Tiger AKA Dip

The photo above is a picture of my boyfriends cat Tiger. She was a scrawny little thing when I found her, well I should say she found me. This is Tiger's story.

One cold night while I was driving back from my parents house with my son in the back seat listening to a Crazy Frog CD, we pulled into my apartment complexes parking lot around 6 PMish, and I stopped at the huge community dumpster to throw some stuff away before going to the apartment. Away from the loud techno music I heard a lot of car horns coming from the street that runs in front of my complex. I looked around the corner to see what was going on, and I saw this small cat darting in and out of traffic before she finally chose a side of the street. Wanting to get my son home before he witnessed a cat getting squashed by a car I hurried and threw my junk away and jumped back into my car.

As I pulled into my parking place, the same crazy cat that was playing Froger with the cars jumped on the hood of my car and was screaming at me through the windshield! The first thought that came to mind was, this cat has rabbis. After seeing Cujo for the first time that month, I wasn't going to freely expose myself to that mess. I told my son to stay in the car and wait until the crazy cat left then we would hurry inside.

Not wanting to scar my child for life, I didn't explain that I thought she had rabbis, or what rabbis even was. I simply told him, "We don't know this cat, she looks like she might be sick and could be dangerous." My son seemed satisfied with the answer and continued to listen to his music happily as we waited. It didn't take long for the cat to realize we weren't getting out of the car so she moved on to another vehicle that pulled in a few minutes after I had parked. Now, with the cat gone, I hurried my son out of the car and I raced him to the front door - he won of course.

Being the nosey Nate that I am, I wanted to see what this other family would do around this crazy cat, so I stood outside and listened to this other mom hurry her daughter inside their apartment while saying, "I know it's a cat honey. No you don't need to pet it, it's not ours, it needs to go home."

Watching the cats behavior for a few more minutes I realized the cat wasn't sick, she was starving. After grabbing some dry food from the kitchen that I fed my cat Derp, I told my son to stay inside and watch me through the windows if he liked, but not to go outside. I was going to find this cat and help her out, if only for one night at least it was something.

It didn't take me long to find her, with a few loud shakes of the food her little head popped out of a bush and came running across the parking lot. She wasn't scared of me at all. The only thing she was interested in was the food in the bowl I was holding. I placed the bowl on the ground long enough for her to eat a little bit, then I snatched her up and let her eat while I carried her home. She was a filthy mess, covered in grease and dirt and she quickly transferred the mess on her fur to my work shirt.

My cat Derp hadn't seen her yet and I wasn't sure how he would react to another cat since he hadn't been around one since he was a kitten at Petco. I let her eat at the front door so I could scoop Derp up and banish him to the bathroom that was just off the living room, but I left the door cracked a bit after placing a bucket of cat littler beside the door so he couldn't push it open. I didn't want to see what his 25 pound body could do her starved skinny one. He protested a lot which sprung the other cats curiosity so she went to the door and eyed him carefully. Derp didn't really react to her, but he looked at me like I had betrayed him.

Now the question that remained unanswered was whether or not we would keep her. This decision was going to be made by my boyfriend because my job at that time didn't pay a lot. My son was in love with this cat, but before I let him play with her I gave her a nice warm bath with some Dawn soap. As the grease came off her fur, it revealed a beautiful muted calico coat. I thought she was going to be an orange and white tabby, but she was much prettier than that. She didn't seem to mind the bath at all, she protested a few times but there was no flying claws and teeth aimed at my face. After drying her to the best of my ability she found a nice spot in the middle of the living room and began drying herself more.

While she was occupied I checked on Derp who was now sulking by the door, doing what I now call "Vulturing". If a black cloud could have surrounded him to show how angry he was, he would have had one.

Only after she was fully dry did the calico decide to explore, but she only wanted to see Derp. She pawed at him through the door and meowed at him like she wanted to play, but his face said he wanted nothing to do with her. My son asked if we could let Derp out and let them play together, this made me laugh. Playing was the LAST thing I saw them doing, so I made Derp stay in confinement until the calico couldn't take it anymore. She was having an all out fit by the door trying to get at him. So, with much hesitation I removed the litter bucket from the door and let the chips fall where they may.

