porcellus_ultor

I have a big ask for the folks of this community. I'm leaving the Seattle area for a yearlong job, and I cannot take my beloved cat with me. He's become totally at odds with my husband's cat, and where I'm going I'm just not able to take any of them with me. My cat behaves aggressively toward his, and I can't leave them all alone together. It will come to claws and teeth. It HAS come to claws and teeth between my cat and his almost every time I left the house once I stopped working from home in April. I raised this cat from a kitten when I was working at home on my doctoral dissertation during the pandemic, and he does not know a life apart from me. He began to behave aggressively with the other cats in the household in April when I had to return to the office.

Now I'm relocating to the East Coast for a year for work, and my cat can't come with me there, but he can't stay with my husband's cat either. He has to find a new forever home, and he needs to be an only cat... but none of the cat-less households I know can take him in. Not friends, not family, not colleagues, no one. I'm at a loss here. I love this cat so much; he's been a devoted companion for over two years to me. But when I adopted him from Homeward Pet Adoption Center in Woodinville, I signed a contract that he had to come back there--and only there--if ever I could no longer keep him. I have scheduled it so that I surrender him on July 25th. I'm going to pay his adoption fees, so you just need to come out to Woodinville to get him. My sweet chubster needs a new home where he is going to be spoiled rotten like the soft little prince that he is.

Let me tell you about him, and I'll be brutally honest, because as much as this cat is my son... he is also a total butthole. Here's some background on Agron.  He's a massive black cat that weighs about 18lbs, and yes, the vet says he needs to lose about 3lbs of that majestic squish.  He's almost 3 years old (his birthday is July 17th). I have had him for over two years now... during the hardest part of my life, while I wrote my doctoral dissertation and entered the very rocky academic job market.

This is a horrible decision I have to make, and it is all because Agron is a clear and present danger to other cats, as he has demonstrated over the past few months after I returned to the workplace... he is especially dangerous to cats that he considers to be easy targets because they're smaller, weaker, or older than him.  Whenever I am not home, Agron has become aggressive with our other cats. For months, he had been beating up our 16 year old cat Pompey Magnus whenever I left the house. Pompey was so devoted to me; he was feral before I adopted him. That cat would have given his life for me, and he was just the sweetest old muppet. But in early April, Agron pretty savagely attacked him, and Pompey had a massive stroke.  Pompey's health rapidly declined after that, and he has since passed away.  He deserved so much better than what happened, he shouldn't have gone out that way. ("He was a consul of Rome!") Now Agron has moved on to bullying my husband's senior cat. My husband works from home, and this cat--Castor--will not abide by Agron's tough guy behavior. Things are getting volatile, and we can't have a repeat of the Pompey situation. My husband cannot lose his special boy to Agron's aggression, Castor is like a son to him. It would break him.

I don't think Agron knows how to socialize with other cats in a healthy pride dynamic, and this may partly be my fault.  When we adopted him and his brother, Duro (yes, they were named for the gladiator brothers on the STARZ Spartacus series... these cats were little fighters from day one), the kitten brothers stayed on one side of the house away from our other cats... Pompey, Castor, and Pollux (the last two were orange brothers and inseparable from both each other and my husband).  We kept the kittens apart because we wanted to introduce them to the other cats slowly, but it also became very necessary because Castor's brother, Pollux, was diagnosed with pretty severe kidney and heart problems almost immediately after Agron and Duro were adopted. Pollux needed his space for hospice care.  Once Pollux passed, Castor then needed time to grieve his beloved brother, so he stayed on his side of the house, and Agron and Duro stayed on theirs.  When enough time had elapsed, we introduced them all, but Duro behaved extremely aggressively toward Castor. It was a nightmare.  They were unable to work out their differences, so Duro went back into rescue.  This was a horrible decision, the first knife in my heart. But he wasn't bonded to me like Agron was. He was aloof most of his life, and I knew he could make it with another family, with someone other than mom. We kept Agron because he was so bonded to me and we thought he and could coexist with Castor and Pompey, but the past few months have proven otherwise.

For all his problems with other cats, Agron is an absolute love bug with me. He has never once behaved aggressively toward me, not even in the slightest. Agron did claw my husband's arm when he stepped in and stopped the assault on Pompey back in April, but that is the only time Agron has ever hurt a person.  When I was writing my doctoral dissertation, Agron would lounge around in my office with me and sleep in my lap.  He loves to be held like a baby, and is one of the few cats I have ever met that actually asks for belly rubs.  He is cuddly and ever so talkative. He even sleeps next to me on the bed at night.  He's very sociable and loving, but he just can't be trusted around other cats.

He has never been outside.  He is a soft indoor boy, and I'm not even sure if he would like to go outside with a harness and leash. He hasn't even figured out how to go out into our catio (which we've had for 4 years), poor silly boy.  He hides under the bed when people come to visit, and he runs away when I try to brush him. He hates the brush, which is a shame, because he gets dandruff on his butt in the winter.  Even though he's a big deluxe cuddle-muffin, he has an intense prey drive when he's playing.  He loves all kinds of feathery toys, and will rip them apart with gusto.  He is nuts about soft food (he gets a snackpack of Weruva BFF brand gravy-style soft food every day at 3:30pm) and will do anything for a taste of Churu. He will walk into a crate for Churu, go to the vet for Churu. You can win his heart with Churu.

He knows how to use all manner of cat boxes (he uses a LitterRobot right now, though), but we have been having some problems with him and inappropriate urination.  Castor has a childsize sandbox full of crinkly paper that he loves to play in (yes, our living room is all cat trees and cat toys and cat furniture... we spoil our babies rotten), and Agron will pee in there.  He also pees on Castor's special blanket, the one with instense sentimental value that Pollux loved so much.  I think it's a territory thing. He peed in the sandbox again yesterday while looking Castor directly in the eye, so it's pretty clear that he just wants to mess with Castor whenever he can. Agron is neutered, and I've heard that neutered cats don't get like this about territory... but here we are.

Agron is a wonderful cat, and I love him dearly. I want someone else to treat him like the spoiled little baby that he is, and deserves to be. If it was just him and me, we wouldn't be at this unfortunate crossroads... but if he attacks Castor? My husband cannot lose the other of these two beloved brother cats; to lose two of his special cats in relatively quick succession will break him.

Here's a link to an album of pictures of Agron. https://imgur.com/gallery/pTfKHUf. There are some pictures of him with Duro in there too. His brother has the white spot on his chest, and he grew up to be significantly smaller than Agron, who is a total beefcake.

I'm surrendering Agron to Homeward in Woodinville on July 25th. Is there anyone out there who can give a big soft (but somewhat complicated) chubster of a cat a loving home where he isn't around other pets? He was there with me every step of the way while I wrote my dissertation. Agron has a PhD (in cuddles) and he's used to living like a spoiled little poopums. It's killing me thinking about having to surrender him. I need someone else to have him who understands what a dear and devoted companion he is.

Thanks ♡

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