Newton: The World's Most Expensive "Free" Cat

Newton is our cat. Despite his unique brand of insanity, he has wriggled his way into our hearts and we do really love him. Really.

We met Newton in the summer of 2009, because we had agreed to cat-sit him for a week. We should have seen a slightly red-tinged flag when his owner called and said, "Hey, I can't wait to see him, but if you guys want to keep him, that's okay too." And so started the three most interesting, wallet-draining years of my pet-owning life.

Little orange-furred ball of terror. He was so cute, and we had no idea. 

First year we had him, he decided in his infinite feline wisdom, that the entire house was his own personal urinal, and we ended up having to replace the entire floor, baseboard, and the drywall (seriously) of an entire room. That wasn't cheap.

Second year we had him, we decided to get another kitten, Ampersand, thinking that some company might calm him down. Instead, he went full-on insane with jealousy, and instead of calming down, we had to take him to the vet and get him started on kitty Paxil for anxiety, which come to find out, had caused his urinary rebellion the year before. Again, tuna-flavored anti-separation anxiety medication for cats is not exactly a frugal expense.

This picture pretty much sums up their relationship.

This is our third year with him, and while he's calmed down a lot (thank you, Paxil!) he has decided that he wanted to tackle the great outdoors. Probably to get away from Ampersand, who for some reason adores him as much as he abhors her. Since he's started his outdoor explorations, he has gotten two upper respiratory infections (which he lovingly passed onto Ampersand) and has spent a whole night outside, leading us to imagine all sorts of awful outcomes, only to have him show up at our door early the next morning, yowling for his breakfast.

His latest mission to actually prove his worth to us started when he got a fever of 104.9 and had a white blood cell count of 41,000. Oh, and to add worry to anxiety, he started throwing up every hour. Off to the vet we went. A tad over $800 dollars later, and all we know is that he has an infection somewhere. This is some seriously expensive bacteria we're talking about here.

While it makes us cringe to think about spending the equivalent of two brand-new car payments worth on a 10 pound cat who once thought my favorite sweater was a pee-pee pad, we honestly can't imagine our lives without him. He's the cat that knows when you're not feeling well and will gladly spend all day on your lap, watching your favorite girly movies, purring away. He's the cat to greet you at the door, making you feel like some sort of celebrity every day, and he's the kind of cat who will look at us with such love and trust that it absolutely melts our hearts. He's totally worth it. I know it may sound silly, but he's family.

Update: Newton is now at home and is on the mend! We now have the super awesome task of throwing pills down his throat twice a day, followed with a chaser of a syringe full of "palatable" medication (palatable my foot. Newton tries to cover up tuna and chicken like it's poo). Ampersand is over the moon about him being back, and a major sign that he is feeling better is that he hissed at her the moment he saw her. Oh, and we got a call from the vet saying that he'll probably need a thorough teeth cleaning and might need to have a few teeth extracted. At the end of the conversation, she mentioned that it would probably be about oh, $400 dollars to do that. Newton, the world's most expensive free cat, strikes again. But, he's worth it.

"Yeah, this face? It's going to cost you."