- Tiger was the first ‘official’ Thompson family cat. Although my parents had cats before we were born, Tiger was the first cat we had as kids. Melissa has now had four (Whiskey, Marshmallow, Paris & Caramel), Megan four (Koko, Roxy, Cringer & Marbles) and me, six (Tiger, George, Bubba, Charlee, Elmo & Mouthy).
- Tiger came from a family that lived at the end of our street who had cats that had just given birth kittens. I was only two but I loved the cats and tried to feed them. One day David (their son) came to our house with a kitten in his toy wagon for me. That’s when I got my Tiger.
- Tiger seemed to love the snow and would play in it, dig through it and be outside in it more than a normal cat would.
- When we were young we got a Weebles set for Christmas. It was a house with a long track that the Weebles would roll/flip down from the top to the bottom, through a tree and around the house. With Tiger around, no Weeble ever made it to the bottom without being bashed from the slide.
- To this day the cat food in our house has always been kept in a cupboard in the kitchen. Tiger was the first to figure out where it was, how to get in and how to knock over a giant back of food so she could climb inside and eat all she wanted. We would come into the kitchen and find a 10kg bag of food laying on the floor with a cat tail sticking out of it while she fed herself.
- Tiger was the only cat of all the cats who have lived at my parents house that did not live with or meet George.
- Tiger never really totally accepted Whiskey when my sister brought her home, but they did chase each other through the house, and Tiger did protect her outside since she was such a large, strong, dominant cat.
- Tiger had two litters of kittens before we had her fixed. People nowadays always say how mean that is and why have kittens when there are so many cats out there that need homes, but as kids it was amazing to see her go through the pregnancy, have the kittens, help care for her kittens and then find homes for all of them (which we did). We never asked for money for any of the kittens and each and every one went to a good, loving home.
- Tiger’s first batch of kittens were born just before we moved from our first house to the house my parents still live in today. I remember sitting on the floor of the moving truck with Tiger and the kittens in a box with towels, worried only about them and not the fact that we were moving.
- Tiger would lie on the stairs, turn sideways and sharpen her claws on the inside part of the steps. She would also use this to drag herself along the steps and rub her body into t he almost shag carpet. The first five or six steps in our front hall that went upstairs were pretty much in tatters when they were finally replaced, but they were puke green anyway. She was helping out.
- She loved to climb trees and even used a small lilac tree in our back yard as a way to climb onto the roof of our house.
- Tiger slept with me almost every night of her life. When she was older and my parents put her outside sometimes, I would open my bedroom window and she would climb up the greenhouse and jump through my window to sleep with me. I tried this once and fell through the greenhouse!
- Tiger was a total guy’s cat. She always stuck to me and my father. She also really liked my Grandfather Knight when he came to visit, but who wouldn’t? He had cat treats and dog food in the glovebox of his car just in case he met an animal that looked hungry.
- I think out of the millions of pictures of my family that have been taken over the years, my favorite is of my father, sleeping on his favorite chair in front of the TV with a 2 year old Megan curled into him on one side of his chest and Tiger curled into the other. Like Daddy and his two little girls.
- The day Tiger died was one of those ‘Rule of Three’ days. I was sitting in my class playing with my pen and it all of a sudden shot ink all over my favorite shirt (Ron Jon Surf Shop, bought in Florida). As I left the class to go wash up I ran into my highschool girlfriend who decided we needed to end things (this was the second breakup of about five different relationships we had over time). I went home, covered in ink, dumped by my girlfriend and there was my mother with Whiskey (the cat, not the drink) in her arms asking me to sit down. I had never lost anyone before that day…
- When Tiger wanted to come into the house she would go to the backdoor and not only pick at the full length screen, but she would climb it so she was eye level with people and meow to be let in. We went through quite a bit of screens.
- When we were young my father always flooded our backyard to make an ice rink. He built a small, enclosed change room outside the back door. Tiger would destroy the plastic lining used to insulate it so she could get in, so he built her a cat door to come though. She still destroyed the plastic at times anyway.
