He's Otter's brother but they don't look or act anything alike! He's at least twice her size but quite the cowardly boy most of the time. :-) Even as a youngster, he was shy and a little backwards. He would sit staring blankly at you as if to say "life is like a box of chocolates..." (from the movie Forest Gump). He's a DSH white and silver tabby with pale blue eyes. A simply beautiful baby and a stunning adult male. He's still rather shy with strangers but very affectionate and will knead our stomachs continually unless stopped.

    One amusing thing about him is that he seems to be such a wuss, but give him a cat-toy (or a piece of meat) and he goes completely “feral” -- growling, hissing, won't let go!  Gump is the largest of my cats - a big, solid boy at over thirteen pounds.

    Also, when we have our morning coffee on the weekend, we usually sit in the family room where Ron plays 'baseball' with Gump! The favored 'toy' is a wadded up piece of paper that, when tossed high in the air, becomes the ball and Gump leaps 4-5 feet into the air to either catch the ball or hit it back toward Ron. They have great fun with this game and Gump will meow at Ron until he plays! We laugh because Gump's meow is extremely high-pitched and sounds like a kitten.

    Even though Gump is a bit skittish and not overly brave, we were surprised when he, along with Joxer, were the first two cats to explore The Catio this past summer right after it was completed. Gump is an apparently robust, vigorous and healthy boy in every way. From the way he tears at and swallows his large piece of stew beef or a chicken gizzard, I think he could easily take down a large live creature! He's not an overly social kitty; it's rare to find him piled with or lying next to any of the other cats -- although once he got older he would snuggle with Merlyn, and he also liked to lay with Morgana.

He does, however, regularly use The Catio for dawn and/or dusk excursions almost every day when the cat flap is open. He's the cat I see go out in the early dawn and this is winter! I can imagine how often he'll be out there once Spring arrives! [this was when we had the Catio; an ice storm destroyed it]

Gump’s house story is similar to his sister Otter’s. About a year before her, he began terrorizing the other cats; when nothing worked to stem the problem, after almost two years of trying, we decided to put him out in the indoor/outdoor cattery (where Romeo had been) and ever since then, he’s completely happy. When he’s in the yard, he goes over the fence into our woods and almost daily makes a ‘kill’ of a mouse or vole; not that this is something I like, but it’s not surprising for him to do this considering his strong prey-drive. Since Otter went to live with him, he has adjusted to her company.

(It’s interesting that both Gump and Otter began their behavior after Merlyn had died; during his life with us, we hadn’t realized fully how much of a ‘peacekeeper’ Merlyn was energetically, but when we lost him, all h*ll broke loose for a while.)

A NEW HOME -- Staying In Maine

We knew that Gump would not be happy moving to Arizona; he loved being an outdoor cat--hunting, exploring, climbing trees--and that wouldn’t be possible where we were moving. However, we were planning on taking him with us because we couldn’t imagine finding a good enough home for him prior to leaving. But Fate shone her light upon us all, and an older neighbor couple piped up saying that they had been considering getting a cat to keep them company! We made the arrangements and from the moment Gump stepped out of his carrier, he seemed right at home--I could hardly believe it! He didn’t appear to miss his sister Otter and she didn’t seem to miss him either. So, our sweet, goofy Gump will live out the rest of his life just down the street from our old house, and continue to be the “mouser” and outdoor cat he had grown into. I miss his beautiful, independent self but I know he is happier in Maine.