Tufty

Milo. a.k.a. (mighlough, car-milo anthony, tufty, turfty, tufty-nut, tuftylicious, and fluffty) on the fence behind our house.

When we found him he was a scruffy, emaciated, fleabag living by the Arkansas river. My, what a few years of living in the lap of luxury will do for a cat.Now he spends his days in the sewer drain down the street from out house. Each day, we will go call him and he pops his head out, looks around, and then bolts for our house. We don't know why he won't just come home on his own like our other two cats. He simply will not come home without us going over to the drain and calling him (it's only about 200 ft. from our yard). It's ridiculous, but that's just Tufty.

The vet in Conway told us that he has FIV (Feline immunodeficiency virus) and we thought we would just give him a nice home for a few months before he died. HA! Three years later - he's as healthy as an ox- weighs about the same too. He lumbers inside, eats a bowl or two of food, and then passes out on our bed for 8-12 hours at a time. Like some kind of warm, dirty-yellow pillow, he hides amongst the blankets on the bed until you decide to lie down. Usually, he snuggles up to us or lays on our chest while we sleep. More than once we found him snuggled up to Jackson in his crib. We joke about getting rid of him and sometimes ask him (jokingly) to hurry up and die, but really he's a part of the family. There's just something about him that makes me laugh - just look at this face - tell me you're not laughing.

He's mostly sweet to Jackson. He tolerates a fair amount of Jackson rolling on top of him and being not too gentle in general. His breath smells like the ocean, he sometimes bites (not hard), and he has corrupted Gus (our yellow kitten that looks like he could be Tufty's son), but we love him. He's good to have around - even if it's just for laughs.

~ Ben