- In the summer she would lay on the top of the big old air conditioner in our back yard. I was always afraid somehow she would fall in since the top was a big grate and under it was a monster fan that I thought would chop her up.
- In the winter (and even the summer when she was older) she would find ways into my father’s greenhouse in the backyard and just bake herself in the heat. She never destroyed any of the plants that I can remember, but I don’t think Dad would have been that upset anyway.
- In the back corner of our yard is what we call ‘The Pole’. It is really a very old hitching post for horses that we played on all the time. Tiger would climb into it and use it as her scratching post. I’m sure that between her and the other cats that hitching post is only about a quarter as thick as it used to be.
- I was sick one night a few months after Tiger died and I remember falling asleep ,thinking about how she always would sleep with me all day and night if I wasn’t feeling well. I remember waking up and hearing her walking across the hardwood floor of my room, and jump onto my bed the way she always used to. I felt her walk around me and her wet nose as she checked if I was okay. She then went down and curled up directly behind my knees like she did for years. When I finally realized that it couldn’t be her, I opened my eyes to see. My bedroom door was closed, and there was no cat there with me, but I could still feel her there, just behind my legs all night.
- Tiger never really jumped up where she didn’t belong in our house, but she did have a great knack for knocking over and beheading every one of my mother’s Royal Daulton figures that she collected. To this day you can check the figurines and see they have all ‘lost their heads’ at some point due to Tiger.
- Tiger is the first of four cats buried beside the greenhouse in our backyard. I buried her with a picture of me and her because I remember thinking I wanted her to remember me when she was gone.
- When I was young I slept on the top bunk of a bunk bed and Tiger always came up. When she was younger she would leap from the floor to the bed no problem. As she got older she would still do it, but pull herself up with the sheets. Once I was old enough to not need the ladder anymore we placed it on an angle at the head of the bed and she would come in and climb up the ladder to sleep with me.
- I used to be afraid of the dark and have bad nightmares as a kid (some bordering on night terrors at times) but I don’t ever remember having them when she was sleeping with me. I also used to make sure my door was never completely closed so she could come and go at night.
- I was born in the Year of the Tiger, which I have always felt gives me a connection to cats. I find it awesome that my first cat was also named Tiger, which is the reason I want a Chinese tattoo of the Tiger character, for me and her.
- Tiger went bald from the waist down for about a year once when she was older. No one ever really figured out why, but it did grow back after some time. She was a dark grey tabby.
- Tiger used to follow me to school a lot. She would walk the three blocks with me to the school, then sit on the hill until I went inside and then go home. She was always very protective.
- I remember once finding her chewing on the arm of my Hulk Hogan wresting figure. I never got mad at her. It was Hulk Hogan. He probably deserved it!
- The Day Tiger died my mother found her in the backyard of our house. She had dragged herself across the length of the yard in the snow to find us as a tumor in her stomach had burst. My mom found her at the back door and rushed her to the vet. They knew there wasn’t much they could do for her and were going to put her down, but she passed away before the vet could get the needle ready. I always believed she didn’t want to die alone and fought to be with one of her family that day. She was 13 years old.
- When we were asked what we wanted to do with Tiger I told my dad I wanted to bury her in the backyard. It was the middle of winter so it was impossible. We went to the vet (without telling my mom) and got her. We put her in a box wrapped in a blanket and placed her in the big freezer in our garage. Dad thought it would be smart to put her under their wedding cake since Mom would never move it and then bury her in late springtime. I still remember the look on my Dad’s face as we were watching TV a few months later and Mom was cleaning the freezer out to make room for more things and saying “What’s this wrapped in a blanket in a box under our wedding cake?” We ran like hell!
Me and my two best friends, Tiger and Todd
Proof we had ugly sinks and carpet in our house in the early 80′s.
Spot the Muppet Christmas record in the background!
Christmas morning pics with Tiger. One is after she opened her stocking (all our cats have one)
and the second is Tiger eyeing her favorite Weeble House.
Tiger by the fireplace in our first house
Dad, Tiger and little Megan. Greatest picture our family has!
