo's days on the run. It was sad. He moaned about being inside for a good six months and he escaped now and then but seemed to come home after a short time happy to nap. After I graduated Milo and I moved to Buffalo, NY for work.
I was in the city again and I just didn't feel letting Milo out was a good idea but I did so every once in awhile so he could have fun. But again he seemed happy to curl up on the sofa. In time I felt as though he was losing weight and not so eager to come when called. I took him to the vet and was told he was in liver failure. I did not find out until the end that I was feeding him IAM's cat food and was actually feeding him to his death. (IAM's at that time was poisoned with some ingredient that was causing animals to have liver and kidney failure). I can barely tell this part of the story as it pains me greatly all these years later. Milo taught me unconditional love and he loved me deeply. He began to stop eating and he stopped sleeping with me. When I would go to get him at bedtime, he would stay for only a moment and then leave. And then one night, I called him and he came as he hadn't in months. He was his old self. I went to work, returned home, and he seemed worse. I drove all the way down to The Bronx on Friday evening for a Saturday appointment with the best vet I had ever seen and he said: You can try this medication but if it doesn't work you have to put him down. I drove all the way back to Buffalo, gave Milo a dose of the medicine and he climbed into the bathtub and made a sound I can still hear in my head. He couldn't do it anymore and was begging me to put him down. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. When he stopped breathing I knew that the most wonderful cat in the world was gone. I bawled like a baby. I had him cremated and I took his ashes everywhere until such time that I could bury him in a permanent place. He is with me here in Mexico.
It took me years to get another cat. I picked one out that looked like Milo but he turned out to be a sweet dud. So I went out and got Arlo who looks nothing like Milo but who has the exact same personality and I am in love once again with a cat.
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