So…there’s this cat.
No, not that cat. Or that other fat cat.
This cat, to the right here.
Some [epithet] left this cat in a carrier on 9th Street in Park Slope on Friday and didn’t come back for him. Because I apparently don’t have enough drama in my life, I took him to the Park Slope Veterinary Clinic and got him checked out, and he’s okay; he’s got a thyroid issue, so he needs half a pill twice a day, but no mites or FIV or anything communicable (Dr. Parker said he had a slightly elevated white count, but thinks that’s from stress).
What he doesn’t have is teeth — and I mean no teeth at all — but he eats like a champ and uses his litter box. He’s a good boy.
I’m calling him Nikolai (…don’t ask), and he’s really very friendly and sweet. He’s staying in a rehearsal space at the moment, and he’s okay with it, but he’s…you know. Bored. He’s probably 10 or 12 years old, but except for the thyroid issue, he’s in fine shape and would make someone a wonderful fuzzy pet.
Anyone? Orange cat? Eight pounds of toothless love?
If this actually is already your cat, please email me ASAP. I would love to hear all about the TERRIBLE MIX-UP that caused you to leave your FAMILY MEMBER on the street IN A BOX. And if you did it on purpose, you’d better pray to every god there is that I never find out who you are, because I will beat your ass with a flaming beehive, you irresponsible, soulless piece of shit who owes me $300 in bloodwork fees.
Tags: city living feline fun times friends masochism orange cats
I wish I could adopt the kitty, unfortunately NY is sort of out of my radius and I’m appallingly allergic to felines. Kitties rock. People who abandon sweet little critters suck my ass.
If/when your arm gets tired or your beehive goes out, I’ll be there with tar and feathers and a broomstick.
But mostly, I hope that he finds a good home.
Dude. I do not have words for how horrified I am.
I’m going to go hug my cat now.
See, I really want to ask, Nicolai? And I only want to ask since you said not to, and that implies a story.
Sucky old owners, a half pill a day was too much for you?
Alas, I’m on a different continent and in a no pet flat. Good luck finding a new home Nicolai.
Sars, if I lived anywhere near NY, I’d take him, and my dogs could just deal with it.
But you deserve a hug (and your $300 back) for picking him up and making sure he was healthy. I am, tragically, too far away and too broke to do either, but . . . someone should.
Poor li’l guy. I’d take him in a heartbeat, but I’m already committed to two kitties coming my way…and I doubt he’d appreciate living with an irritating kitty who pesters everything that moves.
While I can’t adopt him either, I’d like to say thank you for taking such good care of a sweet little guy who needed and deserved it. Between the boyfriend and I, we have six, one of whom goes by the name Big Orange and looks startlingly like your Nikolai there. Orange kitties make some of the sweetest and best-personality pets out there. :)
I admire you for stepping up where most people wouldn’t and doing what his shitty-ass owner did not (excepting of course the TERRIBLE MIX-UP). Three cheers for Sars!
PS – would you accept small contributions towards his vet costs?
I have this cat… the one i’m babysitting… the one crying for dear life in the other room right now because she’s trapped in my 2nd floor walk-up for 2 more days and the sun is shining and the birds are out… that one… free…
okay, my parents wouldn’t like me giving her away, would they? *sigh*
good job sars – you are the rock star that rocks my world…
@Heather: That’s so kind of you — but it’s not necessary. If everyone could just ask around their NYC-area contacts and see if anyone’s interested in a sweet-natured orange boy, that would be great.
Awwwwwww. No room myself at the moment (dammit) but I’ll email it around. My mother might be prevailed upon. Her stripey fat fluffernutter cat Xena could use a buddy.
A friend of mine just moved back to Park Slope last month and got a kitten (adding to the adult cat she already has). If she hadn’t just gotten another cat and a smaller apartment I would have tried to get her to take him. I wish we had room at my house for a fourth :(
One of my fatties is sitting on top of the buffet and hutch right now. I asked her if she wanted another feline in the house…she snarled. (That, and we’re an 8-hour drive from NYC).
It can’t be said enough – you’re good peeps, Sars.
I’m glad YOU found him instead of another person who would not be so kind! My cat’s sleeping on the couch next to me as a good, well-loved cat should be encouraged to do.
