Finally Able To Travel Again - Raffy's Incredible Journey

 Like many people, we have been unable to do any travel for the past two years due to the pandemic. This year we decided to go back to our favourite little town in Mexico for 6 weeks. We typically rent a little apartment near the town square and relax in the warmer climate. Although our adventures that I write about typically involve driving in our RV, this trip was an adventure of another kind. It is not so much about Rick and I, but about a little black cat that we met on our first full day in Mexico. 

Rafael’s Incredible Journey

To understand this story properly, you have to understand that my husband Rick and I are cat people. We have a house full of rescue cats - some that we claimed off our local streets and some we got from a local rescue. Our friend gave us a sign years ago that said “Home for wayward cats - no dogs allowed” and I swear word spread throughout the cat community in our little town.

No matter where in the world we go, cats always find us. We took our first vacation in the sunny south 10 years ago and within a day of our arrival the resort cats found us and were visiting. Friends of ours that had gone to resorts for years never knew there was such a thing as resort cats and they certainly had never seen one. Same thing happened a year later in a different country in a different resort. When we stopped going to resorts and stayed in hotels or AirBNB places the cats found us. The past 5 years we have stayed in a little apartment in a small Mexican town. The cats would walk by frequently and we would speak to them. As a rule, we never fed the cats that found us. This is mostly so that they would not get used to a food source that was going to disappear after a few weeks. That would make their difficult life worse, not better, in the long run.

This year we arrived in Mexico on January 9th. After a long day of travel that started at 2:00 am we just picked up some basic supplies for the first day, unpacked, and hit our favorite watering hole for a quick drink before calling it an early night. The next day we planned to do our larger grocery shopping to stock our little apartment.

The next morning over our coffee we discussed what we wanted to pick up at the grocery store. We sit at a little table in our little part of the garden most of the time so I went into the apartment to get a notepad and pen to write down our shopping list. As I am hunting for a pen, Rick yells “you better put cat food on the shopping list.” I was sure I heard him wrong so I went outside and he was looking at this skinny little cat sitting on the wall looking at us. The cat jumped down and walked away. It was skinny with these long legs and long tail. Rick decided we would call it “Tina” because the long legs reminded him of Tina Turner. First full day back in Mexico and our rules about the local cats are starting to crumble.

We did buy cat food that day and little Tina had the first sample of it that evening. She waited on the wall for us to put the food down and then back away before coming to eat it.

By the next afternoon she would jump down and sit under a bench seat at the end of the garden waiting for her food. On day 3 she was talking to us and that night she allowed a pet. She was now feeling more confident and it showed in her body language. Now she would walk by us with her head held high and her tail straight up in the air. It was at this time that we realized Tina was actually a Tony!

By the end of the first week we had made a nest for him on one of our chairs outside......

He was sharing meals.......

and he was sleeping in the apartment with us at night.

What we did not know was that a few months ago he was hit by a car and the injuries he received greatly shortened his life expectancy.

Our discussions about the future of this little cat started that first week. He was young. We estimated his age to be between 6 and 8 months old. We based this on the fact that he was not yet spraying and he seemed to be immune to the calls of the female cats in the neighborhood. We also noticed something was going on with his breathing. It was fast and shallow all the time, almost like he was panting. We watched him as he slept in his little nest on the chair on our patio and we noticed his breathing did not seem to get deep and regular, even when sleeping. He also had little coughing and gagging fits for no apparent reason. That being said he could run and walk without effort and climbed the garden wall with ease.

We decided that we would take him to a local vet, get his shots and he would be neutered. We had been trying to find him a permanent home by asking our many friends in town if they could take him or knew someone who would like a nice cat for a pet. He really was a sweet cat and we thought for sure someone would want him. We even said we would pay for his shots and his neuter, to sweeten the deal. There were no takers so we decided to treat him as a TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) and we would solve the feeding issue later. By this time we were at the end of our 3rd week in Mexico. We were half way through our vacation and figured by the end of the week Raffy would be neutered and vaccinated and we would make arrangements for him to be fed. We could relax and enjoy the rest of the holiday. We were so very wrong!