farewell to the walrus

 

Pteppic: seal point Siamese. August 1997-December 2011

It is with much sadness that we have learned that Pteppic, the world’s first – and only – Siamese walrus has been put to sleep. He, together with his lifelong companion Esk, went to live with my daughter in Norfolk about four years ago,and it’s a miracle he was still going, because He Nearly Died back in 2003 (although he didn’t like to talk about it). The vets never did work out what was wrong with him, and they didn’t expect him to pull through, never mind make the full recovery that he did.

He has been becoming more and more ill with IBS in recent years and in the end, the only proper thing to do was to let him go.

Pteppic was a sleek creature, a cat who always knew when you were feeling down, and would come to comfort you. He purred like a walrus, and if another cat was poorly, they got the Ptep treatment too; I well remember when Iggy had an appalling respiratory infection, and was on space blankets to try to keep him warm – the walrus came and curled his long body around Iggy and stayed with him all night. His nuturing nature also extended to kittens, and he was never happier than when there was a baby cat in the house for him to look after.

Ptep was the campest cat in the universe – the Noel Coward of the feline world. We felt he wore a virtual bottle green velvet smoking jacket, and drank very dry sherry. You could pour him from your arms to the floor, and when he was fully grown I had to stand on a stair to do it, because he grew into a huge, and hugely elegant, creature, with many limbs.

We  missed him a lot when he left us, but he had a wonderful home with Clare, and she will miss him so much too. I hope she can take comfort from the fact that she did the last, best thing for him that she could, and we salute her strength.

I wanted to wish Pteppic “good hunting”, as I do every cat who leaves us behind, and she reminded me, quite rightly, that:

… there certainly won’t be any hunting. He’ll be on a soft, soft blanket that he so adores, with some tuna and someone to snuggle and shove with his snout. Ptep at his absolute happiest :)

Mirrored from the Tribe.