Tribute to A Tuxedo
(Or “How A Random Stray Made Me A Cat Dude”)
by John Tonetti
Pictures by John and Jacqueline Tonetti
We didn’t think of ourselves as “cat people”, so it was serendipitous that he found us at all. Winnie, our miniature dachshund, and ripped out a nail navigating the sliding glass door, and Jackie had taken her to the vet in Pocopson for treatment. There she found a smallish tuxedo cat in a large cage. He needed a home.
The story was that he was young male, probably between three and five years old, and to Jackie he seemed very friendly. One of the vet techs had come across him in Wilmington and after unsuccessfully trying to find an owner surmised that he was either lost or abandoned. It was near an apartment building, so it was likely the latter.
I was in my office when Jackie sent me a text. “What would you think of adopting a cat who needs a home?”
“Sure!” I replied, with no hesitation. I have no idea of what prompted me to embrace this idea. We’d had a series of dogs during our marriage, but never a cat or even a desire for one. Winnie was the culmination of this series of dogs, and she never seemed to want to have an animal friend other than the occasional brief encounter with another dog. I called Jackie and she described the situation. I was sold.
The next morning, I asked when she planned to pick up the cat. “I don’t know about this anymore… I’m having second thoughts,” she replied.
“You can’t change your mind” I said. “I’m invested in this now. I really think we should take him,” although all I’d seen of him was a picture of him in a cage. We hadn’t met. Jackie relented, and when I came home that night, I met him. He was on the smallish side, and we bonded pretty quickly. Because he was very nattily attired in an almost perfectly symmetrical tuxedo style, except for a splash of white across his muzzle, we decided to name him “Snazzy”. He was a very snazzy cat. I came to have a lot of names for him: Snazz. Snazzy. Snazzlepuss… the Razzledazzlepuss… the Hardly-Any-Hassle-Puss… The King of the Castle Puss.
We set aside a room for him to be in at night, complete with a rudimentary feeding station (a desk, a placemat, and a couple of bowls), and a litter box. But otherwise, he had the run of the townhouse when we were home. It was clear early on that he had decided I was “his person.” I fed him and cleaned his litter box. He loved to sit on the stairs and watch us from above and when we’d watch TV, he’d slip through the bannister and sit on the back of my wing chair until he would gradually come to rest on my legs for most of the evening. When we’d take Winnie for a walk, he’d sit in the upstairs window watching for our return then come down to greet us, always first checking to make sure Winnie returned intact. Snazzy loved Winnie. Winnie tolerated Snazzy.
The cat-and-dog relationship was very one-sided. Winnie tolerated Snazzy, but there was little doubt that Snazzy loved Winnie. Occasionally, Snazzy would entice Winnie to chase him, but it was always short-lived. Snazzy was much quicker and Winnie much too lazy. Nevertheless, Snazzy always watched for Winnie and seemed very concerned when Winnie was not around.
Snazzy didn’t meow. Instead, he made this weird sound that sort of came from the back of his throat. “Eh, eh, eh.” I once blithely said “Maybe no one taught him” and it became sort of a family joke. He also didn’t purr much, and when he did, it was barely audible. You could feel it when petting him though. I know that cats don’t typically “meow” to other cats, but I’ve also been told that sometimes they make that strange sort of sound because their vocal cords were damaged; usually by someone kicking them in the throat. I have no idea of Snazzy’s story on his “eh, eh, eh”, but it was always a special treat when would cuddle and purr.
Snazzy almost always greeted visitors. He would come galloping from wherever he was in the house to check things out and was usually the first to greet us if we’d been out. And he was always the only creature in my house that would respond when I called their names.
But Snazzy was far from a perfect cat. For one thing, he seemed to get aggravated if he was petted for too long. Rather than just leave my lap he would first show his displeasure by giving me a quick bite. Ow! I eventually learned to sort of read him and would usually stop petting him before I got a bite. At that point, I would just let him use my hand to sort of pet himself, but that was the extent of my participation. Jackie was less cautious and was quite often a victim of Snazzy’s wrath. One time, she accidentally stepped on his tail and he gave her calf a nasty bite. But it was Jackie who discovered Snazzy’s greatest pleasure: he loved to be brushed. It became a bit of a nightly ritual when Jackie returned from walking Winnie. Snazzy would plunk himself down in Winnie’s bed by the back door and stutter his “Eh, eh, eh”, begging her to brush him. Jackie would almost always relent.
