Poor cat, he looks so unhappy :-)

His life takes a lot of effort.  ;)

Yoga pose perhaps? one relaxed furkid:))

WOW, look at those feet.  He is probably a big boy.  I'd guess about 13+ lbs!!  =)

Not yet, but he's moving that direction.  He eats more than all the other cats put together, but for at least his first two years he remained a stringbean, though his frame is lanky and long.  I don't know what it was, he did once or twice have an intestinal issue so maybe that explains it.  But just this last month I've been commenting to my husband that he (the cat) is beginning to fill out, so probably he'll be kicking in near 13 lbs. soon enough.  Basmati, whose picture is in these shots (he's the white one) is a huge, solid boy, and weighs 12 1/2, and he is much bigger than Dark.

I remember the hilarious pic of Dark where it looked like he was slithering down the scratching post.  Whatever happened to him?  

Alas, he is no longer with us. He got more and more unhappy when we got Sprocket and Brubeck, was snarly and unpleasant all the time, and constantly wanted to go out. Finally, he didn't come back. I've had cats do this before, they wanted to live somewhere else, spent time scouting, found a place, and moved away all without a backward glance. But where we live, it could have also been coyotes. It would be harder to think about Dark if he had remained the happy and relaxed cat he was for so long, but it was obviously his choice ... he was grumpy and hissed at the kittens for months, and clearly didn't want to be with us if we were going to keep them.

I don't know a lot about this cat dynamic, haven't seen it written up in the animal behavioral world, but have been on the receiving end of cats that were moving themselves more than once. Both Sterling and Walter moved in with us whether we wanted them to or not. We even knew where they had started out, and in Walter's case phoned the old owners to come get him more than once, but he always came back to our house, even though we weren't giving him the slightest encouragement. This gives me hope that Dark didn't meet an evil end with a coyote but is merely living at another place in our rural neighborhood.