Technologist For Hire

In Memory.

After months of searching and sifting through all of the cats available to us, we found the perfect one. On June 18th, 2009 we were delighted to meet a cat named Abby. She was a 1 year old Abyssinian cat. Shortly after meeting her for the first time we, my Fiance Katie and I, instantly fell in love with her. We almost did not have enough cash to cover the adoption fee, but realized we could buy a candy bar and get cash back at the register! $50 later, and $50 more in toys, she was ours. We thought long and hard about what we should name her. Katie came up with “ZULA”, because it was the name of the first ever Abyssinian cat and also reminded her of Zuul from Ghostbusters. We brought her home and the first thing she did was hide from us. She hid so well that it took us over an hour to find her. For the next 3 days she constantly hid from us, and I even thought she had escaped a few times or jumped into some of the open a/c ducts, but we always ended up finding her in the strangest of places.

We would put her in the bathroom when we left for extended periods of time, to keep her from getting into anything (we were renovating our house at the time). She began to sleep in the bathtub each night, it was so cute. She slept in the bathtub for the first week we had her.

As she began to hide less and less from us over the next few days, we began to notice hat she had a peculiar smell about her. I thought it was her nerves, and Katie thought maybe she was just dirty from her foster home. We tried to get the smell out with pet wipes, but that did not work. We eventually decided to take her for her first vet visit once the smell wouldn’t go away and her ear began to bother her. Turns out she had an ear infection, which was causing the smell… ew. We were given a liquid penicillin and told to “just squirt it in her mouth each morning and night”. We attempted to give her the medicine directly from the syringe several times, using various methods found on the Internet, but we generally ended up with more scratches and penicillin on us than we wanted. We eventually tried mixing it with her food, which the doctor said she would hate, but she actually loved it and ate all of her medicine. We didn’t think the liquid penicillin did anything tho, so we bought a fungicide from PetsMart and sprayed it on her ear a few times a day. Within 2 weeks her ear was healed! She was still bothered by it tho, and would make a crazy meow noise and violently shake her head from time to time. Katie would call her a Demon when she did this. Katie thought she was possessed by demons and this was her way of trying to get them out of her head. Turns out she just needed regular cleaning of her ears to keep the demons away!

Zula decided she was going to sleep on Katie’s computer chair, whether Katie needed it or not. We would always find her on the chair, night or day. Katie decided to make her a bed, so she found an awesome fabric, and put it on the chair so Zula would get used to it. After making the bed, we realized it was a bit too small, but Zula didn’t mind. Zula slept in her new, small bed, with her hands sticking out.

She looked uncomfortable, but always came back to it. Zula loved small, enclosed spaces. She really loved cardboard boxes! We were renovating the house, and a lot of the furniture and the entire kitchen was from Ikea. Well, Ikea packages everything in cardboard boxes, so we had HUNDREDS of cardboard boxes. Zula always climbed on top of the piles of boxes, and it was as if she was exclaiming “These are mine! I own them!” She would also frequently step into a box, even if it was too small. She really did enjoy cardboard boxes, more than anything. We saw those corrugated cardboard scratching blocks at the pet store and decided to make our own out of Ikea corrugated blocks that we found. We glued them together and gave it to Zula. Instead of just scratching on it (which she did EVERY morning before jumping into bed with us) she also just loved to sit on it. I called it her boat, because it looked like she was sailing on our carpet. I wrote on the side of it “S.S. Zular”, and it became her very own little boat.

Katie and I would take walks around our neighborhood, and noticed lots of cats that would be outside in their owner’s lawn, or sitting on a window sill looking outside. We called these lawn kitties and window kitties. We considered Zula a window kitty because she was always sitting on our window sills, looking out at the world. She would also growl at people as they walked by, just like a dog. She was a good guard cat! Every time we came home from a trip, she would be waiting in a window, watching for us. Then she would get down, run to the door, and meet us there. She always seemed to miss us when we were gone, or even going to the bathroom. Every time we went into the bathroom, and closed the door, she would wait right outside for us, and then roll on her back when we got out.

Not only did she guard us, but she also tried to guard our pet hamster, Hammy. Well, guard or try to eat, not sure. Every night after she played with us, and after she bolted from one end of the house to another wearing herself out, she would go lay next to our hamster’s cage. Zula would sometimes paw at the cage when Hammy was on his wheel, but she never tried to get inside the cage. She was just curious about the little furry ball that she couldn’t play with.

