DUFFY the CAT
DUFFY 1990 - 2007
DUFFY the CAT |
DUFFY 1990 - 2007
|
The History of Duffy the Cat:Duffy was born in Townhill, Swansea in 1990 and was one of 8 kittens where a lady had advertised them "free to a good home". Duffy's mother was so small and weak, she could not look after all of them so when we went to choose one, they were being looked after and raised by the family Golden Retreiver while the mother cat slept! We had trouble choosing just one, and I decided I wanted a sweet little well behaved kitten sleeping by the dog but my wife spotted one that was being particularly naughty, playing with all the other kittens tails and generally being a nuiciance. " I want THAT one" my wife said. The lady laughed and warned us " you'll have trouble with THAT one"! We laughed and took them both... not knowing what the future had in store for us! Soon we realise that Duffy is the village idiot and her sister Meggy keeps a close control over her. Meggy puts up with no nonsense and teaches Duffy how to play-fight and how to behave. Meggy is the boss and Duffy luvs her. The first month we had her, Duffy climbed onto our brand new £250 TV in the bedroom in the middle of the night... and fell behind it, pushing it off the shelf and onto the floor. The bang as it exploded on hitting the floor was deafening. A few weeks later she discovered she could climb all the way to the top of my wifes favourite curtains and left little holes all the way up. Then she got into the airing cupboard upstairs and discovered that there was a gap in the floorboard where the pipes go through. We spent a whole day following her scratching noises as she made an exploration underneath the floorboards in the bedroom while wondering how we would get her out. She decided to come out after several hours. When she was about six months old she found that she loved being zipped up in a holdall and carried around the house for a few minutes before being left alone with the bag open. After a few minutes she would slowly peep out and try to guess where she was. Then we would have to do it all again. Idiots! When she was about a year old I would regularly look out of the bedroom window to see Duffy stuck right up the top of the tree at the end of the garden with a "halo" of birds around her who knew she was too dopey to catch them. Then she would fall out trying to get down. We discovered that Duffy could pull a really impressive frown! 18 months old. Duffy began her collection of Lizards and mice from the fields behind the garden. Never killed or hurt a single one... just collected them, dozens of the buggers. And let them go in the house while she went for some more. We came home one day to find blood everwhere, Duffy had
cut her paw quite badly on something in the fields (glass we think). Emergency
trip to the vet. Trouble is, Duffy would not let us put her in a box or
pet carrier. Three years old and Duffy's sister Meggy sadly dies unexpectedly from an injury. Duffy is devastated and does not seem right at all. She goes off her food and keeps looking for Meggy and calling for her in the night. She suddenly and completely loses the ability to meaow, acts a bit funny and purrs all the time so we make another trip to the vet for a check up. He surprises us by telling us that following the loss of her sister and best friend she has suffered a cat equivalent to a nervous breakdown! We bring home another kitten called Candy to keep Duffy occupied. Candy turns out to be unbelievably naughty and we are afraid Duffy will not accept her. But she surprises us by becoming all motherly and looking after and washing Candy while Candy repays her generosity by attempting to chew her nose off! Candy really tries Duffys patience and gives her a hard time, constantly jumping her at every opportunity (like Kato in Inspector Clouseau films). Duffy learns to ignore Candy's immature irritating behaviour but Candy also discovers that she gets a better reaction from Duffy if she bites her still badly scarred paw, this results in the funniest 15 minute video I have ever taken! Duffy becomes a very VERY patient cat with the temperament of an angel and becomes a normal cat once more (but still without a meaow even though she tries). Just when we though she was normal again, Duffy came in one evening purring extremely loudly, staggering all over the place and her eyes were completely dilated. She was acting like she was high as a kite! She followed me upstairs, swayed around and then fell all the way down the stairs and lay in a heap at the bottom purring her socks off. We couldnt help having a giggle but she started walking around getting worse and her face started twitching so we thought a trip to the vet might be in order. It was 11pm and the visit to the vet cost a fortune!
He agreed that she did seem "a bit happy" and concluded that
she just must have "ingested" something and asked us if we had
any majaruana in the house! We assured him that we didn't and he prescribed
her with Valium to calm her down. ButThe Story Has Just begun !!! August 2004: Duffy the Cat had recently turned 14 years old and apart from being a bit old and 'plump', she has always enjoyed good health. BUT... .... we were putting out the rubbish when she stole and ate a large piece of elasticated string netting that had been cut from around a beef joint the night before. A vain attempt was made to get it from her mouth but she ran away and swallowed it. A quick call to the vet and our worst fears were realised... she would have to undergo immediate surgery. She was rushed to the vet and went through a major operation within a couple of hours and all the string was removed. Her age and her weight were against her and within 24 hours her temperature could not be brought down and there were fears that things were not going well. She was nursed, monitored and cared for superbly for three days until it was decided she might be better off at home. As soon as she arrived home she began to improve remarkably but it was a real battle getting her to eat and she had to have seven tablets a day shoved down her throat. Suddenly after 48 hours, she stopped eating and drinking and began to deteriorate fast. Duffy was rushed into the vet again and treated for dehydration and a second major operation was performed the next day when she had become stable enough. The vet discovered a growth which had tangled around her stomach so it was removed and she was again sewn up. Another three days in intensive care at the vet, on a drip and receiving many drugs, stimulants and tests she came home again looking much slimmer and war-torn and terribly weak... but still purring at everyone who touched her. Unfortunately she was not recovering well and after tests, the fear now is that the experience may have sparked off early signs of Kidney failure and we have had to get used to trying to tempt her with food about five or six times a day just to get her to eat enough to stay alive. She did not improve, we expected the worst and began to feel grateful for the fourteen wonderful years she has given us as we came to terms with the inevitable. A week later... Now Duffy is back to her normal nutty self and even seems amazingly grateful for her life being saved. She is still sometimes a bit difficult to tempt with food but has regained nearly all her strength, all her cheekyness and all her usual daft habits (including continuously pressing my nose with her paw at precisely 7:15am... she thinks it's some kind of 'ON' button!). Theres two morals to this story.... burn or throw down the toilet anything that an animal can choke on or swallow , and BUY PET INSURANCE! (Thats eight hundred quid on my credit card!!... but worth every penny!) Duffy is now on tablets for her kidneys and anabolic steroids to build muscle and rest her kidneys (we might feed her spinach and rename her 'Popeye' too!). We're hoping that the next blood test will show that her kidneys have settled down and she'll be with us for many years more, but it's also possible that we have probably just been given a little longer with her before things get worse again in weeks, months... or years.
