Winner of week #4 of my Custom Portrait Giveaway is Nicky. The life she shared with Salvadore Dali, her tuxedo cat, sounds familiar and comfortable. An old farm cat, dominant but dependent, reliably unreliable. I loved envisioning how he owned his owners and had such a cozy place in their home and hearts.

The cat with the crazy eyes.

“Salvadore Dali came to live with us as a tiny kitten some 19 years ago. He was named Salvadore Dali, by my daughter, after her favourite artist and because of his crazy eyes.

Here at the farm he made sure that all the other cats in the area knew that it was his territory, his shouting and screaming in the depth of the night were something to hear. He loved all our dogs, meeting the Pugs in the morning with a flat head, when he rubbed foreheads with them, and was often to be found rolling around with the GSD. He never ran away from a dog so I think that the dogs didn’t recognize him as a cat.

He was a hunter par excellence, squirrels, rabbits, rats, mice, voles and even on one occasion, a mole, were his prey of choice. He rarely touched the bird population, although the odd bird may have just fallen into his mouth, we always used to say that he didn’t like the feel of feathers in his teeth.

Occasionally he would disappear for a while, and usually, when I had removed his photo from my computer desktop and decided that he wasn’t coming back, he would appear and shout at me for food as if nothing had happened. He was a big cat, and always seemed to be hungry, demanding food off anyone who he thought would feed him. His demanding was extremely loud so he usually got what he wanted.

Over the years he was a big part of our life, he enjoyed having visits from the family, although it was dangerous to let him get in a suitcase, he was very likely to pee in it !! The grandchildren used to love having him snuggle up in their beds and he used to love Christmas and would sit on their presents and examine them in detail.

He was a wonderful cat, never poorly, he only went to the vet for his jabs and to be neutered in his youth and for his final journey to the Rainbow Bridge December 2008. We miss him so much, I still catch a glimpse of his tail and he crosses the kitchen and I have been known to get up to open the door for him.”

Thanks for sharing Salvadore with me, Nicky. I’ll share my rendition of him with you on Monday!

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