Louie🖤 (2019-2026)

Summary/Obituary

Hi Friends, it is with a heavy heart that I unfortunately must share that Louie has now passed away.🖤 In honor of this gentleman, I wish to summarize some spectacular moments my star child has blessed my life and many others with. 

In July 2019, Louie was a stray born into a litter of mostly black Feline Leukemia positive kitties. We found Louie with his half brother, Luna, and adopted them together from Cat Town Oakland in 2020, during the beginning of the Covid quarantine, and while they were around 6 months old. They were a bonded pair. Louie was shy and stuck to hiding, while Luna was such an extrovert, he would even go up to dogs! Louie found his confidence behind his brother’s footsteps, and enjoyed attentive supervised time outside. 

Louie was an anxious little baby, but he always melted for pets from his mom (non gendered) Mans (me). I didn’t change his name from what the shelter named him. Somewhat because I knew cats don’t like change, so with coming into a new home and all, I wanted to keep the change as small as possible. Cat Town Oakland supports their FeLV positive kitties by covering a lot of the FeLV related vet bills that come with their kitties. This made it possible for me to have a cat, and I am so grateful for their support over the years. 

FeLV positive cats have an average life span of 2-3 years. When we adopted them, Luna had some symptoms, and Louie did not. Luna lived until about 2 years with Louie in his first home surrounded by lush lavender bushes and greenery that they enjoyed sniffing and pouncing on each other in. 

Louie may have been just one little guy, but he had many names: Mr. Mayor, Muta (from The Cat Returns), love bug, baby bean, Chungus Grungus, baby balloon (from me saying “see you soon baby balloon!”), Swat team (for when he would bust in or try to bust in all doors with his two little paws). He was my velcro kitty, and never wanted to leave my side. Luckily, he got to spend a lot more time with me compared to your average kitty. And would always try to bust into the room whether you were fast asleep or in the bathroom. When we originally adopted the duo, we thought we were adopting boys by the names Taro and Monkey :3, but those were their sisters and we actually were looking to adopt the babies Louie and Hammy - later changed to Luna. (Yes, they were both ham shaped.)

Allowing Louie to have outdoor time sometimes cost us some of our peace of mind, but thankfully we were able to get him back each time. Louie only a couple of times gave us some trouble. Once, hiding stuck in a bush and too scared to come out, we got him back by spraying the bush with a water hose. And another time, he was scared away from home by a couple of crows, and he bolted. He never got over his fear of crows which was really funny to me considering how much larger he was than them, he always was a relatively very large cat even when he was skinnier. After 3 nights without our baby, flyers, door to door knocking, and me attempting to reach out to any gods that would listen, very thankfully, he came back to us in the night meowing at the door to be let in! He was kind of skinnier, but not to fret, we put that chonk right back on him :)

As Louie’s parent, I made sure that he did not kill any animals or birds in the outdoor neighborhood. Although, there was one time he actually brought a live mole into the home, that was a sound I’ll never get out of my head. 

Louie’s brother Luna’s time ended in their first home together. Louie had no FeLV symptoms at that point, around 2021 and he also went from being a stray probably having little to nothing, to having everything- being a 6 month old covid kitty, enjoying the rest of his child hood spoiled by multiple parents/caretakers who were out of work and there to constantly attend to his needs. I feel like my spoiled gentleman did not seem very phased by the loss of his brother Luna. This, along with him not having any symptoms, made me hopeful that maybe Louie would be able to live a normal kitty life span. I learned more later about how thoroughly cats won’t show pain even if they are in it.

After Luna’s passing, Louie’s confidence grew and he became more inclined to be brave by himself without Luna’s leadership. We moved into Louie’s 2nd home for about a year. Louie here enjoyed being the only child with limited backyard access since he didn’t have a direct route to our backyard area, so he wasn’t really into all of the concrete and people around us.

Moving into Louie’s 3rd home was sweet before it became complicated, as I learned a lot about becoming an adult. Louie enjoyed direct access to a luscious backyard, daily playtime, and care from some lovely community members. Here he would try to get the cricket that lived in the small step of the garden, listen to the owls that lived in the large cypress tree, and take the secret cat train - that was the fencing between everyone’s backyards that I saw other cats take too! 

It was here that one of Louie’s funnies stories to me happened. While I was away on a trip, Louie always gets very close and demanding of pets from whoever is feeding him at the time. He loved to head butt people for pets, but here he head butted Jamie too hard and then got mad at Jamie and hissed at them! Jamie said “I would be upset, but I know there’s nothing going on between those two ears!” I thought that was so adorable and true!

Not everything was fun in Louie’s 3rd home, here we learned lessons about dealing with non-community oriented housemates, their pets, and managing a 6-12 month wrist injury where I was partially disabled. This was one of the most difficult periods of time in my life, and it was Louie, jumping on me and meow screaming at me every morning for breakfast, that got me out of bed and working to continue my life on after other loss. I knew I had to figure out what I was going to do for my baby Louie, and relative to the rest of the world, I would say this story does have a happy ending.

To add more tension to the drama, during this same time was when Louie had to have a dental surgery that took all of his teeth except for his two bottom fangs. He then became our permanent gargoyle boy. The cost of this surgery would have been even more destabilizing to me if it had not been for Cat Town Oakland, that helped cover a lot of the cost. During this time, Louie and I lost the support of his other primary caretaker. On top of this, then being too disabled to work - it was at this time that, if it had not been for the support of my parents, who knows where I would be. During this time, Louie had another caretaker, who also developed the same repetitive stress wrist inflammation injury as I did from work. But, maybe because this person did not have the same financial support from their parents as I did, we unfortunately watched this person go from someone incredibly community oriented and caring, to someone struggling with crippling addiction and other obstacles.