Zula would greet us every morning by jumping into bed, before we were awake, and poking her face into Katie’s. She would do it until one of us woke up and fed her. She was always asking us to feed her, even if we already did. Sometimes I wouldn’t feed her before work, on purpose, just so she would go bother Katie more and get her out of bed (Katie loves to sleep in!), and it always worked. Zula would also trick us into trying to feed her more by asking both of us to feed her, at different times. She was sneaky!! Whenever it was time to eat, she would come running from wherever she was.

On Zula’s 1st birthday, we allowed her to choose her own food. We put all of the flavors in front of her, and she eventually touched one and meowed. It was Turkey & Giblets.

During the day, and at night, we would sometimes sing songs to Zula, which always resembled the Mean Kitty song on YouTube and various other songs that we could fit “Zula” or “Zulacat” in to. Zula would also sometimes sing us a song, modeled after the 1936 Merry Melodies cartoon/song “I Love To Singa“.

Zula interacted with us every chance she got. She was very very affectionate and loved our company. Zula especially enjoyed playing with Katie, because Katie “let” her play-bite her fingers. Zula would never play-bite me, but always Katie. Zula also found that Katie’s stomach was the best place to lay, besides her tiny bed. At least once a day, Zula would rest on Katie, and a few times she layed on my back. I guess we were warm and squishy! We had this game we would play with her at night, we would move our feet under the covers and Zula would race to catch them, and then bite our toes through the covers once she did. That was her favorite game ever.

And of course, Zula found all of the toys that we bought for her to be very fun. Everything from the 4 tiny mice, to the homemade boat, and the crackly tunnel we bought from Ikea. They were all her favorites, and she would make her way through each and every toy during the day. Eventually throwing them into a vent or under a couch, where she couldn’t find them. We would always pull them back out for her though.

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Zula was a cat filled with love, and filled with energy. Everyday she was with us she enhanced our lives. Katie and I were very attached and fell deeply in love with Zula. Her last few days were hard for her and us. We did everything we could to make sure she was in as little pain as possible.

On Saturday, the 29th of August, 2009, Zula switched where she slept suddenly. She decided to sleep in Katie’s closet behind a shoe rack. Rather than thinking this was odd, we simply thought it was a fun new place that Zula found to hide/sleep. Monday morning at 8:15am I was leaving for work early, so I did not have time to feed Zula. I knew she would wake up Katie shortly with her usual “Feed me!” routine. As I was leaving, I saw Zula jump onto the bed to wake up Katie. 45 minutes later, at 9:00am, I received a call from Katie while I was at work. She said that Zula had puked 3-4 times and was breathing funny. As the morning progressed she was not getting better, so I took a half day from work and we got her to the Vet by 3:00pm. The vet did not see anything too serious and sent us home with Penicillin and gave her an anti-vomit drug. Zula appeared better and was responding playfully, but was extremely lethargic and not eating her normal amount of food. We thought a good nights rest would allow her to recover.

On the morning of September 1st, 2009, Zula woke us up at 6:30am with a loud cough. We found her and noticed she was in extreme stress and had very labored breathing. We immediately looked up an Emergency 24/7 Animal Care center and rushed her to it. We found out that Zula was born with a rare congenital heart defect, tiny veins around her heart that could only support the heart up to a certain age, which caused her to have congestive heart failure. As her heart began to fail, it filled her left lung with liquid and poorly processed her oxygen. She slowly, and suddenly, began to deteriorate. Zula was put into an oxygen tank to help her breathing and blood-oxygen level.

Katie and I were absolutely devastated, horrified, and in shock. Zula was dying, and there was absolutely no signs and no way of fixing her. We had to make a decision. If they could stabilize her, she would still routinely go into heart failure and be required to take medication for the rest of her shortened life. We did not want Zula to have to suffer and be in pain all the time. We also never wanted her to have to go through this stress and pain ever again.

At 12:45pm on September 1st, 2009, Katie and I made the decision to put Zula to sleep. At 1:00pm, in my arms and with Katie’s hand petting her softly on the head, Zula slowly fell asleep and her pain went away. Her heart was fixed and she was in a better place.

Zula Cat Flickinger: July 2008 – September 1, 2009; God Speed.

Zula was put to rest next to a rose bush in our backyard. She was buried in her favorite, a cardboard box, which we wrote “S.S. Zular II / We will always love you! / – Katie & Christian / Zula 7-15-08 thru 9-1-09″ on, with her favorite stuffed mouse toy. We laid some roses on top of the grave and said some kind words.

• You can view our Zula photo/video archive here: Katie’s Flickr Zula Set
• You can contact me on twitter @spooons and Katie @redthreaddiy
• Please, adopt a cat! You can find rescue information here: ASPCA Shelter Locator
• Donations in Zula’s honor can be made to the ASPCA through their website: ASPCA.org/Donate