Officially, he is Lucky Leonardo, a.k.a. His Royal Highness, or in moments of troublemaking, His Royal Butt-licker. The rest of the time, he is Leo, Gato, or Li’l Buddy. He adopted us right after Covid started in 2020. When he first started hanging around our house, he was small and rib-counting scrawny. Our best guess was that he was about three months old – a kitten, really. The vet corrected us. He was over a year old and so emaciated that his growth was stunted. Most of the pictures of that time drive me to tears. But I’m getting ahead of myself… Let me back up a bit.
S always wanted a cat. After our shenanigans with our last cat (before S was born), we were left with a sour taste in our mouths. Yoda was the kind of cat that made us keep our door shut at night in fear that she would eat us in our sleep. That’s not being dramatic. She was the hunter extraordinaire and wanted nothing more than to bite, claw, and chew her way through any and all unprotected appendages. We had held out for years, reminding S that we don’t need pets.
There are a number of loose cats in our neighborhood. One of the neighbors behind our subdivision lets their critters wander free and breed indiscriminately. All of the animals are treated poorly, causing the authorities to be called many times, to no avail. This poor, scrawny, hungry kitten showed up at our back door. S went outside to pet it, because that’s her groove. Cat = Friend. Cross-legged on the ground, she held out a welcoming hand. The ragged critter laid it’s head in her hand and closed its eyes. Call me a sucker, but I couldn’t say no after that. It might not have been official at that moment, but it was definitely the beginning.
First order of business was going to the vet. He was in bad shape. He had an abscess on his back from what appeared to be from a dog attack. (For the people with all the animals, they let the dogs “play” with the cats however they want. After all, what’s one cat, more or less?) We saved his life. We couldn’t save them all, but we could save him. He came away with his back fixed, a microchip, a couple of missing parts that have him meowing soprano, and a real home.
Leo is by far the most chill cat I have ever seen in my life. Technically, he is S’s cat, but when I get home from work, he abandons her and follows me around like a puppy until I sit down. Once I have settled, he curls up in my lap and does the same. The only things that will rouse him are if I move to dislodge him or there is the promise of food. He has blossomed into a very healthy boy, black from his whiskers to his toe beans and just a few white hairs like the first stars of the evening popping out into the night sky.
Leo might have started as an abused and starved kitty, but he has saved us just as much as we saved him. His purr is easy to come, and if you scratch under his chin, he goes all warm butter on you. There are signs that he remembers his past. He is scared of plastic bags, beer bottles, and very loud noises. I understand how that goes. A bad year can really set one back, human and gato alike. We may not be the same species, but we “get” each other. Sometimes, that’s all you need. That, and scritches under the chin in just that spot.
