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As TODAY reports, Floyd was 10-12 years old when "advocates from the nonprofit Neighborhood Cats were working to humanely trap, neuter and return a colony of community cats last spring in Jersey City." The first time the senior kitty was seen was by Jade Vazquez, TNR director for the nonprofit's branch in Jersey City, and at the time, he was already leaning on walls as he walked as if he needed support. Immediately, Vazquez realized that something was wrong with him.
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"I thought, 'There's something wrong with the cat. I've been doing this long enough to know that there's something not quite right,'" she told TODAY. The following day, she set up a trap for him on the sidewalk, and Floyd approached her, crying. "It's unusual for a feral cat to cry. They don't like to bring attention to themselves, but if they're in pain or a bit of distress, they will cry. He actually walked straight into a lamppost and stunned himself."
It took a moment, but eventually, the cat walked into the trap she set for him, and after wrapping him up in a blanket and taking a closer look at him Vazquez realized he was essentially blind. "One eye was sunken, and both corneas were badly scarred from fighting."
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Although normally with cases such as these, the cat would be taken care of then released back onto the street, Vazquez knew that putting him back there would be akin to a death sentence. Instead, she took him into her own home for 5 weeks for treatment, all the while looking for a forever family to adopt the "surprisingly docile cat."
"I thought he was going to be a really mean cat because he was a big boy," Vazquez explained. "But because he couldn't see, once you touched him, he would let you pet him. If you rushed in and grabbed him, then he was on the defensive. He was ready to bite. But he turned out to be a nice cat."
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Soon enough, the kitty had an adoptive mother. Melissa Fiore, a 45-year-old paralegal, who had already rescued 3 cats and wasn't looking for another one, heard about the blind, "slow-moving teddy bear," and couldn't help but taking him in. "I just had to adopt him," she told TODAY. It took a month, but eventually Floyd relaxed became best friends with Fiore's other battered old tomcat, Sugar Ray Leonard.
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"When Floyd came to me, he initially was in a cage for about a month because he had bloody urine and needed to be on several rounds of antibiotics before he got better," Fiore said. "Sugar Ray Leonard is very attentive to another cat that's not feeling well or unhappy. So Sugar Ray Leonard would typically sit near the cage, looking at Floyd and just showing interest and what I would call concern. He knows when another cat's not happy, and he's very in tune with it."
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Now, the two cats hang out together in the sunny spots around the house. Not only that, Floyd has gained 6 pounds and and gets along with Fiore's two other rescue cats as well, Googles and Lily, and he's always the first one to jump onto the bed at night. He's also totally in love with Fiore herself, "pressing against her whenever she's working from home on the couch."
It's a heartwarming friendship, and a happy ending to a tough story, and we are so happy and thankful to hear it. "He is the friendliest cat in the house," Fiore said. "He's my best friend."
For more awwdorable stories about senior cats, click here!
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