From the six cats at my parents’ house (one of whom is also a toothless red tabby and just turned 19!), the four cats at our house, the five not-really-feral neutered strays living in our yard, we are SO rooting for this guy.
If he were shippable to Utah, I would totally put him up in my spare room while you found a permanent.
Props to Sars for doing the (expensive) right thing.
I’d like a swing at that jerk who left Nikolai hanging myself. If I were closer to New York and didn’t live with a very independent and obstinate cat already, I would take him. Since you won’t take help with the vet bills, I’m going to give a little more at donors choose.
Wow. That exact thing happened to me 20 years ago and was the reason I decided on the spot that I would always, ALWAYS help any animal who crossed my path who needed help. I was on my way to work one day in my upscale residential neighborhood and saw a cardboard carrier and a scratching post with a handwritten sign “FREE” on them on the sidewalk outside an apartment building – I stopped to check and there was a live cat in the box. I called in late to work and took him to a private no-kill shelter who accepted him for adoption.
I wondered for years – how long would that cat have sat there in that box on the sidewalk with no food or water until someone stopped to help him? If his owner had come home from work that evening and seen the box there, would he have walked past it? When the box wasn’t there that evening, did he even give a passing thought to what had happened to his cat?
Anyway, my mantra that day became “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
I have a soft spot for orange tabbies (have one myself, Gorgeous Ginger Georgie). I also have a Nikolai, sort of -a Russian Blue named Tsar Nicholas III.
I hope Nikolai finds a great home, but thank goodness you were there to be his safety net. Bless you for stopping to care for him. And I hope you do find out who the a$$hole is who left him, though I doubt you will.
Good call, *Katie*, I think I’ll toss a little more money at Donors Choose in honor of Nikolai’s vet bills and our heroic Sars.
I’m sending this to a NY friend now.
I’d mail you the flaming beehive if I could….
I had to step away from my computer after reading this, because I could feel my heart beating harder and tears welling up in my eyes. WHY would anyone DO that? I live in fear of my two damn fool cats getting out and then lost and being scared and alone, and I cannot imagine intentionally puttting them in harms way like that.
Good luck finding him Nikolai a home. I’ll be rooting for you from the West Coast.
And thank you for doing this. Seriously.
Oh, and here’s hoping Karma shape-shifts a little and is a massive TIGER when she comes a-calling on the fuck-knuckle who did this.
NOOOOOOO.
I mean that in a “Oh, no, I can’t take another cat, no, please” way, not, “nooo I would never take a cat.”
I have 3 now, and one already has a thyroid issue. I can’t afford to take HER to the vet (although she’s been doing well overall, so we’ve been okay, thank god).
I hope you’ll keep us posted. 2 of my 3 cats were given up as adults because they were no longer wanted; 1 was given up because his owners had other more feral cats and he was getting the crap beaten out of him daily. I am a cat lover & reading about Little Joe and … okay, what’s his name … it’ll come to me … Hobey! helped get me prepared to have mine.
You did a good thing, Sars. That’s one less cat out there all alone.
DAMN IT, Sars… that really is a pretty cat.
One of my most beloved cats was 14 years old, 22 pounds, and sans teeth when I adopted her. Obviously a lack of teeth has nothing to do with eating ability. Plus toothless kitties love to have their gums rubbed..if you’re up for that sort of thing. I hope someone gives this guy a chance!
Aw man. He reminds me of a friend’s orange cat named Sesame that I was quite fond of, but that friend would never do anything like this, I’m sure.
If I could take him myself, on the opposite coast and in a no-pet apartment, I would. But I’ll pass this on to NY people I know (though they may have already seen it, I’m pretty sure they read TN).
I wish I wasn’t at max capacity with my own fuzzy orange cat and fuzzy gray kitten. Honestly. I’ve already been asked by a student if I wanted kittens (her family rescued a pregnant stray cat), and it was horribly hard to say no. I am a sucker for cats (see: my two cats), but even if I could afford having him sent all the way here (i.e., about 2000 miles away), my husband would kill me. The kitten was absolutely our last cat until one of the current two passes. The only way I could get another one is if someone dropped it off on my doorstep and I could claim I had no choice.
