I will continue to post new comments, photos, videos, etc about Anubis and me until Dkos locks comments for this thread, so please come back regularly to see the new things I post.
I’m dealing with a major psychic trauma with the death of my cat Anubis that goes far beyond just the loss of a cat.
Anubis and I had a deeper relationship.
Anubis was a cat and I was his human.
Anubis would not have lived beyond young kittenhood if not for me.
Anubis live with my late Dog Norman York Tzu, so named because I named him for Norman Bate from the movie Psycho. This was because tiny baby norman would chase his then adult brother Herbie York Tzu around the house. The spectacle of a baby puppy barely able to walk chasing an adult dog around made me think he was psycho.
I named Anubis after the Egyptain god. This started a trend of me naming off my cats after egyptian gods, Anubis, Apophis, Ma’at, and Khonsu.
I have to dredge up memories of Anubis from these days.
Anubis was with me when Dad was dying and then after Dad died.
There were times after Dad was gone when I struggled with my financial security. I worked long and late hours in great physical stress for minimum wage for awhile. I would come home at dawn to a freezing house at about 50 degrees F inside. I often did not use the heater to save my megar income. I would sit in Dad’s recliner with Anubis lying on me, in the cold shivering, and crying in the still fresh grief of losing Dad and the utter aloneness of my life at the time. The warmth and weight of my purring kitty helped me to keep going because if i failed, his fate would not be good.
Anubis had three separate self-imposed exiles, any of which would have resulted in his death as a feral, without me catching him each of the three self-imposed exiles.
The first exile was when I brought home baby Apophis and Anubis responded to the tiny kitten by leaving the house and refusing to come back in. I finally managed to catch him after feeding him while he was outside.
The second, and longest exile, was about 4 years. Exile two began when Delight’s puppy Fenris, then about a year old, snapped at Anubis, who was then chased out of the house by the pack of puppies. I had to feed him by putting cat food on the front porch. This resulted in attracting ferals as well as Anubis. I only saw Anubis in these years rarely. At one point I had not actually seen or heard Anubis for about 8 months and wondered if he was alive anymore. I finally proved Anubis was still alive by using a digital camera trail camera with motion sensor, and I got both stills and videos of Anubis eating. Anubis remained in self-imposed exile until I managed to catch him again, and bring him inside to stay in the large animal cage I put in the living room.
The thrid, and shortest self-imposed exile happened when, after living in the cage for awhile, he ran out the back door at a moment of trusting he would not run outside, but he did. Anubis quickly ran under the house as he could not get over the fence due to his hip and back problems. I put food under the house, but I could not catch him. I used the trail cam to document Anubis going in and out from under the fence, but he did not come back into the house, even after days. So I put a live trap down with the trail cam next to the trap with a view inside. Anubis went in and out of the trap to get the food bait, and the alarm would go off, but he would somehow not trigger the trap. I don’t know if it was a problem with the trap or Anubis’s just didn’t step on the trap. I got to so I didn’t check the trap every time I heard the alarm. Then one night while in bed, I heard the alarm go off. As it was late and dark, I went back to sleep and went to the trap the next morning. I expected another empty trap, but this time Anubis was in the trap. Review of the trap video shows he spent much of the night in the trap, not being very happy. I was sad that Anubis had a trap trauma, but I felt it was necessary as it would have been bad for him to live under the house in isolation, and perhaps exposed to feral cats who attacked him.
The rest of his life was spent in the house.
When I had my leg injury and was in the hospital and then rehab for about a month, Anubis was alone in the cage. I had a couple of friends who came by and fed the dogs and Anubis, but Anubis was not receptive to them and refused to interact. After a month away, I came home and the first thing I did was get Anubis out of the cage and I just held and hugged him as he was limp and unalert. He was not sick, just the month in isolation had shocked him. He slowly came to understand I was there and I was back. Then I had to wait for the four dogs and the other three cats to come back inside the house to find me back and the other strangers were gone.
I put a harness on him and linked a series of about 6 to 8 bungie leashes so that he could go where he wanted in the house. Sometimes I’d closed the back door and undo all but one leash so Anubis could walk around almost unrestricted I left the one leash because I figured that i he tried to run, it would be easier to step on the leash than try to grab him. Had Anubis had a harnes qnd leash, he might not have succeeded in running out for self-imposed exile three. On the other hand, the trap trauma, sad as it was, might have been the reason he was reluctant to leave the house again, even when I carried him outside myself.
Anubis became the king of my lap and dominator of the house. Nobody messed with him because he was not shy about giving the dogs that didn’t treat him with respect with pawful of claws, and Dorcas in particular got swatted multiple times.
Now that Anubis, his huge dominant presence is gone. The other dogs and Apophis are taking advantage of the new open territory. Apophis is much more affectionate and squeezable than Anubis. Anubis wanted rugs, but didn’t like being picked up much whereas Apophis is a completely pliable kitty.
Khonsu had been jumping up on the arm of the chair, even when Anubis was on me, for rubs. Even Ma’at, much shyer, would occasionally jump on the chair on for rubs. I wonder if in time, both Ma’at and Khonsu will be lying on me like Anubis used to do and Apophis does now.
The above I will include in Anubis’s biography.
Watch for it
#jtg
Anubis on Dad’s 84th Birthday
