My black cat, Coville, is 15 years old now. Long story short, his mother abandoned him to us when he was about 3-5 days old. He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet. I honestly didn’t expect he’d live. I gave him a small, gray, stuffed elephant as his nestling companion the night we took him in.

Obviously, he did make it.

We noticed his “baby,” this gray elephant, would get moved all around the house when we were gone. It would turn up in different places. Then we discovered that the moment he thought he was alone, he’d pick up the baby and start prowling while singing to it. He literally carries it all through the house, meowing as he goes, until he decides where he wants to bed down at. He’s got a whole ritual.

I’ve often tried to get a picture or video of him doing this. But if he gets caught, he drops the baby and walks away from it like it isn’t his. If you try to give him the baby while he’s curled up, he moves away from it and looks at you like you’ve highly offended him. Merlin occasionally plays with it, tossing it up into the air and pouncing on it in his usual Terrier fashion. That’s gotten some evil looks from Coville, but he tries to pretend it doesn’t bother him. Right! I think even Merlin understands how much it irritates Coville and does it on purpose. I’ve had to save the ratty little elephant many times.

Coville is mellowing out a little in his old age. He still carries his baby around the house, but he no longer drops it quite as fast when he’s been caught. Sometimes, he’ll keep on singing and carrying on too. But I still wasn’t able to catch a picture of him. He really doesn’t like his picture taken. It’s like he knows and he does something to mess it up. I’ve deleted a lot of black blurs.

But today, I caught him when I came back in from taking the dogs out. I sat down, watching him out of the corner of my eye while he decided if he was going to pout about being discovered or continue his singing. Meanwhile, I slowly reached for my phone, set it up to take a picture, even zoomed in a bit, and…

After I took this, he turned away and put his back to me. I don’t know how long he held onto his baby for, but I did hear a disgruntled meow shortly afterward, so I’m betting he dropped it and was cursing me for disrupting his alone time with the elephant.

Ah, to be so lucky and have a friend like that for life.

May you always have good friends on your adventure!