Good luck finding the little guy a family. He looks like a sweet guy, too. :(
ooooOOOOooooo, yes! Let’s get some Donors Choose donations going for Nikolai!
Let’s see, let’s see. What projects foster good attitudes for animals?
TOUCH TANK! http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=191536&challengeid=18975&zone=0
Birding in TX! http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=202562&challengeid=18975&zone=0
Butterfly garden! http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=199841&challengeid=18975&zone=0
Way to go Nikolai for prompting Donors Choose Donations!
I’m going to give the owner the benefit of the doubt and assume he/she was kidnapped by the Mob en route to the vet and was forced to leave Nikolai behind at gunpoint, since that’s the only reason I can come up with for a decent human being to leave a cat in a box on a street corner. All other explanations point to “soulless piece of shit.”
This post is on its way via e-mail to everyone I know in the NYC area, Sars. I hope Nikolai finds a home.
Honest to God. They left him in the cat carrier? Seriously? Sometimes I am embarrassed to be human.
Some [epithet] abandoned the sweetest little Italian Greyhound in Tampa. The woman who found her couldn’t keep her and my mom who will take in any stray under the sun went RIGHT OVER when they got to talking. Looked like mom’s chihuahua had found a little friend. I showed up the next day from Seattle for a short visit. Right about the time the chihuahua decided he’d had Just. About. Enough. Of. This. Damned. Puppy. She picked me. This dog-hating owner of 3 cats fell in love. So yesterday, after throwing TOO much money all over the damned place, we flew back to Seattle. Where I’ve proceeded to drop MORE money on things like fleecey coats because the 5.4 pound skin-and-bones dear shouldn’t freeze to death when she needs to pee. Not that she’s done that outside yet. *sigh* I think my husband is feeling a bit neglected:)!
Sars,
Wish we were closer than 3000 miles, and not over our lease limit for cats already (lease says 4, we have 5) – I’d take him in a heartbeat. I do have a theory as to why Nikolai was there – I’m guessing someone gave an ultimatum: “Pick the cat, or pick me” and then made sure that “me” was picked, because the cat was gone. You might want to put signs out, and list as “found” just in case some frantic (now single) owner wants him back.
I’m in the DC area and am in the market for a cat. I had intended to wait until after Christmas (I’ll be out of town for a week & and didn’t want to get a cat then immediately have to turn around to arrange for a kitty sitter). However, if no one closer to NY can adopt Nikolai, he’s welcome in my home.
I’m so glad Nikolai had you to rescue him. I’ll chat with my printer and art guy and programmers in NYC tomorrow and see if anyone is willing to be loved by an old guy. My black tabby boys are not ready to share a little one bedroom with one more being.
Sars, bless you for taking responsibility for this kitty cat. I’m in Seattle and already at cat max capacity or I’d take this dude in a heartbeat.
I had an evil bitch of a neighbor who left a kitten on my doorstep in a box years ago. She claimed to know nothing about it but I know it was her. She had had a myriad of cats and dogs that just “didn’t work out” for whatever stupid reason in the few years I’d known her, and she was the only neighbor who knew me well enough to know I had cats. It was an adorable little black Manx kitten and I’d have loved to keep him but I already had 3 in a one-bedroom apt. I had to take the morning off work to find a no-kill shelter that could take him and then make a $50 donation. Luckily, the little dude was only there for like two days (I called to find check on him.) A lovely, rich old
lady saw a picture of him on the shelter website and had a thing for Manx cats and took the ferry over from one of the nearby islands right away to snatch him up. I was so glad he found a happy home!
Sars, I love orange cats & I wish I could take him, but I’m a) in Toronto, so a bit out of range, and b) already owned by a black beastie who can’t tolerate competition, feline, human or other. But big props to you for taking on yet another worthy cause, and if you find the dickwad who abandoned that cute little fuzzyhead, I’ll be happy join in a flame war to shame his worthless arse all over the interwebs.
I’ll forward this to my brother, who lives in NY (and might be calling you about studio space, Sars). I live in FL, which is sad, because I’d come get him tomorrow. My brother has two cats already, one of them orange, but fingers crossed. Maybe my mom would ultimately take him; she lives closer to NY than I do and bro could get him to her. I will pester! And kick a check to Donor’s Choose! And hug my pets!
