Sad day for me and my family, our pet cat Milo has died; hit by a car and found by others who called us using the number on his tag. We’re all devastated by this. We buried him in the garden at the foot of one of the trees.

Milo was a wonderful cat ever since he walked into our lives in 2019 as a skinny little stray. Dad was in the garden working when he suddenly felt something rub against his leg and he looked to find a little black cat, older than a kitten but not quite full grown. He brought it in and we all made a fuss of the little thing, even gave it some milk despite me saying that if we did that we’d never get rid of them since at that point we weren’t really a “pet” family apart from my brother’s Hamster Rodney who passed years earlier. As I predicted despite letting the cat back outside and seeing it go away, it came back the next day, and the day after that, at one point the little thief snuck in while my Mother was preparing dinner and stole the chicken breast she was defrosting at the time. Eventually we accepted that the little guy “adopted” us and we took better care of them with proper cat food and letting them stay inside longer. Initially we believed the cat to be a girl until we took “him” to the vet and they explained that he had been neutered which made us feel embarrassed for “assuming their gender” for weeks. The vet also told us that he had a Chip implanted so he was previously owned which we suspected due to how well behaved he was, never peeing or defecating indoors and always asking to go outside to do their business. However due to certain laws they couldn’t tell us the details on the chip like who were his previous owners or where they lived, but said they will look into it for us. They could tell us the cat’s name was originally Houdini which my parents hated so for the time being we called him Milo (though I considered his full name to be Milo Houdini Norris). After some time there was no news from the vets either because they couldn’t get in contact with the owners or didn’t even try yet, so we tried other methods to try and find Milo’s home; asking around the neighbourhood if anyone was missing a cat or knew someone who did, asking a Pet Rescue service to check the chip and contact the previous owners, but no such luck. The service attempted many times to get in touch with the owners on the chip but they had no responses for weeks. Considering the state we found Milo in he must have been out on his own for a long time so either his previous owners moved away and abandoned him or they died and no one was there to look after him. After months being with us it was clear that he was part of our family now and he was here to stay.

Living with us really transformed our lives a bit as well as him. Milo went from being this small, skinny thing to a big boy who was King of his domain; the neighbourhood was his Kingdom and our house was his castle that he came and went as he pleased. Being an outdoor cat we were always worried about him being locked outside so more the most part someone had to be at home to let him in or out. He wasn’t a vicious cat and he loved anyone making a fuss on him, though he didn’t get the hang of not using his claws when playing with us, and when he had enough he would make a biting motion but never actually bit down on us. Occasionally he would also bring us “Presents” in the form of birds and mice he caught and we would either have to wrestle them out of his mouth or trick him into dropping them so we can dispose them and prevent him from eating them. Milo was very territorial with other cats and would get into fights at night which we would hear and quickly come out to break it up. Our sleeping schedules were also dictated by him as he would sleep in any room that took his fancy at the time; on our parent’s bed (in very contortionist poses), on my brother’s computer chair or on my bedroom floor and then early in the mornings he would either paw at my door or scratch the bell on his collar to wake someone up to feed him and let him outside. Milo was quite spoiled by us, especially by my Dad who would feed him treats and salmon sometimes, mostly just to stop him whinging for more food even after we fed him his proper meal. I swear every time I make a Ham sandwich, there Milo is out of nowhere begging for the ham. He really became a tripping hazard on Saturdays when we order Chinese takeaway for dinner as he expects us give him some of the chicken.

Despite all these hassles, we loved him dearly, he wasn’t much of a lap cat but the rare occasions he would rest on our laps were wonderful when they happened. We never had to house train him since he was so used to going outside to do his business, and apart from digging his claws in one of the chairs he never left claws marks on anything else or marked his territory indoors. We got him a few toys but there were only a handful he actually played with but quickly grew bored of. Last Christmas my brother got some thick, tough leather gloves that we could wear and let Milo play wrestle with our hands without his teeth or claws hurting us and he really enjoyed it. He loved it when it snowed, we would toss little snow balls above him and he’d would jump trying to catch them. Milo also constantly lost his collars and tags either from them getting snagged on bushes/branches or during one of his fights with other cats, and we could never find all of them so I had to by him new ones, which I didn’t mind as it was better than letting him go out without ID...which I guess was fortunate in the end, otherwise who knows how long it would of taken for us to find out what happened to him.

The way Milo died, it was always a possible risk when it comes to having an Outdoor pet, I don’t know if there was anything we could of done besides forcing him to remain indoors all the time but he wanted to be outside and it was hard to say no to him. It’s going to be strange waking up in the mornings without seeing him waiting to be fed, and hearing little bells is especially going to be hard.

Rest in Peace Milo Houdini Norris, my Little Buddy.