We learned early, too, that Snazzy was also “a runner”. I have nothing against outdoor cats, but a cat’s life expectancy is a lot longer if they are kept inside, so Snazzy was kept as an “indoor cat”. But if a door was left open long enough, Snazzy would make a bolt for “freedom”. We sometimes had to entice him out from under the porch or bring out his favorite toy; a “mouse” on a string to corral him. One time he made a run for it, and Jackie caught him by the tail just as he was going over the back fence. They were in a stand-off… Jackie was restraining Snazz by the tail… Snazz holding on to the fence trying to make a break for it… until I came and rescued both of them.
Snazzy’s greatest fault was that he was a “pisser”. Yeah… he’d mark (or try to) anything that caught his fancy. We discovered it early, and it was only my pleading that saved Snazzy from being returned to the vet. I pledged to break him of this unpleasant habit, and I tried everything… deep cleaning and deodorizing where he’d sprayed to remove his “mark”; cat pheromones so he’d feel secure; CBD so he’d feel mellow; different litters in case he found their odor off-putting… we even had him on Prozac for a while, which did nothing but make him dozy. He particularly liked to spray Jackie’s bathroom. Eventually we learned to live with it, and it diminished, although he was never cured. It was just part of Snazzy that we learned to live with because we loved him, but it was always a discovery entailing both anger and disappointment. Jackie added a new name for him. She called him “the Pain-In-The-Assle Puss”.
Within 5 months of Snazzy joining us we moved to our small house in Silver Spring. I’m told that uprooting cats is very stressful for them, and we made sure to give him plenty of attention. But in changing homes, we lost all of Snazzy’s spaces. There were no stairs for him to watch from, and we’d given away the wing chair that he loved to sit on. Snazzy decided that Winnie’s beds were good spots, and moved in. It didn’t seem to matter to Winnie, and she tolerated this invasion of her space, although at times she would look at us with an exasperated look as if to say, “What is going on here?” Eventually, Snazzy found his own places: the large front picture window over the kitchen table (yes, he would sometimes sit there through meals); any windowsill he could access; and the back of the living room couch. For Christmas 2016, Jackie and my daughter bought “me” a cat tree with a perch from which Snazzy could watch the world outside. We augmented it with a heating pad, and it became one of his favorite spots as well as later, where he was fed.
Snazzy was ever vigilant on what was going on around our house. In Spring 2017, Snazzy alerted us that a female feral cat and two of her kittens had taken up residence beneath a shed we’d erected when we moved there. As it turned out, we had a lot of feral cats in our area, and I started trapping them. The kittens we put up for adoption, but the more mature cats are usually too feral for homing. I connected with some local cat rescue people and learned about “TNR”, a program through which feral cats are trapped, neutered, and returned to their places of origin. The neutering controls the population, and the former “ferals” become “community cats”; generally looked after by people in the neighborhood. We took to caring for three of them on a daily basis. The original feral mom was a beautiful tortoise shell we called “Meryl (the Feral), and two males we believe were her kittens: an orange tabby we dubbed “Gingerpuss” and a white and orange tabby we called “Ringo” because of the rings on his tail.
It turned out we had a lot of cat life in our area, and over the course of time I TNR’d another five mature cats and had 13 kittens that were adopted out through the Humane Society. Meryl and her offspring were regulars around our house, getting fed twice a day and lounging outdoors. We had a shelter and feeding station made for our outdoor cats. Snazzy made friends with them and would come and greet them at feeding time through the glass door. All the windowsills in the house became “Snazzy places”. He would sit in almost every one of them so he could observe our “outdoor cats” and the rest of the world. Eventually, Snazzy’s desire to be part of the outside world, and our desire not to let that happen, prompted us to build a “catio” off the back of the house. It was a small, screened-in structure in which Snazzy could sit “outside”, accessing it through a window at the back of the house. He would spend hours there, sleeping and observing his domain.
into the catio. The cats would get in by jumping up on an inside table at
windowsill height, and then entering through a window. It was very hard to
keep the catio closed for long.
In the Fall of 2018, tragedy struck Snazzy. One Saturday morning, he was unable to stand or walk and seemed to be having convulsions. Jackie rushed him to the vet. Among other things, the vet did an X-ray that revealed that Snazz was not at all “a young male”, but rather a very senior citizen. She estimated that he was at least 15 years old and advised us that we should get Snazzy’s affairs in order as he probably had a stroke and would likely not live much longer. I was devastated. By this time, I thought that Snazzy was probably 7 or 8 at the outside, so I thought he would be around for a long time. Now, the vet was telling me that he probably wouldn’t last more than a few months, if that. She gave me some gabapentin and some antibiotics to help with seizures and help him to be comfortable.