Only time will tell.
Our sincere thanks to ALL the vets, nurses and staff at the TAWE VETERINARY GROUP in Swansea, UK. for their kind efforts and unwaivering determination. 25th October 2004 : UPDATE Well the tuff plumb has surprised us all! She is now spending most of her day bouncing off walls, following me around all day, playing with tin-foil balls, climbing up onto very high places where she hasn't been for years and generally sitting on the workbench displaying all the 'aren't I so cute' tricks learned over the last fourteen years (see above for example!) in an attempt to convince me that she's far more interesting than the guitar I'm busy trying to repair! In fact, we haven't seen her this active and lively (and healthy looking) for maybe seven years or more. 17th April 2005 : UPDATE Almost a year has passed, and
Duffy is still as bonkers as she ever was! She has become very accustomed
to the daily ritual of medication mixed with beef paste and wrapped in
smoked ham and gets quite impatient if it is not served at precisely
7:30pm. She has become increasingly lively and is having trouble with
our newly laid wooden floor because she cannot get a grip with her fingers
(my wife's description, not mine). It's Duffys Birthday on 1st May so were having a Party! 23rd October 2005: UPDATE Well, I have had a surprising amount of requests from guitarists and their families about Duffy's progress after reading this journal and I am happy to say that she has returned to her kittenhood and acts like a complete loony most of the time! Her morning ritual now includes grunting impaitently if she cant get a response from me at 6am by poking me repeatedly in the eye with her paw (I'm pretending to be asleep so that she'll go away). She will then then run across to the other side of the room and with one LOUD meaoww of complaint she then launches into a routine of racing down the stairs as fast as she can, making as much noise as possible in the process, leaping off the stairs four steps from the bottom and catapulting herself off the back of an armchair to make a sharp change in direction, then racing through the lounge causing the rug to roll up as she fihgts for grip while heading for the kitchen. Travelling at a considerable speed as she flies through the kitchen doorway she suddenly realises that the end of the house is approaching fast and hits the brakes.... but she still hasnt got used to the smooth tiled floor I laid a couple of years ago and things get horribly out of hand. At this point, her paws have gone into reverse and scrabble around in front of her as she frantically tries to lose speed and then things get ugly.... We hear the loud bang from upstairs as her plump figure hits the cupboard by the kitchen sink at 5... maybe even 6 miles per hour, followed by silence. Then, there is a loud bark of short, gruff meaowws before we hear the thunder of paws heading back through the lounge and the sound of powerful claws fighting for grip as she hurtles back up the stairs at eye watering speed. We await with abated breath, knowing what will happen next. Duffy comes romping around the doorway at the top of the stairs at full speed with her ears folded back (for exra streamlining I think) and halfway through the bedroom, launches herself into the air aiming at the dressing table in the far corner. She just misses the portable TV that she destroyed when she was three and after what seems like an impossibly long moment of silence, she lands on the table in the corner, realising that she has just reached the other end of the house she hits the brakes and shoots straight off the other end of the table, taking the lace tablecloth and all my wife's makeup and haibrushes with her as she crashes down behind it into the corner. We're thinking about getting some custom rubber mitts for her to improve her roadholding. We don't know where she's got all this energy from but we reckon the vet might have put some in and took all her patience out at the same time. One things for sure...There's never a dull moment in this house! 1st July 2006: Update She's still 'ere. I think I preferred her when she had no meaw though! She has got into the habit of verbally demanding everything she wants... it's more of a bark than a meaw though. 1st August 2007: Update Well. It's a sad, sad week at SGL Guitars. Duffy has been slowly deteriorating over the past year due to a Thyroid problem which was causing her to lose weight dramatically. She could not be treated for it due to her Kidney problems and the last few weeks saw her begin to deteriorate fast. She had not eaten for two days and had seriously lost weight and she had become very weak over the past three weeks, struggling to get around without lying down every two minutes. She was still happy and full of her usual cute tricks even though she had no plumpness left in her tummy to rub. Duffy finally passed away peacefully on August 1st. Duffy is now buried in a quiet spot beneath a tree next to a waterfall, high, high up in the Brecon mountains near her sister Meggy who died 14 years ago. We thank all who have asked about her and she will be greatly missed by everyone.
Thanks to all the many customers who have shown their concern and who have been following news of Duffy's recovery! .
Copyright SGL Guitars 2007 |