When Louie only had his two bottom fangs, he still managed to catch and kill 3 mice that were a problem in that home!

It was while I was partially disabled that Louie and I met my soulmate, Alex, who would become Louie’s other amazing parent for the rest of his life. It was in Louie’s 4th home with Alex and I, in Portland, OR that Louie was able to truly thrive for his last 2.5 years of his life.

Louie could tell something new was happening that November of 2023, and he hated new things!! I had most of everything packed up in our U-haul and we made him a pillow blanket fort in the living room to ease his nerves. Later learning from this mistake, I wanted to let him have one last outdoor time in the neighborhood that 3am in the San Francisco, Outer Richmond district. In the night, when the neighborhood is quiet, Louie was always much more confident to go out on close by night walks with me. But he would always stick close to my side, too afraid without many bushes or trees to hide in, other than parked cars. If there was a car coming down the street, he would always just run back inside close by to the house. We only ever a couple times were able to round the corner barely! 

But that 3am in November, move to Portland day, Louie immediately bolted. As I chased after him, I later learned that he was probably scared away again by a lady who was feeding raccoons and cats out on the street! This scared him into going a different direction away from the home, down a street he hadn’t gone before and probably got immediately lost. This was an incredibly stressful hour of time that felt like I lost years of my life in! 30 minutes after calling for him up and down the street he came back up to me close-by to the Raccoon Lady! High on emotion, I started crying. He never liked being picked up, probably didn’t like my energy since I was crying, and just started hiding under cars. Perhaps in defiance of our move. After another 30 minutes of coxing, I finally was able to pounce on him and grab him! 

Kicking around like a baby on our way back, he only probably got got because a man finally came out on the morning street for a smoke. Louie always was never afraid of me and terrified of strangers or basically everyone else. When we went to the vet he was always a good boy, but when it came time for me to brush him, he sometimes would only let me for one minute! Safely packing up our little guy, we were thankfully able to continue our journey onto Portland, a new home, and a new beginning that day.

He hated the 10 hour car ride and expressed his displeasure the whole way there with sad little mows. What he didn’t know at the time, was what awaited him at the end of his long journey, was his own big private garden and home <3

For the first couple of weeks in our new home, Louie only came out of our room with me during the night while everyone else was aleep. It was the biggest space he had ever been allowed free reign over, and there were sooo many tiny nooks and closets to hide in. After the storm, I had finally won a worker’s compensation settlement and was able to use this money along with another portion of funds directly given for career changing/retraining, to become a tattoo artist with a background in accounting. Along with other pet care services I also do as my “day job” now. Louie was able to enjoy many days of garden time as our favorite thing to do was hang out in our garden together. He would blissfully sunbath and chatter at all of the wildlife that live in and pass through the garden today. I learned lots about cat care through my work and research, and built him many multiple pathways in our garden as cats enjoy :3

Adored by many while Louie was in our Portland home, I could tell his anxiety had decreased. Every day he would go a little more out of his comfort zone to check out the new friends and strangers that entered his home. His home was curated for many cat cozy seats and bedding. Amongst his favorite was a box with a heating pad and a blanket on top, he loved feeling held close. His favorite games were when there was something blocking his way of getting to the toy prey, like blankets and boxes, and then trying to get through the boxes or obstructions instead of directly to the toys!

There are thousands of temporarily beautiful moments that Louie has blessed our lives forever with. From getting a good whiff of the air when there was chicken around to bolting down the hallway immediately at the sound of his automatic food dispensing. His fupa (primordial pouch) would rock back and forth when he trotted. Oh also, all of the times he was completely loafed and asleep on my tummy, and then in one big aggressive kick off of my tummy - straight to his food being dispensed! He could get pets tucked into my criss crossed lap forever. He was very smart and learned how to sit and get his nails trimmed. He had spectacular boundaries. He always greeted me at the door coming home, he always wanted to sunbath in the garden, he never had enough pets like 3 hours in, he was in love with life and couldn’t get enough. I think it’s these beautiful moments that I can’t afford to forget about, they are the ones that ought to be remembered rather than the struggles that occurred towards the end of his life. 

Louie was taken from us rather quickly, as he developed FeLV symptoms that escalated quickly, close to his 7th birthday that will be this July 15th. Unlike most cats who choose to isolate, when it became his time, Louie chose to rest in one of his boxes in the living room that had a doorway and an open top. Those who were very close to Louie then had the luck of saying goodbye for a couple of days as we kept the visitor count low. He never liked a crowd. He is at peace now, and enjoyed one of the most spoiled cat lives possible. Three people have already gotten Louie tattoos before his passing, and I plan on continuing to tattoo many black cat Louie’s before my own. He was always a singer, and his delightful meow’s, toe beans, biscuit making, and soft presence will forever be in our hearts as we carry on with the wisdom and love of all that this stellar sturdy (he hated wobbly things) gentleman, carried in his stride. We love you so much Louie, thank you for everything you do. Reminders to rest and enjoy yourself in this crazy world are more valuable than many Americans could possibly understand. You offered peace, bliss, and joy to every person you let pet you, you crazy kid🖤