Rufus, RIP

We’ve pretty much given up on our cat Rufus ever coming home to us.  It’s been over a week now that he’s been gone.  When we got home two Saturday nights ago, he wanted to go out, so we put him out.  He often spends the night outside, and until now he’s always been fine in the morning – just a little hungry, sometimes.

Well, we never saw him the next day, which was strange.  And then on Monday, Beth heard from our neighbor that she found a “mess” in her back yard on Sunday.  The neighbor thought it was animal intestines and fur.  After I got home from work Monday, Beth and I went out in search of clues in the fading light.  We found a bunch of blood on some gravel in our xeriscaping next to the driveway, and some fur that looked like the color and length from Rufus’ white underbelly.  Then we went into the neighbor’s back yard, and found more fur back there.

So, we suspect that sometime early Sunday morning, one of our neighborhood coyotes or foxes had a rumble with Rufus, and Rufus lost.  We held out hope for a few days.  Maybe the blood was from some other fight.  Maybe the fur was from another animal.  Maybe the guts in the neighbor’s yard were from a squirrel.  But we pretty much gave up hope a few days ago.

Beth wants to keep our cool handcrafted metal cat sculpture that doubles as a food and water dish holder, for the benefit of a neighbor cat named Bailey who sometimes thinks he lives here.  Meanwhile, we put Rufus’ collars and the fur we found in a big plastic zip lock bag, as a memento, I guess.

Rest in peace, Rufus Poofus Underfoot.