Fluff

Fluff was a stray from a young age, visiting the garden of cat lovers Margaret and Maurice in Chipping Sodbury. One day, in 2001, he turned up injured, so they took him to the vet, and upon being diagnosed as FIV+, they were told he should be put to sleep!

Margaret was having none of it, even though she, like so many people, had never heard of FIV. Many phone calls and refusals to help later, she was given our number.

This was in the really early days when accommodation was minimal and we had nowhere to put ?Scruff?, as he was then known. However, we had to help, and so he was brought to Somerset and ended up for a while sleeping in a very large adapted rabbit hutch in an enclosure. The Haywards (Margaret and Maurice) were so grateful that they gave us a generous cheque, which enabled us to buy some more chalets which have gone on to help numerous cats like Scruff to have lives they may otherwise not have had.

Scruff did well and grew into a handsome long-haired cat whose name was changed to Fluff.

Fluff?s coat was a nightmare to deal with and he was a very fussy eater, but so lovable, always dashing about. He remained well, apart from a minor infection and needing a dental, until 2010.

Fluff became persistently afflicted with diarrhoea in the autumn of 2010, which no treatment seemed to help. When the vet said he could feel a lump, we knew it had to be investigated. It was really sad to see him taken off to the hospital, still as bright as a button, and receive a phone call some hours later saying that an inoperable tumour of the intestines had been found which was spreading fast. We had to let Fluff go under the anaesthetic. Our only comfort was that Fluff was only days away from suffering a possibly painful end due to the spreading of the cancer in the stomach.

It is always sad not to be able to say goodbye. Fluff was brought back and buried in the Fivery garden around which he?d pranced for many years that he nearly didn?t have.


Fluff is a good example of a young stray FIV, who remained well for nine happy years.