21-Year-Old Cat gets Second Chance at Life
Tigger, the 21 year old cat, just may be the luckiest cat alive. He's spending his final days with his loving family, completing a special bucket list.
It’s not every day that you hear a story like Tigger’s. Abandoned at a local veterinarian’s office, the poor, old cat was fighting for his life. He had kidney failure, several harmful tumors and matted fur. When this compassionate couple came along, both their lives and Tigger’s changed forever.
When the couple heard of Tigger’s health issues and found out he was 21 years old, they knew they had to take action. They adopted Tigger with the mission to give him a second chance at life in mind. With their love and compassion, Tigger received the proper medical attention he needed and began to improve.
“Being his age and having kidney failure, he’s not a candidate for surgery,” says owner Adriene Buisch of Canton, Maryland, who works for Charm City Veterinary Hospital in Baltimore. “He’s a love bug. We crack up because his body is 21, but we swear his mind is 2 [years old].”
The young couple knew that Tigger didn’t have much time left, so they decided to give him the best possible last days by setting out on a bucket list adventure. So far, Tigger has taken many walks around the neighborhood, experienced a trip to the beach, taken adorable ugly Christmas sweater photos and gone on a trip to Washington D.C. He has a very popular facebook page, through which his admirers suggest different activities to add to the bucket list.
“We want to do fun things with him until he tells us, ‘Ok, this isn’t so fun for me anymore,” Buisch told ABC News. “He’s become a little local celebrity. I took him to the beach and he met people, played in the sand, got his head scratched. … He loved it.”
Recently, Tigger celebrated his 22nd birthday. The couple threw him a birthday bash with a chicken flavored cake, which he devoured with the help of their other cat, 6-year-old Stuart. Afterwards, the cats were very sleepy, so they took a nap with their human mom, Adriene. The couple wants to make sure that the rest of Tigger’s life is happy and comfortable, because he didn’t get the love and attention he deserved for so long.
Buisch and her boyfriend say that adopting Tigger the 21-year-old cat was one of the best decisions they have ever made. “He’s the type of cat that if you look at him and pet him and stopped, he’ll grab you,” Buisch said. “It’s the little things we see, the little things in his personality. I can’t tell you how good it makes us feel. It’s just hard because we got attached very quickly.”
Visit Tigger’s facebook page here to learn more about his story and receive updates on his amazing bucket list adventure.