I had a hard time accepting this. Desperately, I called my cousin Tim, who was a retired veterinarian. I was sure that our vet was wrong. After describing Snazzy’s symptoms to him, he told me that it was pretty tough to tell a cat’s age but described how their spines change with age and that it was likely that Snazzy was an old cat. But then he also suggested that we could try being more aggressive with the gabapentin and forgo the antibiotics, thinking a reaction to those might have caused the seizures. As he said, we had nothing to lose… Snazzy seemingly had one foot in the grave already.
I decided to go with the treatment that offered some hope; namely that prescribed by my cousin. For a while, the outlook was very bleak. One day, we could not find Snazzy as we searched through the entire house. Finally, we found him holed up on a bag in my closet, far removed from his usual spots, alone and away from everything. Every cat person I knew told me that was not a good sign… that’s what cats do when they’re about to die. But Snazzy and I persisted. He took his pills, and eventually began to show signs of recovery. Within a few weeks, Snazzy had mostly recovered and we’d dropped the dosage down to nothing. Snazzy was pretty much back to his old self. He’d run through the house with a slightly sideways lope, and every once in a while, he’d have a tremor in his left front paw, but other than that, he was back… biting on occasion, spraying on occasion but way too often, nuzzling an aloof and reluctant Winnie, and monitoring the neighborhood from his various vantage points.
In August 2019, one of my neighbors came to the door. I had become the neighborhood “cat dude” and he’d found a small female stray in the parking lot at a nearby 7-11. He wanted me to do something with it. I was a bit miffed; he could have just as easily taken it for TNR as I could. But I wanted to be sure she was well-treated so I agreed to hold her until the local cat rescue folks could take care of her. We put her in the shed with a bed and some food and water and checked on her often. But she was a very engaging critter; skinny, sort of scraggly looking, but very friendly and she purred like a motor when she was stroked. The cat rescue people had her checked out, spayed, and got her shots, but they had no room to keep her. They asked if we could foster her until they found a home for her.
Now, I was born at night, but not last night. I knew fostering was a scam for most people. You get this animal, you fall in love with it, and before you know it, it’s not a foster anymore… it’s your animal. And so it was that Sabrina entered Snazzy’s life. She was a tuxedo as well, and it was sometimes difficult to tell the two cats apart. We introduced them and we could tell Snazzy was not pleased. Sabrina followed him around, would try to entice him to play, take his spots… sort of the same thing that Snazzy did with Winnie. Sabrina loved Snazzy, and where Snazzy went so did Sabrina. She grew to be much bigger than Snazz but was almost always deferential to him. For the most part, they became fast friends. Where Snazzy would go, Sabrina would soon follow. They would share the perch, the catio… everything. They would race through the house; Snazzy chasing Sabrina in one direction, and then both cats reversing course with Sabrina chasing Snazzy.
March 11, 2020 marked the “Dad’s here all the time” phase of our household. The pandemic struck, and I was fortunate enough to be able to work from the house. I think at first, the animals, particularly the cats, found this to be inconvenient. I made noise interrupting their sleep, and would walk around to stretch, stopping to annoy them by petting them or looking to see what they were doing. Soon though, they began to take advantage of me. Winnie would want to go out more often, and the cats were constantly wanting to go into the catio, out of the catio, then run though the house to observe their TNR friends outside. Almost every day, sometime between 2 and 3pm, Snazz would come to where I was working and jump, climb, or give me an “eh, eh, eh…” wanting to be lifted onto my lap for a cuddle and some stroking. He would listen to my conference calls, and eventually they would bore him enough that he would jump off and go amuse himself. It became something that I looked forward to, and often marked the wind down of the day.
because he insisted on using the caps lock, but
on multiple occasions he was successful at getting iTunes
to play, usually in the middle of the night.
That was our household. We had a young cat who loved an old cat much more than the old cat loved the young cat, and an old cat who loved the dog much more than the dog loved the old cat. But all of them got along, and all of them looked out for each other. The pandemic meant a reduction in travel and going out, so the animals were rarely left on their own for very long or very often. The couple of times Jackie and I did go away, as COVID fears diminished and we started to resume a bit of normalcy, we took Winnie with us and left the cats in the care of our pet sitter, Liz. I continued to work from home, and we had a daily routine. I’d get up, feed the indoor cats, feed the outdoor cats, the indoor cats would come greet the outdoor cats, then I’d feed Winnie. The day would go by, Snazzy would make his afternoon visit, then I’d feed again in reverse order in the evening. We’d evolved to where we’d feed Snazzy on top of his perch to keep his food away from Sabrina, and other than some minor thyroid issues, he was fine. He had a checkup at the beginning of November 2021, and we adjusted his medication down. Occasionally, we’d Snazzy just sitting and staring, as though contemplating what to do next, but otherwise, Snazzy seemed to be in good health. Jackie and I had no qualms about leaving all the animals in Liz’s care for a Thanksgiving reunion with her family near Myrtle Beach, NC.
