The first summer we got our house, on Fourth of July weekend, I got a call from a neighbor. She told me some kids were torturing a cat on the street in front of my house.

I ran out filled with fire and brimstone to find this poor little scrap of felinity, battered, beaten, abused and scorched, yes scorched! laying on the front lawn with a group of pre-teen and early teen-aged kids standing around it, poking it with sticks.

I grabbed one of the oldest and one of the youngest by their ears, gave them a good hard twist and yank, and demanded to know what the hell they thought they were doing. After the screams of outrage died down (when I yanked I sent them to their knees) I heard from the entire group about a litany of torture and despicable acts.

They had thrown this 8 week old kitten into the air as high as they could several times, just to see if it would land on its feet. They tied firecrackers to its tail and set them off. They set off firecrackers in it's ears, its mouth and in its anus. They put it in a mailbox and beat on the mailbox with sticks.

I was appalled and horrified and demanded to know their parents names and where they lived. As I cradled the poor little scrap to my neck, I chewed them out up one side and down the other, then told all of them that I was going to call the cops and have them all arrested for cruelty to animals. By the time I finished, they were in tears and I had flames shooting out of my nose and ears. I scared the living crap out of them and I'm still not sorry I did it.

The baby kitten had come to by then and was huddling under my hair, firmly attached to my neck and shoulder. He was a mess, physically. I took him into the house and gently bathed him with some baby shampoo to see how bad the damages were. They were pretty bad.

We called the cops who went to the house of the ringleader and threatened him with some pretty serious charges. I found out later that this kid had been caught torturing and killing animals a couple times before and his parents were on the verge of having him committed to a mental heath hospital. He was carrying around a bowling bag with several bloodstained tools in it and he bragged - to the cops, no less - that the bag was to carry around the heads of his victims. He was sent away two days later.

We found an eye dropper and got some milk into the little guys tummy. He obviously couldn't eat because of the burns on and around his gums. He was so pathetically grateful and he purred as best he could. We debated on what to call him. Tiger, for his ferocious grasp on life, Garfield, because he was orange striped. Rocky, because he took a ferocious beating but kept on living. We finally decided on Tiger. It just suited his tenacity.

The next morning we took him to a local vet, told him the story and he was gracious enough to treat the little guy for free. All we had to pay for was his medicine. He even gave us some samples of Science Diet Growth formula kitten food because he said it would produce the least amount of waste and give his poor little butt time to heal.

After the first week, the change was dramatic! When we first got him he could fit comfortably on my outstretched hand. He weighed 15oz. The next week, he weighed 1.3 lbs. In a month he weighed almost 4 lbs. and had tripled in size! None of this was fat, all muscle and bone. He filled out really well, and we started calling him Furrball because that's what he looked like when he was curled up to sleep. He was bright and curious and slowly regained his hearing.

At 6 months, the vet advised we get him neutered. He weighed over 10 lbs and was already over a yard in length from front paws to back when he stretched out. Once we did, he started to get a bit pudgy, but was in excellent heath otherwise.

The really odd thing about him was that he was so very friendly to everyone he met. He genuinely liked people, but he hated dogs. The only people he didn't warm up to immediately were the ones who had dogs. He terrorized all the neighborhood dogs and really ruled the roost.

One day I was coming home from the grocery store with some raw hamburger which was his favorite treat. We used to joke about never letting him gang up with a bunch of farm cats or they'd try to take out a cow, just for the beef. As I got out of the car, a half grown Rottweiler charged into the drive way, acting like he was going to go for the hamburger in the sack I was carrying. Furrball had come to greet me at the driveway,as he always did, and he took offense.

I could almost hear him thinking: That stupid dog was going for his human! Worse yet, it was going for his HAMBURGER! Dog must die! He puffed up to about twice his normal size and rose up on his tippy claws, which made him almost as big as the rottie. He let out a ferocious screaming snarl and went for the dog.

He nailed him! Ripping up one side of his face, taking a chunk out of his ear and continuing down his side, all the while screaming his battle cry. The dog is yelping with pain and running in circles trying to get away from the whirling dervish of orange who is doing his best to remove his hide, half an inch at a time. The cat is screaming his victory cry  and his claws are a bloody blur as he takes it to the dogs back.

The pup gives up and runs out of the yard, yelping all the way. Furrball is strutting back and forth in front of the car, still really fluffy and purring fit to beat the band when the dog makes another tentative foray towards me. My little hero comes back to attention and lets out a warning snarl and the dog turns tail and runs like his tail is on fire.

Stropping my ankles and vibrating with the force of his purr, he lead me to the kitchen where I promptly rewarded him with a good sized chunk of hamburger, reinforcing his valor in defense of his teritory and his hamburger, not to mention his human.

Furrball also used to love to chase squirrels. They would lure him out to the end of a branch, then jump over him to get to another branch. He'd be out in the thinnest twigs and almost stuck, until he figured out that he could jump onto the roof and chase them there. I used to hear the skitter of squirrel claws followed by the much heavier thud of his paws all night long. Sometimes we'd go to the front door and hold up an arm and he'd carefully pick his way down until he could sit on our shoulders. Other times, he'd jump straight from the roof to the ground, especially if a dog had trespassed on his territory.

From the time we rescued him until he died, he was a shoulder kitty. His favorite place was riding on our shoulders, facing backwards, his front half draped over the shoulder, his back paws braced on our chests. In my case, right on my boob. I could walk around and do most anything and he'd stay right where he was perched, only occasionally digging in claws for stability. That was okay until he got to almost 25lbs, then it got a bit uncomfortable!

He used to lay on my lap as I was going to sleep, then he'd do the kitty ooze and end up laying between my knees. As we slept, he'd gradually turn until he was laying sideways, then he'd stretch, digging very slightly with his claws, until I was doing the splits and he was cuddled in the circle of my legs. I used to wake up with him weighing down the covers, trapped until I could get him to move.

We had our lover boy big kitty for a little over 16 years, until he went outside one night during a terrible storm. He never came back. He was old and crippled by arthritis and going blind and almost deaf. I think he wanted to go someplace where he could die in peace, knowing that we would grieve and wanting to spare us as much as possible.

I miss my biggest kitty, and I hope to meet him again someday at the Rainbow Bridge. We have had several other cats, and loved each in their own way, but no one will ever replace our Tiger/Furrball/BigKitty/Loverboy.