The door not being blocked anymore changed the mood in the room. It was like the calico knew that he could get to her and vise-versa. At first she only rubbed against the wall and peered in at him once in a while, then she got brave and stuck her head inside the crack. I watched Derp closely, ready to jump in if a fight broke out, but he just ignored her. This upset the calico so she became even bolder and went into the room with him and sniffed at him from a few inches away. This time Derp reacted, putting his ears to the side he hissed at her, but that's where it stopped. Finally getting a reaction out of him the calico jumped into action, rolling on the floor and pawing at him before she jumped him from behind. Derp didn't know how to react to this, so he fell over on his side with his mouth hanging open like a pigmy goat and just lied there. The calico had streaked out of the bath room and ran to the big windows in the living room where she sat watching it snow outside on the windowsill.

My son and I were laugh so hard we were crying, then my phone began to ring - it was my boyfriend. Then I realized his car was sitting outside in his parking spot, he wanted to know if we wanted to get dinner up in the city. Knowing he hadn't seen the calico sitting in the window, I asked him to come inside because there was something I needed to show him. He sounded suspicious as she replied with a long, "Okay..." and to be fair, he had every reason to be suspicious. He was always prying me away from pet stores in the mall because I wanted another pet, but he always told me our next pet was going to be a dog because he wanted a husky. I grabbed the kitten off the windowsill so she wouldn't escaped when he came inside and sat with her in my chair, my son was excitedly giggling up a storm beside me.

When my boyfriend came in he wasn't looking at me at first, but as he engaged the deadbolt in the door and his gaze slowly focused on me he realized I was holding another cat. He paused for a long moment before asking me where I got the kitten from, his second question was, "Did you pay for it?" I explained to him what happened after I got home, and how I couldn't leave her out there in the cold while she was already starving. He sighed deeply and walked away from me, he paused at the bathroom door and saw Derp still lying in there paralyzed from the calicos previous attack, and asked if Derp had seen her yet. After explaining another long story of why Derp was lying on the floor in that particular position, my boyfriend laughed and said, "I'm starting to like this cat a little more now." At these words my son was rejoicing that we were going to keep her, saying things like, "Yes, now I have my own cat!" But my boyfriend corrected him quickly saying if we kept her, she would be His cat because mommy already has a cat. My son was a little upset, but feeling hopeful that would get to keep the kitten even if she wasn't his, made him happy.

My boyfriend took her from me and he began petting her and talking to her and she meowed at him cutely absorbing all the attention he was showering on her. After sighing again he said he would think about keeping her. He would give her 3 days to be with us, and if she was too much to handle and Derp absolutely couldn't get along with her, he was taking her to a no-kill shelter.

Well, 3 days turned into a week and he kept saying he was still thinking about keeping her. Then one week turned into two weeks and cat toys, collars, and leashes started appearing in the mail. I asked him what all the cat stuff was for, and he never really gave me an answer, but I could tell he was attached to that little cat, and we would be her forever home.

He decided to call her Tiger, but like every cat, you name them one thing but you really should have named them something else. My cat Derp was given his name because he really is a derpy cat. As lovey and wonderful as he is, he's very clumsy and well, derpy.

So Tiger is also called Dip because she gets herself into a lot of precarious situations. After the first month of having her, she ended up on top of our refrigerating eye-balling the paneling around the top of the door calculating whether or not she could sit on it. While she was testing the waters, she stretched herself out so far she couldn't get her upper body back to the refrigerator so she ended up falling and smacking her gut on our trashcan that sat by that door. That, among countless other scenarios, is why we call her Dip.

I'm happy to say she isn't that skinny little kitten anymore. She is still small compared to Derp, but they get along most of the time. Tiger is the princess of the house for sure. She has so much character, she's really the best fit for my boyfriend. I'm so happy he decided to keep her that cold December night, she truly completes our family.