August 20th, 2000 - February 13th, 2006

Like every other tribute in Schimmel Rainbow Bridge, this is such a difficult one to write, perhaps even more so than the others so I am going to tell you the story of Kahlua's life and how he came to be with us. I had wanted to breed Siamese for quite a time and when Graham and I married, I had a job convincing him that we needed to buy a Siamese cat. Graham had been a dog lover all of his life and he was convinced that his dog Sabre, would not tolerate a cat in her home as in her youth, she was renowned for chasing them out of the garden and really did not like them at all. I finally managed to convince Graham that it would be fine and that I could guarantee if we had a cat that I could get the cat and Sabre to bond. He finally caved in and the hunt began.

Despite having done a bit of research on breeding, we made the decision that we must first buy a stud cat, not realising at the time that you start off with queens and that studs didn't come into breeding until much later. After much searching, we found an advert for a Seal Point boy in Manchester so after a telephone call to the breeder, we left our daughter with Graham's mum, we drove 4 hours to Manchester to collect our new "stud cat" and we brought him back home. Well actually, we took him back to Graham's mum's as we had to pick up our daughter and what a shock she got when we turned up at Nanna's with a Seal Point Siamese. Nanna and our daughter quite naturally fell in love with him as soon as we took him out of the carrier. We then traveled back home with Kahlua and settled him into our home.

Within less than a week, Kahlua and Sabre were the best of friends putting an end to Graham's theory that Sabre would never accept him (he should have had more faith in me). Some time after Kahlua had been with us, we created the Siamese and Oriental Cats Online Club (formerly known as the Siamese Online Cat Club) because we found, after much searching on the internet that there were virtually no web sites in the UK catering for lovers and owners of the beautiful Siamese cat breed. The site was an instant success and even now is still one of the largest Siamese web sites in the UK, run by Siamese lovers for Siamese lovers, and is certainly one of the longest established web sites for Siamese and Oriental cat owners. I owe so much to Kahlua because of the SOCOC which he was the inspiration for and it was through that web site that I became such close friends with Maureen, owner of a beautiful Siamese boy named Cassy. Over the years, Cassy and Kahlua would email each other and despite them both being male, they even exchanged the odd Valentine email or two.

Kahlua taught us so very, very much about his beloved breed and the more time we spent with him, and the more time we spent learning everything we could about the breed, both online and offline, we knew that we definitely wanted to breed cats. Unfortunately, when we contacted the GCCF with regards to Kahlua's pedigree, we realised that not only was he not on the Active register (meaning he could not be bred from), his pedigree had also been falsified. We spoke about this and decided to have Kahlua neutered and even though he could not ever be a breeding cat, he was always the top cat in our home and the most special furry family member that anyone could ever hope to share their lives with. It did then occur to us that we have been taken in by a "Back Yard Breeder". This was actually very evident in the respect that for the first 2 years of his life, Kahlua was absolutely petrified of any visitors that came to the home. Even when Graham's mum visited us, he would hide behind the sofa and not come out until about 3 hours after he left. He was the same with everyone who came to the home. It wasn't until our cat family had grown quite a lot and that he suddenly changed and whenever kitten owners or other visitors came to the home, he would always make sure that he jumped up on the table so he could be admired and stroked as well.

After we purchased our first Siamese breeding queen, we were told by many, many breeders to "get rid of Kahlua" as he was supposedly "worthless" due to him not having a pedigree etc. These comments horrified us because whilst we were going to share our home with breeding cats, all of our cats would always be family members first and foremost, and that included our beautiful boy, Kahlua. He was involved with everything we did in our lives, including being taken on picnics using his harness and lead. I will never forget the strange looks by people in the park to see us having a picnic with Sabre, and Kahlua on his harness which we tied to his cat carrier while we ate our lunch. Of course I should have known better because being a stubborn male who did not want to sit still while we ate, he started walking off, dragging his carrier along the ground behind him. When we had our one and only holiday in the Cotswolds, we took Kahlua and the dogs, Sabre and Shelley. All was going well until a window was accidentally left open and Kahlua got out, roaming the farms surrounding our cottage while we searched high and low, shaking his food bowl until he finally decided to come back a few hours later when he was hungry.

Our cat family continued to grow and throughout all of it, Kahlua was always at the forefront of our lives. This is not to say that he was the perfect cat because he did indeed have one rather irritating habit of spraying in the home. This happened around the same time we bought our first stud cat. Kahlua obviously did not approve of having another male in the home, and whilst they both got on okay, Kahlua showed his disapproval by constantly spraying at the front door, and then in the upstairs hallway. No matter what we did, we could not break him out of this habit and just resigned ourselves to be forever cleaning the floors/walls and spending a fortune on so called deterrents, none of which worked obviously.

