Entrant's First Name
Diane

Bio
He lived on Dilworth Mountain and travelled up and down it every day looking for food and shelter while avoiding coyotes and other perils. He's a big cat and the daily fight for survival left him well muscled and intimidating looking. Until you looked into his eyes. Because, Inside that big muscular body beats an incredibly loving and willing heart and a personality filled with mischief, playfulness, and humour.

Bubba Louis was running wild on Dilworth Mountain in Kelowna BC for 2 1/2 years. An SPCA volunteer named Susan lived on Dilworth and was trying to catch him that entire time. Some days they were painfully close, her and her neighbor, to catching him. Some days where heartbreaking, like the day they saw him with a bloody face and couldn't catch him. They could only hope he would survive whatever ordeal he had been through.

He was called Mr. Gray then because he was so dirty they didn't realize he had any weight for on him. Though he is big and strong Susan had some faith that he might not be too aggressive because he hung out in her backyard with her cats. He also sat on her windowsill and watched Animal Planet on TV. She caught him by removing her basement window and placing a food dish outside of it. When he came to eat she just scooped him into the house. In a panic he ran and hid under a bed.

I saw his photo online a few days later. It had been a year and a half since I had lost Jesse, a cat I had for over 20 years. It was time to give my love to another fur friend.

Something about his photo captured my imagination and I felt a connection with him. He seemed a little mysterious somehow. He had pulled his front leg up under him and had his paw splayed open, something he does when he's very emotional. I had to meet him.

I saw many other cats that day, all lovely, all deserving a home. And then I asked about him because he wasn't out in the general population. He had been through surgery for neutering but also dental surgery because the poor guy had a broken tooth that must've been very painful.

They took me to the room where he was in a large enclosure. They opened the door but he did not venture out, he clung to the side of the wall and lifted his paw again, curling it under his chest and splaying his paw open. To me it was a gesture of hope. 'I'm hoping I can trust you . I'm hoping for someone kind. I'm hoping for love'.

I didn't pet him, I just talked to him. I told the workers that I definitely wanted him and I went to the desk to fill out the paperwork. I was so happy he was still there. I felt an immediate connection with him.

While at the desk I became aware of a woman sobbing and she told me she was Susan and she was so happy he was getting a home. She had been trying to catch him for 2 1/2 years. She had a lot of emotional investment in him.

I think maybe she thought she was saying goodbye to him and any news of him forever. This cat that she had watched over for 2 1/2 years, who drank out of the rock fountain in her backyard, who sat on her windowsill and watched TV, who lay down in the sun with her cats, and with whom she felt a bond that will never be forgotten.

But we are in touch on an almost weekly basis and she has seen the videos and photographs and heard the news of Bubba Louis, which is what I named him after having him for five months. He is Bubba Louis because that was one of my favourite cartoon characters as a kid. He was a sidekick of quick draw McGraw, he was a witty, funny, smart little donkey, full of personality and zest for life.

When I took him home that night of course he was nervous I put a warm fuzzy blanket under the sofa for him where he felt safe. Then I lay down on the floor and just reach my hand out and kept my hand between his two front paws and he gently kneaded my hand and purred. Again from him I felt hope as the overriding emotion surrounding him.

It will be two years in October 2017 that he came to live with me. I love it when you start to establish rituals with your fur friends. The fast gallop down the hallway towards the bedroom at night after the living room lights are shut off, him hiding around the corner so he can jump out at me and be silly and run off hoping I will give chase.

Sometimes when he sleeps beside me on the coach he wakes up and looks at me with the most loving face. He talks his head gets up and rubs his head against my face. "Thank you ". He seems to say. And I stay it too, "Thank you Susan for watching out for him. Thank you SPCA. Thank you Bubba Louis. "

Species
cat