Top lion

This is my sweet Vel.  He is 14 years old.  He is the top lion at our house and rules over his territory.

 

Well, he rules over the four indoor cats.  If we let Toi in from the cat house, Vel dissolves into a shivering, quivering mass of fear making puddles and messes in his wake not unlike a skunk might do to protect himself.  Toi is relentless and unforgiving... thus Toi, lives in the cat house.

For quite a few years (before Toi), Vel lived quietly in our house with other kitties.  He has seen feline friends come and go.  When Toi arrived, Vel started living under the armchair.  I mean LIVING there!  Not coming out for food or potty.  And pretty soon he had Cleo wanting to get away from Toi also, so in the end I put Vel and Cleo up in the sewing room for a year or so.

But then Toi and his counterpart, Patora, started picking on Chip also.  Hmm.  The psychology of cats.

I finally decided that Vel is a mild mannered sweetheart, the oldest of our cat family and thus he needs the most love in his declining days.  Out went Toi and Partora to the cat house.  Back came Velvet and Cleo to the human living area and now four cats, Vel, Cleo, Chip and Mi, live happily indoors sitting on laps and burrowing under quilts.  Toi and Patora are not thrilled with the arrangement but they live in the cat house (next month they will be moved to my sewing room for the winter.)

Velvet in his old age is getting thinner and thinner but I figure he must be around 80 by human calculation so his not being brawny is par for the course.  And he still rules around here...  If he gets in a bad mood (and he does more and more) he sends the other kitties scurrying.

Good for Vel!  He's not ready to give up his domain yet!

I give Vel extra food, extra privileges and lots of extra love.