Oh lord. Good on you. I recently “rescued” a kitten from a neighbor who felt she couldn’t care for him anymore. $$ later (that I was gonna do even if he stayed with her), girlcat hates him, geriatric cat loves him but is…geriatric.
Still, best $$ I ever spent.
Except at 5 am when he’s chewing on my hair.
I linked. I’m too poor to donate to Donors Choose (or…anything), but I’ve got time enough to try to help find a kitty a home.
Thanks so much for doing this. Our #1 cat was a skinny, dirty, pregnant outcast when we got her — she had no particular fear of people, so she clearly was not feral, and she was DELIGHTED to become an indoor-only cat — and I’m so happy we have her, but two years later, I would still take a knife to the assholes who abandoned her. Now she is a sleek, shiny, well padded, affectionate little darling with no future baby-having ahead of her. We placed her girls and kept the boys (gender split not by design), and I second the orange-tabby recommendation. My ginger tabby boy is the most loving little lion you ever did meet.
I join the chorus in saying that you’re ace, Sars. But I’ve got a question too – why do you think he’s got no teeth? I’ve never heard of a cat with none and it sounds awful.
The only thing that mitigates what fucking losers those humans are for ditching the poor thing is you, Bunting, saving him. God, what assholes.
I really do wish I could drive 5 days from SF to NY and back again to bring the little orange one to live with us and our two but it doesn’t seem feasible. Probably better for Nicolai anyway — a NY cat would HATE living in Hippie-Land where we have started yelling, “Shut UP, San Francisco!” out our window.
My goodness, he looks just like my cat Thor, who until very recently weighed eight and a half pounds and who is in the process of having all his teeth pulled one by one due to FOLRD. But we live in Seattle, and Thor is right here draping his tail across my laptop.
OMG, my cat just passed away. I would hold the person who abandoned that cutie down while you got the flaming beehive. I live in CA though.
I can’t- two cats and Wisconsin’s a bit out of Nikolai’s range- but I’m letting the Penny Arcade forums know in case there’s a New Yorker in there hat needs a cat.
I’m half a country away, so all I can do is express my thanks to you for helping Nikolai! There are not enough people left in this world who do, and far too many of the kind who left him.
Any chance you might take him home and convince your existing fur family he is Little Joe’s long lost Russian uncle come to “visit”? Or are they too smart to fall for that?
Oh, Sars. I wish I could; I’m maxed out now with the new boy. Speaking as someone who housed an all-time high of 26 – yes, that’s twenty-six indoor cats, plus the ones we were feeding, not counting over a hundred adult cats, plus countless kittens, that I personally found homes for, fed, neutered, vet bills, all of it – I’ll be happy to hold the bastard while you beat him or her. The hell? Eats, uses the box, friendly, beautiful, needs half a pill a day? And they wouldn’t deal? Yeah, I’ll do the holding for you.
I hate to add my voice to the “too far from NY” crowd, but even more irritating, that picture is exactly what I’ve been looking for in a cat. I love the orange guys.
Sars, if you ever find Nikolai’s original owner, and your arm or your flaming beehive wear out, please send the guilty party “up the river” to me in Albany. I have a mean old TOOTHY orange tiger who wants to see if s/he tastes like chicken, And two other blonde tigers and a calico who will finish up any leftover bits. With four cats already, I’m already about two cats past the line into Crazy Cat Lady territory, so I hope you have swift success in finding a new home for Nikolai. Heaven bless you!
What sort of low-life asswipe dumps a cat?!?!?! Jeezuuuuuuuuus. I also would love to take him – unfortunately I live in Devon. That would be the Devon in South-West England. I hope you find him a good home.
Aw, he’s beautiful. I hope you find him a home soon. It will feel so good when you do — I know from experience:
The Ballad of Bill the Cat
Orange cats really are wonderful… I spent the better part of the day curled up on the couch with my Joey (and my sweetie Derek) yesterday.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You rock!
Good on you, Sars. Seriously, what is WITH some people? I also have a fairly recent abandoned cat rescue story that’s just too long and too sad to relate here. Sometimes I really want to inflict violence on people.