When Kahlua was approximately 3 years of age, he became ill and started to lose weight and could not eat. His breath was horrendous. We took him to our vets and he was put on antibiotics and tests were done. The antibiotics worked within a week or so and he was starting to eat again and was putting the weight back on. However, the tests results came back being positive for Pasteurella Multocida which quite simply, is a bacteria that affects the throat and mouth, making it very painful for the patient to eat anything, hence the weight loss. There was no cure for this, but if it flared up again, we could treat it with antibiotics/steroids/injections. After a few months, it did flare up once more, and again. it was a trip back to the vets for even more drugs which again, after a week or so, did the job and Kahlua was back to normal. Each time he had a bout of this illness, we would hand feed him, and syringe feed him when it got that bad, with Hills A/D and Liquivite. To watch him go through these flare ups were so painful because all we could do was keep feeding him, and making sure he was not dehydrated but what was worse was having to constantly give him tablets because his throat was so sore and I am sure it hurt him as much as it hurt us. Over the next couple of years, the illness flared up more and more frequently, the weight loss was much more apparent and quite simply, the steroids and antibiotics were not working any more. He even ended up in hospital on a drip last year when he was at his worst. We took him back home from hospital where he had again had more injections and again we were syringe feeding him.

The next time it flared up, my vet very kindly showed me how to inject the antibiotics straight under Kahlua's skin, rather than try to force him to take tablets that were hurting his throat. I was sent back home with the syringes and a bottle of the antibiotics and this made it so much less stressful for our boy.

Unfortunately, the illness, and the drugs took their toll on his body over the 2 years or so and on the evening of Sunday, February 12th, Graham and I knew that this was it. We removed all of the cats from our bedroom and brought Kahlua in with us and lay him on the bed as we wanted him with us because we had so very much to tell him and we knew that there was not enough time. We stroked him, we looked into his eyes, amidst both of our tears and our heartache. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was to look at him while I gently stroked his head and tell him that "It's okay now Lua, I know you have to go because you've had enough. Don't hang around just for us because we will be okay and I know your time has come. We love you so very much." This was such a lie because it wasn't okay, it never would be okay, but I had to tell him that to ease his way over the bridge because I did not want him feeling any guilt at leaving us. I also told him that he had a special job to do there on my behalf and that was to look after a little Black Oriental girl named Thyme. I don't know why but it was so important to me that when Lua got there, he checked on Thyme, made sure she was okay and was eating and growing big and strong.

After a few hours of being on the bed, he got off the bed and went and lay in the hooded litter tray. I removed the hood and lifted him out and put bedding in there so that he would be soft and comfortable. The remainder of that night was spent in and out of bed, checking on him, stroking him and telling him I loved him. By the following morning on Monday 13th February, even though there was still faint breathing, his soul had already left and you could see that when you looked into his eyes because they were dull and lifeless and he had already left me.

That day was spent searching the internet for the right place to have our boy cremated and after hours of searching and tears, we finally found Cherry Tree Pet & Equine Crematorium. Phoning them was so very difficult as I could hardly speak through my tears. They were wonderful people, so caring, and so compassionate. That afternoon, I took his body out of the tray and placed him in a cat carrier and Graham and I drove 1 1/2 hours to Cherry Tree and left our boy there. He was cremated on the 14th and then on the 15th, we drove back to collect his ashes. Apart from their compassion, what really impressed me about Cherry Tree was the fact that when we left our boy in their care, we were told than they would telephone us to let us know when we could "bring him home", they did not once say "pick up his ashes". This meant an awful lot to me because that was exactly what we would be doing, bringing our boy back home. Our magnificent boy is now resting in our home beside his beloved Tia Maria and even though his body is no longer with us, his spirit will be with us for all eternity and he will live on in the legacy that he left behind of Schimmel Siamese & Orientals, and the Siamese and Oriental Cats Online Club.

Had it not been for Kahlua, we would never have become Siamese and Oriental cat breeders, we would never have created the SOCOC and we believe that our lives would be much less fulfilling had this been the case. We will always be grateful for the short time we had with our boy, we will always be grateful for the love and memories that he gave us, and we will always miss him, each and every single day because he has left a huge gap in our lives that can never be filled. His ashes are now lying alongside his beloved Tia Maria's as both of them were best friends for a very long time. We miss him terribly but he knew that the time had come for him to go to Rainbow Bridge to be with his beloved, and to look after the other Schimmel cats who are there as well. So to our dearest Kahlua, thank you so much for the life you chose to share with us, and thank you for being the amazing cat that you were.