Another of Snazzy’s favorite spots, the “donut” and favorite
positions. He’d peek up over it around bedtime to check out
where everyone was going before joining us.
We left on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and for the first two days all was well. But on Saturday morning, Jackie received an early text from Liz. Snazzy was under the chair in my office when she went to feed him and seemingly not doing well. He drank a bit of water but didn’t eat. He was now in his heated “donut” bed, resting, with Sabrina “tending” to him. I wasn’t terribly concerned, as there had always been times since his 2017 incident that Snazzy had been slow to start the day, but he’d rally later. Liz was going out for a bit, and she’d let us know how Snazzy was when she returned and take him to the vet if we thought it necessary. In Myrtle Beach, I climbed on my bike to go for a short ride. I was almost finished with my ride when I suddenly thought “I hope Snazzy’s okay”. Of course, I always had that in the back of my mind when he was “slow to start” but I thought it weird that it would suddenly jump into my head. I cut the ride short and went back to the place we were staying.
I was hardly in the door when Jackie grabbed me. “Liz wants us both to call her.” Now, I was quite concerned.
“When I came back, Snazzy had gone to sleep” Liz said. It didn’t register.
“What?” I thought. She wanted us to call her because Snazzy was sleeping? Then I looked at Jackie and it hit me. Snazzy was gone. He had died peacefully in his “donut”, one of his favorite places, warm and safe. For an old stray like the Snazzlepuss, I supposed it could have been a lot worse. We asked Liz to cover him in his bed with his blanket from his perch, and I would take care of him when got home on Sunday.
The rest of the weekend was horrible for me. I really just wanted to go see my cat... my friend. The drive home was slow and painful. When we arrived, I went straight to his catio where Liz had put him in his bed, lifted the blanket, and sobbed. “Stupid cat”, I thought… “I’m a basket case over a stupid cat.” But he was more than a cat to me. He was my friend… my companion. And there was no question… I was his person.
I had a hard time sleeping Sunday night, knowing that Monday would be the worst part. I got up, and the first thing I saw was Snazzy’s picture on our digital frame. I got Sabrina’s food dish, filled it, and took it to the “cat’s room”, tapping the perch like I always did to tell Snazz his food was there. When I took food to the outdoor cats, I looked at the perch to see if Snazzy was eating, like I always did. My routine had always included constantly checking on Snazzy but now it was wasted motion. I felt totally empty.
When I called the vet to ask them how to bring Snazz, I could hardly talk. I wept on the drive to the vet and bawled when I lifted Snazzy for the last time and put him in the tech’s blanket. “Goodbye, my friend. Thank you.”
It’s been a few days since Snazzy died, and I still tear up thinking of him. I figure that he was with us for maybe a third of his life, and people tell me he was lucky to have had us. I’m more inclined to feel we were lucky to have had him. He was a special cat, at least to us. I miss him not coming into my office… “Eh, eh, eh” … “Lift me up”. Sabrina looks for him. Any noise and she runs to see if he’s there. But unhappily, he’s only here in spirit, and in our hearts.
Some people believe that animals have a sixth sense. They need this to be more perceptive because unlike humans, who try to control their environment, animals need to adapt to their environments. They need to be more perceptive to adapt to it; to determine who is a friend and who is a foe; who is weak, and who is strong. Perhaps Snazzy knew he would be leaving soon. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that he jumped into a rainbow bag a few days before he crossed the rainbow bridge. But a night or two before we left, Snazzy climbed in my lap and sat and let me stroke him for a very long time. There was nothing unusual about a nightly cuddle, but this one went on for much longer than usual and Snazzy seemed calmer, content, and in retrospect, at peace. Perhaps Snazzy knew that he and I would not have much more time together. I wish he’d have let me know.
Our last picture of Snazz. He jumped into
a rainbow bag a few days before he
crossed the rainbow bridge. Who knew?
When I took Snazzy to the vet a month ago, he weighed a bit more than 9 lbs. Not a big cat by any means. But without him, our house has been very empty and my heart very much missing a big piece. We may not have been “cat people” when he joined us, but his personality and presence most definitely turned us into “cat people”. I miss him greatly.
I will get another cat. Sabrina needs one, and I guess I do too. I don’t think it will be long until another cat finds me. Because that’s what they do… they find their people. And I will be forever grateful that Snazzy found me. He will always own a piece of my heart.
friends and his people.
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